?Bows prepare for Long Beach State

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The Rainbow Warrior basketball team (13-9, 7-4 Big West) looks to keep its Big West Conference regular season championship hopes alive on Thursday as it plays host to first place Long Beach State (13-8, 9-1 BWC) at 7 p.m.

The ?Bows, who are currently third in the conference, can still win the Big West if they lose. However, it would be difficult seeing how they would be 2.5 games behind LBSU with just seven BWC matchups remaining.

?Mentally, they?re ready for it,? head coach Gib Arnold said. ?They?re up for the challenge, and I think they?re looking forward to it as well? It?s such an advantage to be playing at home and having a noisy crowd behind you; it gives you that extra energy that you need sometimes to pull out those tough games.?

UH will need every ounce of that energy if it is to take down the 49ers this week. The Rainbow Warriors are currently riding a three-game win streak, but even that pales in comparison to LBSU?s eight straight victories.

What may be even more impressive than the 49ers? unbeaten run is how the have accomplished it.

LBSU has proved that it can win in a seemingly limitless amount of ways.

For example, the 49ers defeated UC Riverside 91-82 on January 17 and then Cal Poly 50-48 just 15 days later. It is this ability to switch between topnotch defense and offense that makes them so dangerous.

?They?re really quick and extremely athletic, and we gotta be really strong with the ball and make sure we don?t turn it over,? said Arnold. ?But on the other hand, I think we need to cause more turnovers. We?ve been working on that. It helped us in the road games that we won. If we can do that, I really think we got a really good chance on Thursday.?

The key to Long Beach State's success has been senior guard-forward James Ennis (17.2 points per game, 6.6 rebounds per game) and sophomore guard Mike Caffey (11.9 ppg, 4.2 assists per game).

However, the 49ers will need to call upon their larger players if they plan on stopping UH?s quartet of big men: freshman forward Isaac Fotu (6 feet 8-inches), junior forward Christian Standhardinger (6 feet 8-inches), senior center Vander Joaquim (6 feet 10-inches) and junior center Davis Rozitis (7 feet).

LBSU will also have to rely on different defensive schemes to combat Hawai?i?s height since it has only one player taller than 6 feet 7-inches who averages more than 10 minutes of play per game: junior forward Dan Jennings (6 feet 9-inches).

?We?re working on playing out of double-teams,? said Rozitis. ?We expect them to double on the low post and double our bigs, Vander and Fotu, and just kick it out and hit the man on the other side.?

Last time these two teams met LBSU pulled away with a 76-72 victory at home when Caffey hit a go-ahead jumper with two seconds left. However, the ?Bows hope that home court advantage will give them enough of an edge to pull it out this time.

?We just gotta go get them,? Rozitis said. ?They got us at their place. We felt like we let that one slip away and we?re pretty focused. This is our court; we gotta protect it? When the fans get us going here, eight thousand people here at Stan Sheriff

, that helps us a lot. It?s hard for any team in the country to come in here and play in front of this crowd.?

Having felt the sting that comes with being so close to knocking off LBSU on the road, Arnold placed an ideal value for UH?s home court advantage this time around.

?I hope at least five points.?​

 

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LBSU MEN'S BASKETBALL NOTEBOOK: Rebounding a real concern





Long Beach State has won eight consecutive games in men's basketball and resides alone in first place with a Big West Conference record of 9-1.

The 49ers are doing a lot of things well. Rebounding isn't one of them.

Long Beach (13-8 overall) averages 35 rebounds per game. That ranks fifth out of 10 Big West teams. But the 49ers allow a conference-worst 38 rebounds per game. Their minus-3.0 margin is ninth.

After escaping with a 50-48 victory over Cal Poly on Saturday and being outrebounded 14-2 on the offensive boards, senior James Ennis said, "We don't like rebounding. We're athletic, we just don't like crashing the boards. I guess we're soft."

His teammate, junior forward Tony Freeland, said he didn't see it quite that way.

"I don't think we're soft. I just think we're not really focused on our rebounding like we should be," said Freeland, whose team will play the best rebounding team in the Big West, Hawaii, tonight at 9.

Coach Dan Monson was on his team about rebounding during practice.

"Coach always stresses to us rebounding will get us a long way," Freeland said. "And if we don't rebound, that will make teams set up their defense and make it harder for us to score, and we won't run like we're designed to do."

This is a team at its best when running the floor. When it's not rebounding, it gets bogged down offensively.

Monson was reminded of Ennis' "soft" claim. Monson was asked if he
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agreed with that or if there was a lack of focus.

Or, perhaps, a desire issue?

"I think it's a combination of all those things," he said. "As coaches, we haven't done a good job of technique and emphasizing it, and as players they haven't done a good job of embracing it and wanting to change, because we do have enough athleticism to be better than we are.

"We might physically get dominated sometimes, but our athleticism needs to be more active when the ball goes up, and there needs to be more urgency for everyone to try to help."

Monson conceded he doesn't have a roster full of true rebounders.

"We don't have a lot of guys who in their careers have defined themselves as rebounders," Monson said, "except for Dan Jennings. He might be the only one who felt like that was his job growing up."

Ennis, who is 6-foot-7, leads the 49ers in rebounding with a 6.6 average. Jennings, who is 6-9, averages 6.0 rebounds in just 24.6 minutes per game.

Scouting the Warriors

Long Beach defeated Hawaii (13-9, 7-4) the first time the teams met, 76-72 on Jan. 12 at Walter Pyramid. The 49ers were outrebounded 37-31. The Warriors are led by Christian Standhardinger and Vander Joaquim. Standhardinger averages 16 points and 7.8 rebounds; Joaquim averages 13.9 points and 8.2 rebounds.

Bracket buster

It was announced this week that Long Beach will play host to Stephen Austin (18-2) in a BracketBuster game on Feb. 22 (on ESPNU). It's the fourth time in the past five years the 49ers will have appeared in a televised BracketBusters game.