Long Beach State closes out 6-game road stretch

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Five games played on the six-game road schedule and Long Beach State is still without a win. But wining the sixth and final game might make it all worth it.

The Beach will take on its highest ranked opponent all season in No. 4 Louisville Tuesday, which puts out another Top 5 defense that the 49ers will need to crack at the KFC Yum! Center.

Tip-off is scheduled for 1 p.m. PT and will be broadcast on ESPN3.

On top of taking on its highest ranked foe, Long Beach (5-9) has the challenge of playing the Cardinals (11-1) after their first loss of the season. Louisville is coming off a 58-50 rivalry loss to No. 1 Kentucky three days ago, so a determined group will be waiting the 49ers.

Like Texas, Louisville also boasts a Top 10 defense, coming in at No. 10 in scoring defense, allowing opponents to just 54.7 points a game. The Cardinals also field a good rebounding team, No. 5 nationally, with 44.8 boards per contest.

Long Beach will also need to be ready to handle Louisville?s frenetic pressure and quick rotations that make them one of the best teams in the country in forcing steals (No. 7 overall).

On offense, Louisville relies on four double-digit scorers, led by guard Terry Rozier?s 16.6 ppg and junior forward Montrezl Harrell?s 16.0 points per game. Harrell also leads the team with 9.8 rebounds per contest.

So far in the season, the Cardinals have been poor at the three-point line, connecting on just 28.6 percent from deep and averaging just six made three pointers a game. Long Beach shoots at a 37.5 mark from the three-point line and hopes to break out poor three-point shooting night at Syracuse.

After Louisville, the 49ers return home and open up the 2015 year on Saturday against Fresno Pacific at the Walter Pyramid.

 

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Pitino hints at changes vs. Long Beach State



The University of Louisville basketball team limped out of Saturday's rugged and disappointing loss to Kentucky looking for answers.

The fifth-ranked Cardinals (11-1) hope they can find some at 4 p.m. Tuesday when they host Long Beach State at the KFC Yum! Center in a Belk Bowl appetizer game.

The game was moved up from its original 7 p.m. tip-off time to allow Louisville fans to watch the football team's 6:30 p.m. kickoff against Georgia. But just because it doesn't have a primetime slot or a television broadcast ? the game's only web-streaming on ESPN3.com ? doesn't mean Tuesday's game won't have something worth watching.

In an appearance on Terry Meiners' WHAS-840 radio show Monday night, U of L coach Rick Pitino said he plans to start two new players in Louisville's lineup against Long Beach State, though he declined to name them.

"We were 1 for 12" on challenged shots against UK, Pitino said in the radio interview. "That's the one thing we don't want to do. Statistically, we've shot less than 22 percent when we take challenged shots, so we're going to make some changes to our lineup because of that. We've got to get some high-percentage shots in our offense."



Pitino doesn't want Long Beach State's 5-9 record to fool anyone, especially his team. He pointed to Long Beach State's strength of schedule, which is ranked second on KenPom.com, for his reasoning.

The 49ers have lost road games at BYU, Xavier, UCLA, Washington, San Diego State, Texas, St. John's and Syracuse. They beat Xavier in a second meeting on a neutral court, and they clipped Kansas State in a home game last month.

Texas beat Long Beach State by 10 points, and San Diego State held LBSU off by one.

"They're going to be more than ready for us," Pitino told Meiners. "If we don't bring it, if we bring a North Carolina Wilmington performance to that game, we will lose."

But the problem in that Wilmington game wasn't entirely the issue on Saturday against Kentucky.

After giving credit to UK's defense, which he called the best he's seen in 20 years, Pitino said Louisville's post players weren't setting hard screens to initiate the offense.

That's been a problem all season, and it was more noticeable than ever in Saturday's loss.

"When you're playing against an aggressive team that is going to play very aggressive, you have screen them properly," Pitino said. "It's like in football, if you want to have a great running game, you have to have great blocking."



Beyond the screening issues, the Cardinals need to find a way to maximize Chris Jones at the point guard spot and get more scoring from their centers.

Mangok Mathiang and Chinanu Onuaku were 0 for 5 shooting and didn't score a point from the center position against Kentucky.

Jones struggled finding open shots for other players and forced several challenged shots on his own, finishing 3 of 15 from the field in the same game. He had the Cards' only assist.

Pitino knows those three ? and the rest of their teammates ? have heard all about their loss to Kentucky since Saturday, but he said Monday that his team has to move past it quickly, especially with a scrappy Long Beach State coming to town for an oddly timed Tuesday afternoon game.

"We believed we were going to win (the UK game), and we didn't," Pitino said. "Right now, especially in this state, they're going to get it wherever they go. They'll get it from the Kentucky fan, who is going to mock them, and they'll get it from the Louisville fan who is disappointed. That being said, we all have jobs to do."