LONG BEACH — The top-scoring offense in the Big West Conference ran into the No. 1 defense on Thursday night and it quickly became a mismatch.
The UC Irvine men’s basketball team bolted to a big early lead against Long Beach State and didn’t let up until the closing minutes of the 72-61 victory at the Walter Pyramid.
UCI (13-6 overall, 7-1 Big West) came in leading the conference in scoring defense, holding its first 18 opponents to an average of 65.7 points per game.
Long Beach (12-8, 4-4) went into the game averaging a conference-best 80.1 points, but UCI’s defense didn’t let LBSU anywhere near that number.
“We had another really strong defensive performance where I could feel that we frustrated Long Beach,” UCI coach Russell Turner said. “That’s a credit to our team, to our preparation, to our staff.”
Pierre Crockrell II led the way for the Anteaters with 12 points and 11 assists, which was as many assists as Long Beach had as a team.
“It’s hard to measure how important that is for a basketball team,” Turner said of Crockrell. “To have confidence in somebody to handle the ball against any sort of pressure that we see. He set the tone with his handling, with his ability to push us in transition. He got us a number of easy baskets in the first half.”
Dylan Thoerner scored a team-high 13 points off the bench for UCI, which is in a three-way tie with UC Davis and UC San Diego atop the Big West standings. Andre Henry contributed 12 points and six rebounds, and Carter Welling had eight points, six rebounds and five blocked shots.
Marcus Tshonis was the lone player in double figures for Long Beach, scoring 15 points.
Aboubacar Traore, who came in ranked in the top six in the Big West in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks, was limited to six points, but contributed seven rebounds and four blocks, while Lassina Traore added nine points and eight rebounds.
“I really liked our fight, we just unfortunately didn’t play very well, but our effort was there,” Long Beach coach Dan Monson said. “Just defensively, they challenge everything and I thought we were a little not tough enough offensively.”
The Anteaters took their biggest lead at 55-33 on one of three 3-pointers by Thoerner with 13:14 left, but Long Beach came back with an 8-0 run to get back within 14 points.
LBSU cut the lead to 12 with 7:05 left but couldn’t get any closer until the final minute of the game.
Thoerner scored 10 points off the bench in the opening half, including a 3-pointer that gave UCI its first double-digit lead at 21-11 with 11:48 remaining.
Welling also had a solid opening 20 minutes, totaling six points and three blocked shots. He made a pair of free throws to stretch the advantage to 37-17 with 4:25 remaining in the half.
LBSU missed nine straight field goal attempts during that stretch, a big factor in the Anteaters expanding their lead.
The Anteaters ultimately held Long Beach to 25% from the field in the first half en route to building a 41-24 advantage at the break.
UCI’s leading scorer for the season, Justin Hohn, did not score in the first half and second-leading scorer Derin Saran did not play.
The top two scorers for Long Beach on the season, Aboubacar Traore and Tsohonis, combined to shoot 1 for 12 from the field with eight points in the opening half.
“We kind of settled for contested shots and they dictated our shots, especially early in the game,” Monson said. “We kind of set a tone and we got out of rhythm offensively and had one of our poorer offensive outputs of the year, but you’ve got to give Irvine credit. They’re statistically the best defensive team in the league and their defense dictated our offense today.”