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With three seconds remaining, Long Beach State’s Cole Farrell stepped to the free throw line with a chance to tie the game against Illinois State.
The junior took a deep breath, shot and missed the first attempt. On his second try, he missed but managed to get his own rebound and heaved a three-point shot that fell short as time expired as the Beach lost 82-80 Sunday night at the Walter Pyramid in their home opener.
The loss pushes Long Beach State’s losing streak to 19 which started from last season and is currently the longest active streak in NCAA men’s division 1 basketball.
“It’s obviously tough when you lose at home,” Long Beach State coach Chris Acker said. “We felt like we had every opportunity to win the game. We should have won the game. But I’m excited about the group that I have.”
After a heavy rain that relocated all contests to the Gold Mine, the men’s basketball team was back in the pyramid for their home opener.
The Beach (0-4) has a lot of new faces but got off to a quick start thanks to two of those newcomers as Petar Majstorovic and Gavin Sykes hit threes to give the Beach an early lead.
But, Illinois State (2-2) had an answer for every LBSU run and it started with attacking the basket and clogging the paint in the first half as they answered every Beach basket.
Shaquil Bender led LBSU with eight points in the first half, but the Redbirds offensive attack proved to be tough to overcome early on as the Beach committed fouls and Illinois took advantage making nine of their 11 free throw attempts to take a 42-34 lead at the break.
Along with Bender, Rob Diaz showed what he could do as well including a nice spin move through the lane for a layup. He ended up with seven points in the first half just behind Bender.
“There’s a lot of things that we learned from this game that we’ll take with us and continue to make us better,” Acker said. “And that’s all it’s about.”
In the second half, LBSU showed some fight as Gavin Sykes went on a 4-0 run himself as the Beach trailed 45-40.
However, free throws were the story of the second half as the Redbirds made 22 of 28 free throws. The biggest benefactor for Illinois State were their leading scorers Chase Walker and Tyreek Coleman who combined to go 20-22 from the line as they each scored 19 points.
“We’ve been fouling the last couple games, and that’s something that we’ve been trying to rectify doing a better job of guarding without fouling,” Acker said. “And really, there was no adjustment in the second half.”
With all the foul trouble, the Beach still had a chance trailing 78-72 with 22 seconds remaining in the game. Bender was fouled on a fast break and got to shots. After making both free throws LBSU was down 78-44.
Johnny Zinziger made one free throw after being fouled and with nine seconds remaining Cole Farrell made a layup to cut the lead to 79-77 after he was fouled on a made layup.
After another immediate foul, Coleman made two free throws to push the lead to 81-77, however Majstorovic made a huge three to make it a 1-point game with seven seconds left.
“We still had a chance to win with Cole going to the line,” Bender said. “ That’s all I just trying to keep everybody in their heads. Like we still could win.”
LBSU fouled again and after Kinziger made his first attempt, he missed the second and ended up fouling to send Farrell to the end with three seconds remaining.
