SANTA BARBARA — A pair of impressive individual efforts were not enough for the Long Beach State men’s basketball team on Saturday night.
Messiah Thompson made seven 3-pointers on the way to a season-high 23 points and Aboubacar Traore finished with 18 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds, but UC Santa Barbara’s AJ Mitchell had 26 points as the Gauchos pulled away late to hand LBSU an 85-76 defeat at the Thunderdome.
Long Beach (11-7 overall, 3-3 Big West) finished with 18 assists on 23 field goals and had an impressive showing from 3-point range (12 for 24), but UCSB (10-6, 3-3 Big West) shot 52% from the field and 85.2% from the free-throw line (23 for 27) to hold off Long Beach.
Establishing the inside game early as part of 32 points in the paint, LBSU led for the majority of the first half. Aboubacar Traore and AJ George each had a layup to close the half and give the visitors a 35-30 lead at the intermission.
The Gauchos went on a 7-1 run to begin the second half, and the game was back-and-forth for the next few minutes. Long Beach rallied with a run of its own and had a six-point lead at 50-44 after a three-point play from George. The Gauchos retook the lead midway through the half.
A Thompson 3-pointer tied the score at 63-all with just under eight minutes remaining, but the Gauchos rallied with a 12-2 run (nine points from Mitchell) to open a 75-65 lead with 4:24 left. Another Thompson 3-pointer and a pair of Traore free throws cut the margin to 75-70 with 2:59 left but UCSB pushed its lead back to nine points with 1:47 left. George made a pair of free throws but a Cole Anderson 3-pointer with one minute left made it a 10-point lead again and the Gauchos closed out their win.
Traore needed just one rebound to become the first LBSU player since 1990 to record a triple-double. He is just the fourth Long Beach player since 2010 to finish with at least 10 assists in a game. Thompson’s seven 3-pointers (on nine attempts) were also the most in a game for Long Beach State this season. He also had four assists and three steals and finished 8 for 15 from the field.
George finished with 12 points and four assists, Jadon Jones had 10 points and four rebounds and Lassina Traore had nine points and six rebounds for Long Beach.
Josh Pierre-Louis had 17 points, seven rebounds, six assists and three steals for UCSB. Anderson had 15 points and finished 5 for 6 from 3-point range. Mitchell shot 7 for 15 from the field (3 for 7 from long range) and made all nine of his free throws to go with five assists.
UP NEXT
Long Beach has just one game next week, hosting Hawaii on Thursday at 7 p.m.
