{"id":126275,"date":"2026-01-09T06:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126275\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:45:09","slug":"uc-irvine-holds-off-mens-basketball-in-black-and-blue-rivalry-74-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/126275\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Irvine Holds Off Men\u2019s Basketball In Black And Blue Rivalry 74-64"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>IRVINE, Calif. \u2013 Freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/gavin-sykes\/9440\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9440\" target=\"_blank\">Gavin Sykes<\/a> again finished with over 20 points, but UC Irvine pulled away from Long Beach State in the second half to remain unbeaten in Big West play in a 74-64 defeat for the Beach on Thursday.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSykes again led Long Beach State (5-11, 1-3 Big West) in scoring to remain among the national freshman leaders, putting up 21 points for his ninth 20-point game of the season. Sophomore <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/petar-majstorovic\/9439\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9439\" target=\"_blank\">Petar Majstorovic<\/a> also had a strong day, scoring 15 points with a team-high eight rebounds along with three assists and three steals.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Beach got going early against UC Irvine (12-5, 5-0 Big West), as that duo gave Long Beach State a 6-2 lead in the opening minutes of the contest. That early momentum helped the Beach battle the &#8216;Eaters through the first half, chipping away at a 10-point lead to pull to within four at the half, 34-30.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nA <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/cole-farrell\/9432\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9432\" target=\"_blank\">Cole Farrell<\/a> drive cut the lead to three in the first minute of the second, but UC Irvine responded with a 14-3 run to open up the game, taking a 52-37 lead with just under 15 minutes to play. Long Beach State managed the margin from there, but couldn&#8217;t make up any significant ground on the way to a 74-64 defeat.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nJurian Dixon led the way for the Anteaters with 23 points, while Kyle Evans added 15 points.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLong Beach State returns to Long Beach on Saturday, hosting Cal State Bakersfield in the LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid at 4 p.m. on ESPN+.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IRVINE, Calif. \u2013 Freshman Gavin Sykes again finished with over 20 points, but UC Irvine pulled away from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-126275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}