{"id":138649,"date":"2026-01-18T07:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T07:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/138649\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T07:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T07:22:12","slug":"huge-night-from-sykes-leads-long-beach-state-to-road-win-at-csun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/138649\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge Night From Sykes Leads Long Beach State To Road Win At CSUN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 True freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/gavin-sykes\/9440\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9440\" target=\"_blank\">Gavin Sykes<\/a> once again proved that he&#8217;s one of the top young scorers in the nation, leading Long Beach State with a career-high 34 points as the Beach went on the road to CSUN and came away with an 87-80 win over the Matadors.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSykes had 24 of his 34 points in the second half and did a lot of damage from the free throw line, going 15-for-16 from the stripe to lead Long Beach State (8-11, 4-3 Big West) to their first road win while handing CSUN (11-9, 4-4 Big West) their first home loss of the season.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Beach fought from behind early, as quick foul trouble for the Long Beach State frontcourt shaped the first half, with both <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/petar-majstorovic\/9439\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9439\" target=\"_blank\">Petar Majstorovic<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/leopold-levillain\/9436\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9436\" target=\"_blank\">Leopold Levillain<\/a> being awarded two fouls in the opening minutes.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nDown 27-22 with just under eight minutes left in the half, <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/coaches\/chris-acker\/1389\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"1389\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Acker<\/a> elected to reinsert the French big men, and the decision paid off quickly, as Long Beach State went on a 13-2 run to take a 35-30 lead. The Beach went cold at that point, and the Matadors closed the half on an 8-0 run.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLarry Hughes II was fouled on the first possession of the second half and hit three free throws to push the CSUN lead to 41-35, but that would be their largest lead of the night as Long Beach State roared back.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/rob-diaz-iii\/9431\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9431\" target=\"_blank\">Rob Diaz III<\/a> hit two quick threes to close the gap, and then Majstorovic cashed in a corner three to tie the game at 46. Diaz and Sykes then combined for two more back-to-back threes to give the Beach a four-point lead at 54-50.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe breakneck pace continued, with CSUN retaking the lead at 67-65 with just over eight minutes to play, but a heads-up play from <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/dallas-washington\/9441\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9441\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Washington<\/a> on a putback on a second free throw from Bender put the Beach in front once again.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSykes then made sure that lead lasted. Feeding the hot hand down the stretch, Sykes hit two threes to push the lead to six at 77-71. A three-point play in the final minute from the freshman made the score 82-76, and the Beach closed out the game from there at the line. Sykes scored 16 of the final 19 points for LBSU in the game to close out the win.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nDiaz III finished with 18 points and a team-high 6 rebounds, while Majstorovic added 14 for Long Beach State. Hughes II led the way for CSUN with 21 points.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLong Beach State will carry a three-game winning streak into two more Big West games next week, taking on Cal State Fullerton on the road Thursday night before hosting UC Santa Barbara Saturday in the team&#8217;s return to the LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 True freshman Gavin Sykes once again proved that he&#8217;s one of the top young&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-138649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138649","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=138649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}