{"id":148539,"date":"2026-01-25T03:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T03:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/148539\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T03:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T03:49:08","slug":"thrilling-comeback-stalls-in-final-seconds-against-uc-santa-barbara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/148539\/","title":{"rendered":"Thrilling Comeback Stalls In Final Seconds Against UC Santa Barbara"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 Long Beach State rallied from 17 points behind to pull even with UC Santa Barbara in the closing minutes, but a final shot from <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/petar-majstorovic\/9439\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9439\" target=\"_blank\">Petar Majstorovic<\/a> couldn&#8217;t send the game to overtime as the Gauchos held on 74-71 in Long Beach.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nMajstorovic played a huge role on the night for Long Beach State (8-13, 4-5 Big West), scoring 19 second-half points as the catalyst for the comeback.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nUC Santa Barbara (13-7, 6-3 Big West) started out the game with an early lead, and a 6-0 run sparked by an Aidan Mahaney 3-pointer helped the Gauchos extend a five-point lead to 11 with just over seven minutes left in the first half at 26-15.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nUCSB shot 59.3% from the field and went 7-for-12 from three, including two makes from distance in the final minutes of the half to take a 44-29 lead into halftime.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Gaucho lead once again reached 17 points as the clock ticked under 16 minutes, but the Beach came out of the break reenergized. Majstorovic got the Beach rolling with a three-point play, and then hit two quick baskets to reduce the 17-point lead to 10 in just minutes, and the rally was on.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nA jumper from <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/isaiah-lewis\/9438\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9438\" target=\"_blank\">Isaiah Lewis<\/a> brought the Beach back within five at 56-51, and while the Gauchos answered to move back up ten at 65-55, LBSU showed its grit with an important 7-0 run. <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/shaquil-bender\/9429\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9429\" target=\"_blank\">Shaquil Bender<\/a> scored five quick points with a three and a layup, and then <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/leopold-levillain\/9436\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9436\" target=\"_blank\">Leopold Levillain<\/a> chipped in with a drive to cut the lead to 65-62.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBender finally evened up the score fully in the final three minutes, burying a triple to tie the game at 67, the first tie since 2-2 which amped up the crowd of 2,351 even further. UCSB was able to keep the Beach from going over the top, taking a 71-67 lead, but the Beach pulled back to within one at 72-71 on a jumper from Lewis with just 36 seconds remaining.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nTurning to their star Mahaney, the senior guard scored on an iso to put the Gauchos back up three, and while the Beach found Majstorovic for a strong look for the tie, the 3-pointer didn&#8217;t fall. Majstorovic and Mahaney were the game&#8217;s leading scorers, each finishing with 21 points.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLong Beach State got a lift off of the bench, as Lewis scored 16 and Bender had 15, while Levillain flirted with another double-double with eight points and seven rebounds for the Beach.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLong Beach State starts the week on the road for their next game, traveling to UC Riverside to face the Highlanders at 7 p.m. Thursday on ESPN+.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 Long Beach State rallied from 17 points behind to pull even with UC Santa&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-148539","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\/148539","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=148539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}