LA JOLLA \u2014 In a game marked by big runs for both teams, the UC San Diego men\u2019s basketball team rallied in the closing minutes and came up with a key blocked shot to edge Long Beach State, 77-74.<\/p>\n
Shaquil Bender scored 22 points to pace Long Beach State (8-16 overall, 4-8 Big West), which remains without high-scoring freshman guard Gavin Sykes. Petar Majstorovic had 19 points and eight rebounds, and Rob Diaz III finished with 18 points and five assists.<\/p>\n
Bol Dengdit had 18 points, 12 rebounds and a crucial blocked shot with 15 seconds left to lead UCSD (16-8, 6-6). Jaden Vance added a career-high 17 points and Alex Chaikin scored 16 for the Tritons, who outrebounded LBSU 42-26.<\/p>\n
Long Beach grabbed control early, scoring the first 13 points of the game with a trio of 3-pointers and gritty defense that forced several UCSD turnovers in the first four minutes. The Tritons eventually answered, using a 12-2 run knot the score at 24-all then building a 38-30 lead by halftime as LBSU dealt with foul trouble.<\/p>\n
With Bender and Majstorovic back to start the second half, Long Beach regained momentum. A 3-pointer from Isaiah Lewis tied the score at 45, and a driving layup from Bender gave the visitors a 50-47 lead.<\/p>\n
The two teams battled back and forth from there, but UCSD was back on top at 69-66 with just under six minutes left. Long Beach made another strong push, using an 8-2 run to grab a 74-71 lead behind plays from Cole Farrell and Leopold Levillain in the closing minutes.<\/p>\n
Long Beach still led 74-73 with a minute to play but the Tritons came up with a key defensive stop. On the other end, Hudson Mayes was fouled on a putback attempt with 24.9 seconds left. He made both free throws to put UCSD ahead by one, then Dengdit blocked Farrell\u2019s shot at the other end.<\/p>\n
Chaikin then made two more free throws and Diaz for the final margin.<\/p>\n
UP NEXT<\/p>\n
LBSU will take Saturday off and return to Big West play on Thursday, Feb. 12 when it hosts Cal State Fullerton at the Pyramid.<\/p>\n
BIG WEST STANDINGS<\/p>\n
Through Thursday, Feb. 5<\/p>\n
Team \u2013 Overall, Big West<\/p>\n
UC Irvine \u2013 16-7, 9-2<\/p>\n
Hawaii \u2013 16-5, 8-3<\/p>\n
UC Santa Barbara \u2013 15-8, 8-4<\/p>\n
UC Davis \u2013 14-9, 7-5<\/p>\n
Cal State Northridge \u2013 14-10, 7-5<\/p>\n
UC San Diego \u2013 16-8, 6-6<\/p>\n
Cal State Fullerton \u2013 11-13, 6-6<\/p>\n
Cal Poly (SLO) \u2013 9-15, 5-7<\/p>\n
Long Beach State \u2013 8-16, 4-8<\/p>\n
UC Riverside \u2013 8-16, 3-9<\/p>\n
Cal State Bakersfield \u2013 8-16, 2-10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LA JOLLA \u2014 In a game marked by big runs for both teams, the UC San Diego men\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[29668,4213,1327,131,133,132,26758,127],"class_list":["post-167145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-big-west-conference","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-state-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167145","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=167145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}