SANTA BARBARA \u2014 Gavin Sykes scored all 24 of his points after halftime, including a 3-pointer to force overtime, but Long Beach State lost to UC Santa Barbara, 84-77, in the Big West Conference opener for both teams on Thursday night at the Thunderdome.<\/p>\n
Shaquil Bender added 19 points for Long Beach (2-7 overall, 0-1 Big West), while Petar Majstorovic added 12 points and two steals and Derrick Michael Xzavierro had eight points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Aidan Mahaney had a game-high 26 points and six rebounds to lead UCSB (7-2, 1-0). Colin Smith added 18 points and three steals, and Zion Sensley shot 4 for 7 from 3-point range on his way to 14 points.<\/p>\n
The game was tight throughout, with 17 lead changes and 15 ties, but the Gauchos made the most of an advantage at the free-throw line \u2013 going 32 for 38 at the stripe while LBSU shot 19 for 24.<\/p>\n
Coming down the stretch in regulation, UCSB held a four-point lead after a pair of free throws from Mahaney. Long Beach got back within one at 65-64 on a Sykes 3-pointer with 24 seconds left. After two more free throws from Mahaney with 17 seconds to play, Sykes buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key to tie the score at 67-all with eight seconds left. A late heave from Mahaney was no good as the game headed to overtime.<\/p>\n
A Mahaney basket and a pair of Gaucho free throws gave UCSB an early four-point lead in the extra period, but Xzavierro tipped out a second chance to Bender, who had a highlight-reel dunk as part of a three-point play with 3:30 left. A four-point play by Smith turned the tide for the Gauchos, extending their lead to 78-72 with 2:38 remaining, and UCSB secured the win by making six straight free throws down the stretch.<\/p>\n
Mahaney made all 11 of his free throws, while Smith shot 10 for 11 from the line.<\/p>\n
UP NEXT<\/p>\n
LBSU hosts UC San Diego on Saturday at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA BARBARA \u2014 Gavin Sykes scored all 24 of his points after halftime, including a 3-pointer to force…\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-82580","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\/82580","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=82580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82580\/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=82580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}