HENDERSON, Nev. — Lassina Traore had a career-high 25 points, Marcus Tsohonis scored 25 and hit two clutch free throws with 3.6 seconds remaining to help No. 4 seed Long Beach State beat second-seeded UC Davis 74-70 on Saturday night in the championship game of the Big West Conference tournament, sending coach Dan Monson to the NCAA tournament in his final season with the Beach.
It was an improbable run for the Beach after the school announced Monday it would part ways with Monson after 17 seasons.
Lassina Traore sank 12 of 17 shots and his only free throw for Long Beach State (21-14), which entered the tournament on a five-game losing streak before beating No. 5 seed UC Riverside and top-seeded UC Irvine to reach the final. He added nine rebounds, five of them at the offensive end. Tsohonis hit eight of 21 shots with four three-pointers and five of six foul shots.
Aboubacar Traore, no relation to Lussina, finished with seven points, 13 rebounds and six assists for the Beach. AJ George added nine points and seven rebounds off the bench.
Ty Johnson paced the Aggies (20-13) with 30 points, six rebounds and four assists. Elijah Pepper hit four four-pointers and scored 21, adding nine rebounds and three assists.
Johnson had 11 points and Pepper scored 10 to guide UC Davis to a 32-27 advantage at halftime. Tsohonis had 15 points at the break to keep Long Beach State close.
Lussina Traore scored 19 in the second half. His rebound basket pulled Long Beach State at 54-54 and George followed with a three-pointer to give the Beach a 57-54 lead with 7:29 remaining. It was their first lead since 15-12.
UC Davis closed to within a point twice and trailed 72-70 on an Ade Adebayo layup with 4 seconds to go, but Tsohonis was clutch at the line to wrap up the win.
Monson, who started Gonzaga’s unprecedented run of success when he led the Bulldogs to the Elite Eight in 1999 before leaving to take over an embattled Minnesota Golden Gophers program and turning Gonzaga’s reins over to Mark Few, has the Beach in the Big Dance for the first time since he took them in 2012 when Long Beach was known as the 49ers.
Monson is the school’s winningest coach. He has 275 victories and 272 losses.
gonna be a massive 15+ point underdog
with that said, give us any team out there to play except Connecticut, that's a fantastic team.
stat of the year/tournament going in. Beach is undefeated vs. the Power 5 this year, lol, and on the road no less.
USC & UCLA are sitting at home, so Beach has Southern California media all to themselves this week, bask in it
aahhh the MOnson story line - we'll get the simplistic version in the igorant not caring to dig much media, the 'what can they be thinking?' version, but so what!
Monson has a chance to plug Long Beach big time this week on the way out and praise Smitherin for lighting this fire, an opportunity to pormote BEACH like he's never had, so will he make the storyline about how great the University has been to him and taken care of him, and plug that the core players should come back? and make it SOLELY about Beach and the players. we'll see if he can make it ALL about Beach.
hope so, if he's as 'classy' as some always say, he'll use this week for LONG BEACH promotion, not himself, and be frank about the last decade and supporting the rationale SMitheran gave.
Smitheran has a great PR opportunity handed to him, a delicate one at that. He's made the right decisions to get Beach back in the NCAAs, kudos for finaly taking the necessary decisive step, and turns out at the right time, what a difference one week can make in decision making. he's one for one in MBB so far!
what a win! first time not going to Henderson, to stay for a dynamic MVB, plus couldn't muster the effort given the way the regular season flustered to the finish line
Go Beach!
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