LONG BEACH — Cal State Fullerton kept its postseason hopes alive with a 76-71 victory over rival Long Beach State in a Big West Conference men’s basketball game on Thursday night at the Walter Pyramid.
Fullerton (13-16 overall, 6-11 Big West) is still stuck in 10th place in the conference standings after Cal State Bakersfield (12-17, 7-11) upset UC San Diego on Thursday night, one spot out of qualifying for the Big West Tournament in Henderson, Nevada in two weeks.
“We’ve got to win,” Fullerton coach Dedrique Taylor said. “I don’t care what everybody else does, we’ve got to continue to win and put ourselves in contention. We can’t hope and pray for everybody else. As long as we take care of our business, we’ll be fine.”
DJ Brewton led the way with 26 points, John Mikey Square scored 17 points and shot 9 for 11 from the free-throw line and Grayson Carper scored 12 points off the bench on 4-for-8 shooting from 3-point range for the Titans, who have three regular-season games remaining.
Long Beach (18-11, 10-7) is still comfortably in fourth place, one game behind UC Davis and 1½ games in front of Cal State Northridge. UC San Diego is not eligible for postseason play this season and LBSU hosts UC Davis in the regular-season finale, so Long Beach still has a chance to slide into third and earn the No. 2 seed for the tournament.
“We win these three and we can still finish as the second seed and get a bye, but we’ve got three tough games and we’ve got to play better than we did today,” Long Beach coach Dan Monson said.
Jadon Jones shot 5 for 12 from 3-point range and scored 23 points to lead Long Beach. AJ George scored 15 points, Lassina Traore had 12 points and 12 rebounds and Aboubacar Traore had 10 points and 11 rebounds before he was ejected with 8:47 left and Long Beach leading by three.
Both teams were missing key players.
Fullerton was without second-leading scorer Max Jones (15.5 ppg) for a fourth straight game because…
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