UC Irvine Edged 75-74 by Long Beach State
Feb. 26, 2009
LONG BEACH, Calif. --- Long Beach State withstood a furious late rally by UC Irvine in defeating the Anteaters, 75-74, in a Big West Conference game at the Walter Pyramid Thursday night.
The 49ers led 73-62 with two minutes remaining but UCI scored nine straight points in 41 seconds to close the gap to two on a four-point play by Patrick Rembert with 1:08 left. LBSU's Stephan Gilling hit a pair of free throws with 29.7 seconds remaining for 75-71 lead and after the 49ers' Larry Anderson missed two free throws with 6.2 seconds left, Rembert hit a three just prior to the final horn.
Gilling hit 7 of 12 threes and scored 23 points, 17 in the second half, for LBSU (14-12, 9-4 Big West). T.J. Robinson added 14 points while Larry Anderson and Casper Ware had 12 each.
Freshman forward Eric Wise led UCI (10-18, 6-8) with 17 points, 13 coming after intermission. Junior guard Michael Hunter scored 16 points, hitting 4 of 7 threes, while Rembert and Kevin Bland added 11 each.
The 49ers owned the boards 32-19 and pulled down 16 offensive rebounds. UCI shot 55.8 percent from the field in the game and hit 10 of 18 threes. LBSU, which hit 7 of 13 treys in the second half, shot 50 percent from the floor in the contest.
The Anteaters led by as many as seven points in the first half and were up 36-35 at halftime as Hunter scored 14 of his points in the opening 20 minutes.
LBSU broke away from a 45-45 tie with a 17-7 run to build a 62-52 lead with 8:18 remaining as Gilling hit a trio of threes in that spurt.
UCI faces UC Riverside in the home finale Saturday night at 7:35 in the Homecoming game at the Bren Events Center. Anteater seniors Kevin Bland and Brett Lauer will be recognized prior to the game.
