With just under a minute to play down three, Cal Poly put the game in their elite scorer’s hands, Kobe Sanders. As the clock was winding down just under a minute, Sanders took three dribbles into a fadeaway three-pointer that airballed wide left. This was the beginning of Cal Poly’s frustration.
Even with Jarred Hyder’s strong 21-point performance, Cal Poly (4-21, 0-13 Big West) lost their 13th straight game in a row. Long Beach State(15-9, 7-5 Big West) defeated Cal Poly 77-68 on Saturday, Feb. 10 at the Walter Pyramid.
After the game wrapped up, Cal Poly players walked off the court and did not shake hands with Long Beach State. When games like these are out of reach, teams generally hold the ball as a sign of respect.
Although, with Jadon Jones closing in on 1000 points in career scoring, the Elbees junior decided to dribble the ball past the Mustangs for an exclamation mark dunk. As he held onto the rim and received a technical foul, Cal Poly’s Head Coach, John Smith, threw up his hands in frustration during this questionable moment.
With that bucket, Jones became the 25th player in Long Beach State history to reach the 1000-point milestone.
Jadon Jones put up 26 points on 9-14 shooting during his 34 minutes of play for Long Beach State. Marcus Tsohonis was also a key factor in this game for Long Beach State as he tallied another 18 points.
The Elbees led the game 13-4 in the opening four minutes of the first half. The Mustangs managed to battle back after a 14-4 run and ended up only being down 39-35 going into halftime.
Similarly, in the second half, Cal Poly came from behind again when they were trailing by nine points with six minutes to go. A 9-0 run that included two back-to-back threes from Jones and Sanders tied the game up at 63-63 with three minutes to play.
An unforced turnover thrown by Hyder and multiple fouls during the final minutes of the game led to easy points for Long Beach State. This ended up sealing the deal for Long Beach State’s 15th win.
Turnovers really hurt the Mustangs at the end of the day. The Elbees scored 26 points off of Cal Poly’s 18 turnovers.
Long Beach State shot the ball 44.6% from the field.
After this game, Tuukka Jaakkola , became Cal Poly’s all-time leader in games played. Jaakola scored 12 points during his performance.
Hyder led the Mustangs with 7-9 shooting from the field and 4-6 from three-point range, putting up 21 points on the night. This was Hyder’s second-best scoring performance of the season and comes after not playing much in January due to an injury. Sanders contributed 13 points and 6 rebounds on 4-9 shooting from the field.
Freshman guard from Illinois Quentin Jones continues to give the Mustangs some great minutes early on in his collegiate career. He added 19 points and 6 rebounds in 35 minutes of play. Jones is now averaging 9.4 points per game.
Even with the loss, Cal Poly hopes to build on its offensive production and find their first conference win as they take on Hawaii at Mott Athletics Center next Thursday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m.