After three straight losses, UC San Diego men’s basketball (16-8, 6-6 Big West) finally tasted victory on Thursday at LionTree Arena — but it wasn’t pretty. Long Beach State (8-16, 4-8 Big West) forced 18 UCSD turnovers, leveraging a scrappy defense to challenge the Tritons in a close battle. However, a late pair of free throws from freshman guard Hudson Mayes gave the Tritons the lead with 20 seconds left. A block courtesy of redshirt junior forward Bol Dengdit on the ensuing possession sealed a 77-74 victory for the Tritons.
UCSD entered Thursday night’s contest in desperate need of a win. The Tritons’ past three matches featured losses to UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and Cal State Northridge, with the latter two being double-digit defeats — dropping UCSD below .500 in conference play. The mission of hanging a second Big West regular season championship banner now looks all but impossible for the Tritons.
“You don’t want to be on a three-game losing streak,” Dengdit — who scored a team-high 18 points — said to The UCSD Guardian in a postgame interview. “A win at home is always important, and we have a tough team on the weekend, so it’s good for our confidence.”
The Tritons also had to contend with limited minutes from redshirt junior forward Leo Beath due to illness. He was replaced in the starting lineup by redshirt junior forward Cade Pendleton. UCSD also played without the services of graduate student guard Emanuel Prospere II, out with an injury, who Mayes replaced in the starting lineup.
“To be determined,” head coach Clint Allard said to The Guardian regarding the timeline for Prospere’s return. “But we’ll have him back this year.”
In the absence of two key players, the Tritons got a healthy dose of scoring from freshman guard Jaden Vance. He scored a career-high 17 points, including a pair of two key and-one layups with five minutes left in the game that had the Triton bench roaring.
“Couldn’t have done it without him tonight,” Allard said. “I really liked his composure; he took the right shots and attacked at the right moments. I thought he made the simple play over and over and got rewarded for it.”
After a high-scoring game, the Tritons and the Beach suddenly fell silent, failing to make a single field goal for the last three minutes of play. With 20 seconds left and the Tritons down one, Mayes was fouled on a third-chance layup attempt; he calmly converted both at the line. On the ensuing Beach possession, Dengdit blocked the Beach’s attempt to retake the lead, and sophomore guard Alex Chaikin closed out the game with a pair of free throws.
“I was proud of our group in the huddle,” Allard said. “They were urging each other on, they were talking to themselves, they were hyping themselves up. For Bol to get that big block, protect the rim, and for us to come away with the ball was big.”
UCSD’s offense was sloppy all evening, committing 18 turnovers — its second most in a game this season. Seven of the 10 Tritons who took the floor committed multiple turnovers for only the second time since UCSD transitioned to Division I. The Beach took full advantage of this, scoring 20 points off of Triton turnovers.
The win marked UCSD’s first home victory since it defeated Hawai’i on Jan. 3. The Tritons now sit at seventh in the Big West, three and a half games behind conference-leader UCI. With only eight games left in a disappointing regular season, the Tritons will look to string together some wins before they go to Henderson, Nevada, to play in the Big West Championship.
Only 48 hours after their win against the Beach, the Tritons will travel over 2,000 miles to play Hawai’i in a pivotal game. Hawai’i is currently second in the Big West, and a win against the Rainbow Warriors could be the momentum boost the Tritons need to regain their footing.
“Hawai’i’s a tough team,” Dengdit said. “Our coaches will do a great job of preparing us like always, so we focus on that, and the result will take care of itself.”
