LBSU Faces Final Non-Conference Road Test at Stanford

Saturday, December 29

Stanford, Calif.

7:30 P.M.

Long Beach State University

Stanford

Photo by: John Fajardo

12/27/2018 4:03:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Complete Long Beach State Game Notes

Long Beach State men’s basketball will get its fifth Pac-12 test of the season on Saturday, visiting the Stanford Cardinal for a 7:30 p.m. showdown on Pac-12 Network to close the non-conference road schedule.

By: Tyler Hendrickson, Associate Athletic Communications Director

Game: Long Beach State at Stanford
Date: Saturday, December 29, 2018
Time: 7:30 p.m. PT
Location: Stanford, Calif.
Arena: Maples Pavilion (7,233)
TV: Pac-12 Network
TV Talent: Guy Haberman (PxP) & Mike Montgomery (Analyst)
Radio: 22WestMedia.com
Radio Talent: Jason Schwartz
Webcast: Pac-12.com
Live Stats: GoStanford.com

RIGHT AWAY
• Long Beach State is coming off back-to-back narrow victories at home. The Beach were able to survive one-score games against both Pepperdine and Colorado State to improve to 4-1 at Walter Pyramid this season. LBSU will be seeking its first road win of the season on Saturday.

• Senior guard Deishuan Booker had a team-high 14 points for the Beach, scoring half of those points in the final 2:12 of the game to lead the Beach to victory in crunch time. Temidayo Yussuf added 12 points, seven rebounds and three assists in the win and Mason Riggins posted season highs in points (9) and rebounds (10).

• The Beach went just 13/21 at the free throw line, but went 8/8 as a team over the final three minutes to preserve the win. KJ Byers made two key defensive plays down the stretch, recording a steal and a blocked shot in the final 25 seconds to deny the Rams a shot at tying the game.

SCOUTING THE CARDINAL
• Stanford is unbeaten at home this season, going 4-0, while three of its five losses have come against ranked teams. One defeat came on the road against then-No. 2 Kansas on Dec. 1 as the Cardinal pushed the Jayhawks to overtime before falling 90-84. Stanford is coming off a 74-65 loss at San Francisco last Saturday.

• Sophomore forward KZ Okpala leads the Cardinal in both scoring (16.3 ppg) and rebounding (6.3 rpg) this season. Classmate Daejon Davis averages 11.3 points per contest and 3.6 assists per game as well. Freshman guard Cormac Ryan adds 11.0 points per game, but he has missed the last two contests. The Cardinal are a very young team with just one senior on the roster and nine underclassmen playing significant minutes.

• Long Beach State defeated Stanford for the first time ever in last season's meeting in Long Beach. Jordan Griffin put up a career-high 21 points and Deishuan Booker had eight assists in LBSU's 76-68 victory over the Cardinal. This is the fifth all-time meeting between the two programs.

TOUR OF THE PAC-12
• Long Beach State will play nearly half of the teams in the Pac-12 this season, with the game against Stanford representing the fifth game against a member of the conference, with four such contests coming on the road. LBSU had strong performances at UCLA and USC, taking the game down to the final minutes, along with a close home loss to Oregon State.

• Long Beach State has defeated a Pac-12 foe in each of the last two seasons, including a pair of Pac-12 victories last season over Stanford and Oregon State.

FREE MASON
• Senior forward Mason Riggins has been in the starting lineup in each of the last three contests and has gotten more involved for the Beach. He has made multiple field goals and has at least five rebounds in each of those games, culminating in a season-best performance against Colorado State with nine points and a team-leading 10 rebounds.

• Riggins leads the Beach in field goal percentage this season, making 58.5 percent of his shots from the floor.

TEMI ENGINE
• Senior center Temidayo Yussuf has been a beast inside over the last six weeks. The Oakland native has scored in double-figures in nine of his last 10 contests, averaging a team-leading 15,9 points per game in that stretch with four double-doubles. He has also recorded double-doubles in three of his last five games and in back-to-back contests against Pacific and Pepperdine.

• Yussuf established a new career high with 28 points at San Diego on Dec. 1. He was an impressive 10/13 from the floor and 8/10 at the free throw line to lead the Beach.

• With 180 points scored through 14 games this season, Yussuf now has 883 points scored in his career as he seeks to become the 24th member of the 1,000-point club at Long Beach State. With 18 games left on the regular season schedule, Yussuf would need to average just 6.5 points per game to reach the milestone this season.

SIX SENIORS
• Long Beach State boasts a six-player senior class, giving LBSU an older roster, but not necessarily one with a ton of experience. Only two of the six seniors (Temidayo Yussuf and Mason Riggins) have spent more than two seasons at the Beach, with the other four transferring in from other schools.

• LBSU returns a pair of All-Big West honorees from a season ago. Both Yussuf and Booker were Honorable Mention All-Big West selections.

• Yussuf is in his fifth season at Long Beach State, after redshirting his sophomore campaign. Entering the season, the Oakland native had appeared in 97 games during his career and has a chance to become the 24th member of the 1,000-point club at Long Beach State, needing to score 297 points during his final season to reach that mark.

• Also in the senior class, Bryan Alberts should be one of the leading perimeter weapons for the Beach in his second and final season in Long Beach. The Gonzaga transfer had an immediate impact at the start of last season before an injury caused him to miss a month of action. The three-point marksman was second on the team in scoring last season, averaging 11.3 points per game and was in double-figures a dozen times.

• Fellow senior Mason Riggins is in his fourth year at the Beach, making him another frontcourt mainstay to go with Yussuf. His first game of the 2018-19 season represented his 100th appearance for the Beach and he's made 42 starts over his previous three years. Riggins led the team with a field goal percentage of 62.4 percent, a statistic he's improved each season in Long Beach.

THIS AND THAT
• With a 70-69 win at UC Santa Barbara on Mar. 1, 2018, Long Beach State earned the 1,000th win in program history. Dan Monson is responsible for 185 of those wins, making him the winningest head coach in Long Beach State history.

• Departed senior Gabe Levin was a First Team All-Big West selection after leading the Beach in scoring (18.5 ppg) and rebounding (7.2 rpg) in 2017-18. Levin is set to begin his professional playing career in Israel with Bnei Rav-Bariach Herzliya.

• On Thursday, Nov. 8, Long Beach State basketball legend Casper Ware entered the Long Beach State Athletics Hall of Fame. Ware was at the Beach from the 2009-12 seasons, helping the Beach to the NCAA Tournament as a senior. He was a two-time Big West Player of the Year and is currently a member of Melbourne United in the National Basketball League in Australia.