Stacking Up Wins

The California State University Long Beach Men’s Basketball team has shown resilience in their last six games. In this six-game winning streak, the 49ers have been working in sync to gather up two wins against their main rivals recently, the Cal State Fullerton Titans (13-12).

This pair of wins could be shown as a testament to zero quit against a team who shattered the 49ers’ dreams of making it to the round of 64 of the 2022 NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball tournament.

Lassina Traore has been a critical component to the teams’ success, for in the past six wins, he has gathered six consecutive double-doubles, showing utter dominance in the paint.

The team relies on the duo of Lassina Traore and Aboubacar Traore, who were dominant in the 49ers’ most recent 93-88 win over the UC Irvine Anteaters (15-8).

Aboubacar was two rebounds shy of stacking a double-double alongside Lassina who quickly stacked up his sixth consecutive double-double with over 16 points and 20 rebounds against the UC Irvine Anteaters.

The 49ers are in store for a home game against the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos, who recently lost in an upset against the Cal State Northridge Matadors (5-18), who won 72-67.

However, key players on the Gauchos to look out for are Andre Kelly, a forward who stacked a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds, and Miles Norris, a forward who was one rebound shy of another double-double, with 17 points and nine rebounds.

This duo is one the 49ers need to be wary of in this game, referred to as “The Battle of The Beaches,” coming up on Feb. 9 at the Walter Pyramid.

One key Guard to the 49ers’ success is Marcus Tsohonis, who has recently been on fire.

Two weeks ago, Tsohonis broke the 49ers’ single-game points record with a 46-point performance, six rebounds and four assists.

A game that any college player dreams of and one that possibly woke up scouts nationwide.

Tsohonis attributed 28 points, five assists and five rebounds in the 49ers’ recent win over the Anteaters, who collaboratively are showing no signs of slowing down going into this game versus the Gauchos.

However, for the 49ers (14-10), facing the Gauchos (18-4) will be the toughest challenge for the team, besides the UCLA Bruins (19-4), who is ranked 7th on the Associated Press Top 25 men’s basketball of the NCAA division nationwide.

We, as fans, will have to cheer on another upset on the Big West number 1 ranked Gauchos’ end to continue to move on with this momentum for the eight games remaining this season.

To move up the list from being ranked number 5 in the Big West to snag potentially a higher seed to sit comfortably at winning the Big West Championship Quarterfinal game. And make a consecutive appearance in the Big West Championship, where historically, the 49ers tightly lost 71-72 against Cal State Fullerton on March 10th of last year.