8-7 (1-2)
Long Beach State
8-11 (2-1)
Cal Poly Men's Basketball Falls in Final Minute at Long Beach State, 50-48
1/15/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
LONG BEACH – Junior wing Michael Bolden (right) scored a team-leading 14 points Thursday evening, but Long Beach State senior guard Mike Caffey converted a layup with one second remaining inside Walter Pyramid as the Cal Poly men's basketball program suffered a 50-48 defeat.
Wing David Nwaba added 12 points and fellow junior Joel Awich finished with 10 for Cal Poly (8-7, 1-2), which trailed 48-44 with two-and-a-half minutes to play. Nwaba, however, sank two free throws with a minute remaining following a missed Long Beach State jumper before sinking a jumper with 29 seconds to play after another errant 49ers shot attempt.
On Long Beach State's final sequence, however, Caffey – who also finished with 14 points – drove the lane through traffic and floated in a layup with 1.1 seconds on the clock. Following a timeout, Cal Poly was unable to get a shot off as the game ended.
Playing the program's 600th game at the Division I level, Cal Poly shot 31.4 (16-for-51) percent from the floor, but finished 42.1 (8-for-19) percent from three-point range and sank eight of nine free throw attempts.
In matchup where neither side led by more than five points for the opening 27 minutes, Cal Poly – ranked second among 345 Division I programs with just 8.7 turnovers per game – committed only seven on Wednesday.
Cal Poly completes its two-game road trip when visiting CSUN on Saturday, Jan. 17 at 7 p.m. The contest marks a rematch of last season's Big West Conference Tournament championship game in which Cal Poly prevailed, 61-59, to earn its first NCAA Division I Tournament berth.
Facing an early 9-4 deficit, Cal Poly responded with an 8-2 run that featured Nwaba's first three-pointer in 48 appearances as a Mustang.
In a first half that produced eight lead changes, Cal Poly trailed 22-21 three minutes prior to the break before Bolden sank three free throws. Awich then followed with a putback and the Mustangs, despite a late dunk from 49ers senior forward David Samuels, led 26-24 at halftime.
Bolden returned in the second half to score Cal Poly's first five points as the Mustangs limited Long Beach State to just one field goal during the opening seven minutes. Courtesy of consecutive three-pointers from Awich and junior guard Reese Morgan, Cal Poly then stretched its lead to 39-30 with 12 minutes remaining.
Still holding a nine-point cushion two minutes later, however, the Mustangs conceded a 10-0 run as Cal Poly's lead was turned into a 42-41 deficit with four-and-a-half minutes to play.
Morgan snapped the drought with his second three-pointer of the night to help the Mustangs regain the lead, but Cal Poly was held to just Nwaba's four final points the remainder of the evening.
