Long Beach State Beach (8-15, 4-7 Big West) at UCSD Tritons (15-8, 5-6 Big West)
San Diego; Thursday, 10 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Long Beach State plays UCSD after Shaquil Bender scored 22 points in Long Beach State’s 89-82 loss to the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors.
The Tritons have gone 5-5 at home. UCSD is fourth in the Big West with 25.3 defensive rebounds per game led by Tom Beattie averaging 4.4.
The Beach are 4-7 in conference matchups. Long Beach State has a 1-3 record in games decided by less than 4 points.
UCSD scores 77.3 points per game, 0.4 more points than the 76.9 Long Beach State gives up. Long Beach State has shot at a 45.7% clip from the field this season, 4.1 percentage points greater than the 41.6% shooting opponents of UCSD have averaged.
The matchup Thursday is the first meeting of the season for the two teams in conference play.
TOP PERFORMERS: Leo Beath is scoring 14.5 points per game and averaging 5.1 rebounds for the Tritons. Alex Chaikin is averaging 13.3 points and 1.4 rebounds over the last 10 games.
Gavin Sykes is shooting 47.6% and averaging 18.2 points for the Beach. Bender is averaging 1.2 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.
LAST 10 GAMES: Tritons: 4-6, averaging 70.1 points, 34.5 rebounds, 13.2 assists, 6.9 steals and 2.8 blocks per game while shooting 41.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 71.8 points per game.
Beach: 5-5, averaging 78.2 points, 30.7 rebounds, 15.6 assists, 7.2 steals and 3.5 blocks per game while shooting 48.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 73.9 points.
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
By The Associated Press
