SAN DIEGO — The Long Beach State basketball team is leaning on its guards, and it’s working.
Freshman Kam Martin scored a career-high 25 points and Devin Askew added 23 as the backcourt duo propelled Long Beach State past San Diego, 76-70, on Tuesday night for the team’s third straight win.
Long Beach (4-8 overall) shot 58.1% from the field – its third straight game above 50% – and Martin led the way by going 8 for 10 overall and 5 for 5 from 3-point range. Askew shot 8 for 14 from the field (2 for 3 from behind the arc), tied his career high with eight assists and grabbed five rebounds.
Austin Johnson added 12 points, five rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots for LBSU, which was outscored by 12 points from long range but had a 10-point advantage at the free-throw line to help offset that.
The game was tight throughout the first half, as Long Beach erased an early eight-point deficit and grabbed a 33-30 lead by halftime.
USD (3-7) never saw the lead again after the intermission, as Long Beach shot 14 for 19 from the field and led by as many as 12 points. LBSU led 65-54 after a layup from Askew with 5:09 left, but the Toreros used an 8-0 run to make it a one-possession game with 2:55 left.
Askew made a pair of free throws, but USD answered with a layup to get within three again. Johnson found Andrew Nagy for a dunk with 1:41 left, then raced down the court to block a shot by San Diego’s Kjay Bradley Jr. Askew then scored on a layup from Nagy for a seven-point lead with 1:07 remaining.
USD missed a 3-point attempt and Johnson made a pair of free throws to push the lead to 73-64 with 50 seconds left, and Long Beach closed it out from there.
Bradley led the Toreros with 19 points and six assists. Bendji Pierre added 13 points and five rebounds, while Tony Duckett and Santiago Trouet each scored 10 points. Steven Jamerson II added eight points and 10 rebounds.
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Long Beach gets a brief break before playing at Pepperdine next Thursday (Dec. 19) at 6 p.m.
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