Pacific Uses Outside Shooting to Get Inside Track

While Pacific’s Michael Olowokandi and Long Beach State’s Andrew Betts battled under the basket, Tiger guard Adam Jacobsen made four of six three-point shots in Pacific’s 69-50 victory in a Big West game in front of 3,178 Saturday at the Pyramid.

Pacific’s Olowokandi scored 16 points--almost five below his grabbed seven rebounds. Betts led Long Beach (8-12, 3-5 in the Big West) with 15 points and four rebounds.

“He’s definitely stronger than I am,” Betts said.

Stronger, but a bit frustrated.

“I wasn’t getting calls inside, so I had to resort to my ‘fallaway,’ ” said Olowokandi, explaining his shooting performance, eight for 20.

The game’s key, said Long Beach Coach Wayne Morgan, was rebounding.

“They had 18 offensive rebounds,” he said. “You can’t give a team like that 18 offensive rebounds. And I think they scored on 16 of them, a lot of them three-point baskets.”

Pacific (13-8, 6-2) made 13 of 24 three-point baskets, and outrebounded Long Beach, 43-29, including 18-9 on the offensive end.

Three-point shooting was responsible for Pacific’s blowing out the 49ers, who never led. Up early, 11-7, the Tigers launched a 19-4 run that buried Long Beach, and 15 of those 19 points came on threes. Jacobsen had three of the five three-pointers in the run to a 30-11 lead.

D’Cean Bryant had the only 49er basket over an 8:35 span.

“Our offense is inside-outside-inside,” Jacobsen said, explaining the Tigers’ tendency to look to Olowokandi, then to others, then back to Olowokandi. “We made the extra pass all night. If a guy had an OK shot, he passed to a guy who had a better shot.”