The Long Beach State women’s basketball team won more conference games than any team in the Big West this year, with a final record of 17-3. In the last 33 years, only four other Big West teams have won 17 games. There’s one major difference between this year’s Beach team and those four other programs: this year’s Long Beach State team was not crowned conference champions.
Why not? Because the Big West has awarded that honor to UC Irvine, a team that went 16-2, playing an incomplete schedule because they took a week off due to injuries that left them with a reduced roster of available players. You might think that the Big West gave the Anteaters two forfeits for the games they took off, but they did not, making the befuddling and indefensible decision to award them a pair of “no contests,” with the games not to be rescheduled.
I’ve been covering Big West women’s basketball for 15 years, and I’ve seen more injuries than you’d find in most medical textbooks. Teams are regularly forced to play with seven or eight players, including Long Beach State or their opponents in several games I’ve covered. Injuries are always unfortunate and to be sympathized with–but they are very much part of the game.
The Big West employed an outdated and embarrassing “force majeure” rule to justify its decision. We all learned about force majeure during COVID-19, and thus I didn’t even need to call a lawyer to remember that it’s a legal clause that releases two parties from their contracted obligations due to an extraordinary event or circumstances outside the norm.
By no definition can injuries in mid-major collegiate women’s basketball be termed either of those things. They are a common part of the game, which is why most teams choose to carry the maximum NCAA-allowed number of 15 players–UC Irvine chose to carry 13 players this year.
By the562’s quick perusal of Big West box scores this year: Cal State Fullerton played five games with seven players this year, including one against Cal Poly where both teams only had seven players. Cal Poly played four games with seven players this year, including a game they lost to UC Irvine. When it was Cal Poly’s turn to play UC Irvine when the Anteaters were down players, Irvine declined to play and the game was ruled a no-contest instead of a forfeit.
Long Beach State coach Jeff Cammon was understandably and justifiably angry after his team’s regular season finale loss to UC Davis, which snapped a remarkable 15-game win streak that was among the best in the nation.
“It’s very disappointing that it comes down to this,” he said. “I don’t think any league, Division 1 conference, a championship should be decided (like this). Our young ladies work too hard…to not have the ability to win it outright because of outdated policy.”
Asked if his team–which is missing multiple starters due to injury–could have simply said they were unable to play the game against Davis on Saturday, and won the conference title via no contest as UC Irvine has done, Cammon’s frustration was visible.
“Yeah, based on the precedent that was set with this situation, yes,” he said.
When asked if his coaching staff would consider such a move, Cammon shook his head.
“We’ve been without our best players on numerous occasions. We’ve had eight suit up. We’re gonna play. It never came to my mind…If you have five players, we’re going to play,” he said. “When I was here as an assistant, there were two or three years where we had seven, with four starters out, but we never even thought about not playing. It’s why we’re here…Everyone’s dealing with it. That’s why we’re here, to play basketball. That’s just our feeling on it. I’m not trying to knock anyone, but it’s disappointing. We’ll try to move forward and win the tournament next week with the bodies we have.”
The Beach will enter next week’s Big West Tournament as the two-seed. If there are any basketball gods listening, or any hoop fans who believe in justice and fair competition, surely they’ll be wearing Black and Gold next week.