HENDERSON, Nev. — The hometown kid only needed one shot, one dribble and one second to become a hero in March. Turned out, Jadon Jones didn’t need the dribble to deliver on his promise.

Jones drilled a deep game-winning 3-pointer as time expired to give top-seeded Long Beach State a 67-64 victory over fifth-seeded UC Santa Barbara in a Big West Tournament semifinal on Friday night at Dollar Loan Center Arena.

“I said, ‘If I get it, it’s going in,’” Jones told his teammates in the huddle as the officials changed the clock from 0.9 to 1.3 seconds left.

Jones, the freshman forward who grew up in Long Beach, said the extra time was enough for him to take a dribble, but he decided against it when he received the inbounds pass from Drew Cobb a few feet behind the 3-point line. Multiple UCSB defenders chased senior guard Colin Slater, allowing Jones to get an open shot from well behind the line before UCSB’s Ajare Sanni put his hand up.

“You watch these games on TV and they talk about March Madness,” Long Beach coach Dan Monson said. “We’ve officially entered March Madness tonight as a program. … It couldn’t have happened to a better group.”

Long Beach (20-11), which was picked to finish eighth in the conference in the preseason coaches’ poll, will appear in its first Big West championship game since 2016. LBSU will face the winner of the late semifinal game between second-seeded Cal State Fullerton and third-seeded Hawaii.

Jones’ only shot of the second-half was the buzzer-beater. Slater, the Big West Player of the Year, kept Long Beach in the game against the Gauchos (17-11), who held the lead for 31 minutes, 34 seconds of the 40-minute game.

Slater had a game-high 30 points and displayed his versatile skill set to trim UCSB’s double-digit leads. Jones contributed nine points and seven rebounds. Sanni and Miles Norris had 15 points apiece for the Gauchos.

Slater flashed stepback and pull-up jumpers, and his nifty dribbling frequently got him in the paint for layups. The senior guard put on an offensive show and hit clutch free throws to trim the Gauchos’ lead to 64-62 with 1:09 left.

Slater was then pulled for defensive purposes, but his teammates had his back by tying the score at 64-64 after Aboubacar Traore dunked on a fast-break with 36 seconds left.

Slater found his shooting stroke early in the second half after hitting back-to-back jumpers to erase the Gauchos’ 11-point advantage and give his team a 38-37 lead.

Long Beach found itself down 11 points late in the first half but went on a 6-0 run to enter halftime with a 37-32 deficit.

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Norris had 10 points in the opening half for the Gauchos, who shot 45% before halftime. The Gauchos’ red-hot shooting behind the arc helped build a double-digit lead with less than five minutes remaining in the first half. UCSB was 6 for 12 from the 3-point line after taking a 30-20 advantage.

The Gauchos went on a 12-0 run to take a 19-10 lead midway through the first half. Jones gave Long Beach its first lead at 8-7 after converting a four-point play with 15:36 in the first half.

Jones was asked if the 3-pointer was his first career game-winning shot. The freshman forward made a pair of clutch free throws with 0.9 seconds left in overtime against UC Riverside last week to give Long Beach its first outright regular-season conference title since 2013.

“Not sure if that counts,” Jones said.

Monson told him that definitely counts. Welcome to March, hometown hero.

JADON JONES!!!! ONIONS!!! #GoBeach pic.twitter.com/vD1uYcT8M9

— LBSU Men’s Basketball (@LBSUhoops) March 12, 2022