LONG BEACH — Long Beach State fell behind early and never climbed back in its home opener against Montana State on Sunday, as LBSU fell 70-57 at the Walter Pyramid.

Guard Joel Murray, the Big West’s leading scorer a season ago, led LBSU with 21 points. But just two teammates joined him in double figures as Long Beach State couldn’t find a rhythm offensively.

Montana State, which won 27 games and made it to the NCAA Tournament a year ago as the Big Sky conference’s representative, proved to coach Dan Monson to be a difficult challenge.

“They came in and hit us early, and we just never really recovered,” Monson said. “That’s what really good teams do. We’re trying to become one of those. It was a good game for us to do that and understand we got a lot of work to do together.”

Long Beach State is coming off a 20-win season itself and lost the Big West Championship Game by a point last season to Cal State Fullerton. But with Colin Slater, Jordan Roberts and Drew Cobb among the key losses, the focus is now on the senior Murray to lead the way.

Murray, who had just two assists, said he’s trying to figure out the balance between scoring and getting his teammates involved.

“Because I know everybody is looking at me on offense,” Murray said.

Forward Aboubacar Traore had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds, and guard Marcus Tsohonis — a transfer from VCU — had 13 points. The two other starters — Lassina Traore and Jadon Jones — were held scoreless and were a combined 0-for-7.

Long Beach State trailed by as many as 15 points in the first half, but cut the deficit to eight at halftime behind 11 points from Murray. LBSU ended the half on a 7-0 run and outscored Montana State 16-4 in the paint.

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But Montana State, led by 24 points from guard RaeQuan Battle, had an answer every time LBSU cut the lead to single digits.

Long Beach State outscored Montana State 36-20 in the paint, but shot just 2-of-14 from beyond-the-arc and only managed four fastbreak points.

Monson counted only one 3-pointer that his team managed to shoot in rhythm.

“And I think the rest of them were tough,” Monson said. “We’ve got to get our pace of our offense better so we can get better shots. We didn’t get really good looks at it.”

Jones, who averaged 10.5 points last season and is one of the team’s sharpshooters, couldn’t find open looks.

“He didn’t get one good look from three,” Monson said. “So we got to trust each other, get the ball swung more. Our defense has got to create more for our offense and get something off the break.”

Murray didn’t think that Montana State did anything special defensively.

“We just didn’t push the break how we should, how we always do,” Murray said. “Our offense has no pace right now. We’ve just got to move the ball a little bit more.”

Montana State opened up 5-of-5 from beyond-the-arc to take an early 17-6 lead, with Battle knocking down his first two shots from distance. The Bobcats cooled off later in the half, ending the first 20 minutes at a 6-of-14 clip from beyond-the-arc.

Long Beach State opened the season with a 79-64 win at Cal Baptist on Nov. 7 before falling at No. 8 UCLA 93-69 on Friday.

LBSU will host St. Katherine in its next nonconference matchup on Saturday.

Attendance at Sunday’s home opener was 2,334.

“These games are tough,” Murray said of nonconference opponents. “We’re playing good teams. It’s not like we’re just playing anybody.”

The senior said the team is working to figure out who it is before conference play starts.

“Like coach always says in the locker room: `What’s our identity?’ Murray said. “We showed it last Monday, but today it was missing.”