LONG BEACH — The Long Beach State basketball team experienced a reality check on Thursday night.

Everything seemed to go as planned during its six-game winning streak, but Long Beach couldn’t get things to fall in place against first-place UC Santa Barbara in a Big West Conference showdown and LBSU lost, 75-72, at the Walter Pyramid.

“You win six games in a row and practices get a little bit looser and we don’t get as much improvement as we could get done,” Long Beach coach Dan Monson said. “I think this will ground us and get us back grinding a little bit.”

Long Beach (14-11 overall, 8-5 Big West) had a chance to pull within a game of UCSB (19-4, 10-2) in the loss column if it could beat the Gauchos in their first meeting since winning on a last-second shot in the semifinals of the Big West Tournament last March.

LBSU took a 72-71 lead with 1:49 left on two free throws by Jadon Jones following a flagrant foul on Ajay Mitchell. Long Beach also retained possession, but couldn’t add to its lead.

The Gauchos went back ahead on pair of free throws by Josh Pierre-Louis with 1:09 left.

Lassina Traore then missed inside for Long Beach and Marcus Tsohonis couldn’t convert the follow.

Long Beach had another chance in transition off a missed 3-point attempt. LBSU point guard Tone Hunter elected to pass the ball out to Jones, who missed an open look from behind the arc with nine seconds left.

Calvin Wishart then made two more free throws with 2.7 seconds left, and Tsohonis could not convert a desperation 3-point attempt at the buzzer.

“Tone maybe could have gone and laid it in, but he made the right play,” Monson said. “Jadon was wide open and I’ll take Jadon on that shot any day of the week.”

Long Beach had a few strong performances and one uncharacteristically poor one.

Aboubacar Traore finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.

Lassina Traore came up short of his seventh straight double-double, but still finished with 16 points and eight rebounds.

Jones was the other player who finished in double figures for LBSU, totaling 12 points.

Tsohonis, however, struggled to find his shot the entire game.

After averaging 29 points over the previous four games, Tsohonis finished 1 for 13 from the field and scored two points.

“We’ve just got to continue to believe and stay together,” Monson said. “Losses hurt, but if you learn from them, then it will all be worth it at the end.”

Mitchell finished with 17 points and 10 assists for the Gauchos, scoring 11 of his points in the second half. Andre Kelly went up against Lassina Traore for most of the game and finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds.

Miles Norris and Pierre-Louis contributed 13 points apiece for the Gauchos.

LBSU had back-to-back fast-break dunks during a 6-0 spurt late in the first half that helped Long Beach take a 43-38 lead into the intermission.

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LBSU had surged to an early 13-6 lead after five minutes. The Gauchos caught up to them midway through the opening half and took their first lead 24-22 on a layup by Mitchell with 9:18 left in the half.

Lassina Traore scored inside to give Long Beach a three-point lead with 1:10 left in the half.

Pierre-Louis didn’t draw iron on a 360-degree dunk attempt off a baseline drive and Jones dunked a lob pass from AJ George for a 41-36 lead.

Pierre-Louis then turned the ball over and Amari Stroud scored on a dunk in transition, giving LBSU a 43-36 lead and drawing the ire of UCSB coach Joe Pasternack, who slammed the scorer’s table after calling a timeout and removed Pierre-Louis from the game.

Tsohonis missed his first six shots and was 1 for 9 from the floor in the first half with two points.