There wasn’t any deep, detailed game plan for Long Beach State on Thursday afternoon when it faced Cal State Bakersfield in the quarterfinals of the Big West Tournament.

If there’s a big rock in the road ahead of you, press the accelerator a bit and drive around it.

Top-seeded Long Beach had no intention of getting into a physical, grinding game against one of the brawniest teams in the conference. After a sluggish start, LBSU found its usual press-and-run pace and sped away with a 72-61 win over the ninth-seeded Roadrunners at Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nevada.

Long Beach (19-11) used a 16-4 run in the first half to negate the slow start, then went on a 15-2 run in the second half to draw out to a 15-point lead with five minutes left.

LBSU will play either fourth-seeded UC Irvine or fifth-seeded UC Santa Barbara in a semifinal on Friday at 6 p.m. Both of those teams own a win against Long Beach this season, and head coach Dan Monson said his team will approach the game feeling like an underdog.

“We still have a little chip on our shoulder,” Monson said after the win. “We came in here to prove we’re not a fluke. We were picked to finish eighth in the preseason (coaches’ poll) and we’re still reading that we’re the third best team in the tourney.”

The game was much like most of Long Beach’s wins this season since the team began to press on defense in the backcourt and speed the game up on offense as much as it can.

LBSU shot 43%, scored 23 points off of 21 Bakersfield turnovers, and had 26 fast-break points. Joel Murray led the team with 25 points on 9-for-13 shooting to go with four assists. Senior Jordan Roberts scored 16 points and sophomore Jadon Jones had 14 with three 3-pointers. Freshman Aboubacar Traore had seven points and nine rebounds.

Bakersfield (8-19) got 19 points from Justin McCall and 14 from Cam Smith. Long Beach denied Bakersfield’s attempts to get the ball inside to burly Shawn Stith, who had a season-low two points.

“Two more to go,” Murray said. “Bakersfield got some great looks early but we just stayed together. We know if we take care of the ball and avoid turnovers, we can play the way we want to.

“There’s a lot of trust on this team. We always go over our mistakes after a play and regroup as a team, and the coaches allow us to play through our mistakes.”

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“We knew we weren’t playing at the pace we wanted,” Roberts said. “Once we got into our game, we started going on runs.”

Long Beach lost Joe Hampton to a broken wrist late in the season and has been rotating the big men it has left in the post. Traore has blossomed during conference play.

“He’s taking a beating and is banged up, but he’s playing through it,” Monson said. “He turned our season around by giving us an inside presence.”

Monson was asked if he’ll try and give Traore more breaks in the games ahead.

“I told the guys I’m giving them all of May to rest,” he said with a grin.