Irvine Catches Utah St. on Off Night and Wins

UC Irvine’s basketball team beat Utah State here Saturday night. Sure. And you can run through Logan at night in January without a shirt. And the sky is green. And Jerry Tarkanian has hair.

But somehow, the improbable really happened.

The same UC Irvine team that lost to San Jose State by 21 points Thursday night easily defeated the Aggies, 83-73, before a crowd of 8,005 at the Spectrum.

The Anteaters did it by starting Rick Ciaccio, who had never started a game in four years at Irvine. They did it by moving forward Troy Carmon to guard. They did it by controlling the tempo of the game.

And they did it by playing Utah State just three days after the Aggies’ emotion-draining, 142-140, triple overtime loss to the University of Nevada Las Vegas here Wedesday night.

“We were totally exhausted,” Utah State Coach Rod Tueller said. “Both mentally and physically. You would have had to have been here to see what we went through.”

Admittedly, the Aggies were dragging. They looked as if they were playing with a medicine ball. Utah State, which shot 50% as a team against Las Vegas, shot 36% against Irvine.

Still, after its embarrassing loss to San Jose State, no one was really giving Irvine a chance against the Aggies, who are averaging 95 points a game.

“No one expected this,” Irvine forward Tod Murphy said. “But I knew we had a good chance because they were down after the Vegas game. They were really slow tonight.”

Murphy took advantage and had the best game of his career, scoring 28 points and grabbing 15 rebounds.

Irvine trailed only once, at 5-3. The Anteaters led by 10 at halftime and by as many as 17, at 55-38, in the second half. The Aggies closed to within eight points, 73-65, with 2:21 left on a three-point shot by Jeff J. Anderson. But clutch free throws by Bryan Williams, Rodney Scott and Murphy in the final minutes clinched the win.

It was an improbable win for Irvine, coming off its worst performance of the season. But give Coach Bill Mulligan credit. He’s 4-1 lifetime in Logan. And he coached a sound game Saturday night, vowing not to get in a running game with the Aggies.

“We had a lot more patience tonight,” Mulligan said.

In the final 10 minutes, with his team nursing a 10-point lead, the Anteaters used up 20 to 25 seconds of the shot clock on each possession before shooting.

Irvine took advantage of the fast break only when it was open.

The Aggies, well, they couldn’t hit anything.