UCI Loses to UCSB in OT, 70-67

Scott Fisher isn’t headed for a lucrative NBA contract. At 6-7, he’s just another not-particularly-mobile forward who can’t run very fast or jump very high. Just a couple of years ago, Fisher wasn’t thinking about a pro career. He was wondering if he’d ever play again outside of a church league.

He was so impressive at Mission San Jose High School, in fact, that he had to walk on as a freshman at UC Santa Barbara.

Fisher does a number of things very well, however, and Saturday night he displayed them all in front of 2,119 in the Campus Events Center as UC Santa Barbara rallied to a 70-67 overtime win over struggling UC Irvine in Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. play.

Fisher scored 28 points--in almost every imaginable fashion--and grabbed 11 rebounds as the Gauchos (3-3 in conference, 7-8 overall) beat the Anteaters (2-5, 7-11) on the strength of their aggressive, man-to-man defense.

The Anteaters, who suffered through two prolonged scoring droughts, scored just two field goals in the final 10 1/2 minutes of play and both of those came in the last 13 seconds when the game was all but beyond reach.

And guess whose defense set the tone for the Gauchos?

Fisher, giving up three inches to Irvine’s high-scoring Johnny Rogers, stuck to Rogers every minute the UCI center was on the court and held him to just 16 points in 44 minutes, 7 below his average in regulation.

“He’s one heckuva player,” Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan said, shaking his head in admiration. “He hit four in a row (actually it was five) to open the second half from outside, and then he went inside and hurt us. He plays so hard all the time.

“And he did as good a job on Johnny as anybody has all season.”

Gaucho Coach Jerry Pimm was equally impressed with this superb athlete hiding in the body of your next-door neighbor.

“He really responded to that pop-out offense we used to get him open on the wing against their zone,” Pimm said. “He’s awfully tough from 17 feet when he’s facing the basket.”

And when he’s battling for offensive boards, or denying an opponent the ball, or setting up a fast break with a quick outlet pass or . . . well, you get the idea.

But Fisher didn’t win this one single-handedly. It just seemed that way. Actually, the Anteaters, who have been playing just poorly enough to lose recently, responded with another lackluster performance and handled the ball like it had been shipped in from a leper colony.

UCI’s starters alone committed 23 turnovers.

“We were 12 for 30 in the first half and had 10 turnovers,” Mulligan said. “And then when we went to overtime, I was looking at our guys on the sidelines and they all had their heads down like they were saying to themselves, “I guess we’re supposed to lose now.”

Tod Murphy led the Anteaters with 18 points and 12 rebounds but made 7 costly turnovers.

The first half looked like a pilot for college basketball’s version of Foulups and Blunders. In one quick exchange, UCSB’s Mauryc Carr missed and followed his own layup attempts three times. Then, on the other end, Murphy went up for a jumper, but he got off on the fourth floor and the ball kept going straight up to the penthouse. And Conner Henry led the Gauchos break the other way before firing a pass--straight to someone on the end of UCI’s bench.

Mulligan, who has quit smoking, admitted he missed a cigarette most right before a game. Before Saturday night’s, he stood in a runway leading to the Event Center floor, chewing furiously on his nicotine gum and said, “We’ve got to win this game. If we don’t win this one, we’re in real trouble.”

Guess who’s in real trouble?

The Anteaters have 11 PCAA games left, and they still have to play league-leading Nevada Las Vegas twice and away games at Fresno and New Mexico State.

“We were picked to finish third in this league,” Mulligan said, managing a smile. “I think we’ve put a lot of pressure on ourselves now.”