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UC Irvine Is Beaten by Nevada Reno, 89-86, in Tournament Title Game

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Times Staff Writer

Late Thursday night, Nevada Reno guard Rob Harden hitched a ride aboard a bus taking UC Irvine from Sacramento to Reno for the Wolf Pack tournament. Harden had gone home for the holidays, and the heavy fog that closed the airport in Reno had left him stranded in in Sacramento.

Saturday night, Harden showed his appreciation by scoring 33 points to lead the Wolf Pack to an 89-86 win over UC Irvine in the championship game in the Lawlor Events Center.

Harden, a 5-10 senior with an unorthodox shooting style, took advantage of the three-point play rule that Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan agreed to play with before the game. It was his long-range semi-jumpers that led to Irvine’s downfall in the Anteaters’ first appearence in a tournament championship game since 1981.

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Harden finished with seven three-point shots. The loss dropped Irvine to 4-5. Nevada Reno is 5-7.

Reno had a 12-6 scoring spurt to take a 75-69 lead with 4:08 to play. Harden capped the burst with a three-pointer that came after Murphy had slapped away his attempted reverse layup. Following an Irvine timeout, Harden hit another three-pointer to give the Wolf Pack a 78-69 lead with 3:21 remaining.

The first half evolved into a contest to see which team could hit the most long-range jump shots. It ended up in a 45-45 tossup.

Irvine led most of the way, but Reno never fell more than three points behind, thanks mostly to Randall and Harden. Harden had 12 points, all of which came on three-point shots. Randall was effective both inside and outside, and led all scorers at halftime with 17 points.

Reno took a 45-43 lead with 10 seconds remaining when James Moore hit from the top of the key. Brooks hurried the ball down court and passed it inside to Murphy, who drove for a layin at the buzzer to tie it at 45.

The Anteaters outshot Reno in the first half, hitting 53% of their field-goal attempts to the Wolf Pack’s 42%.

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Scott Brooks, who had scored a career-high 18 points against Loyola Marymount Friday, nearly equaled that with 16 at halftime.

Irvine entered this tournament coming off two losses. The Anteaters were playing well below preseason expectations, and the players knew it.

“It looked like we were on the verge of crumbling,” Rogers said.

Irvine opened the tournament Friday night against Loyola Marymount, a team which had beaten the Anteaters by 22 points just nine days earlier. The circumstances leading up to the rematch all pointed to another rout. Murphy was questionable with bruised ribs. Troy Carmon, who had started the first seven games at forward, was ill on Thursday and did not make the trip. The Anteaters arrived in town at 3 a.m. Friday by bus from Sacramento, altering their travel plans because of heavy fog at Reno Airport.

It didn’t end there. Mulligan was taken to a nearby hospital Friday afternoon, suffering from a kidney stone. He was treated and released in time to return to the Anteaters’ hotel and go with the team to Lawlor Events Center.

All of which made Irvine’s 99-75 win over Loyola Friday all the more surprising. The Anteaters’ fast break was the best it has been all season. Rogers hit 12 of 21 shots from the field to climb above 50% shooting (.513) for the first time all season. Engelstad, starting in place of Carmon, had 8 points and 8 rebounds. Brooks had 18 points. Reserves Rick Ciaccio and Rob Doktorczyk saw substantial playing time for the first time this season, and combined for 10 points and 7 rebounds.

It looked like a far different team from the one that lost to Loyola on Dec. 18.

Said Murphy: “We’ve got too many good players with too much pride to get blown out again. We had a couple of team meetings, and we decided we were going to try to play every game like it’s the last one.”

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Some Irvine players seemed to feel that the win could prove to be a turning point in their season. Rogers wasn’t ready to draw that conclusion.

“It’s just one game,” he said. “We have to keep this in perspective. Loyola’s a good team, but we’ve beaten better teams.”

Loyola didn’t exactly bounce back in Saturday night’s consolation game. The Lions fell to 6-5 with a 77-56 loss to Portland.

Loyola shot just 41.5% from the floor and was outrebounded, 34-29. Guard Keith Smith, held to a season-low 14 points in the loss to Irvine, could only equal that output against Portland. The 6-4 senior was 7 of 19 shooting.

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