Fullerton Beats UCI for 8th Time in 10 Meetings : Anteaters’ Shooters Are Stalled by the Titans’ Athletes, 66-54

Bill Mulligan, the UC Irvine coach, and George McQuarn, the Cal State Fullerton coach, are in their sixth seasons as heads of their programs. Both have had their share of success over the years, but they took opposite routes to get there.

Mulligan recruits natural shooters and hopes to mold them into all-around basketball players. McQuarn recruits athletes and hopes to mold them into all-around basketball players.

When they go head-to-head, the athletes seem to fare better. Fullerton has won 8 of the last 10 meetings.

It wasn’t supposed to be that way Thursday night, though. Mulligan brought senior front-line players Tod Murphy and Johnny Rogers, who were averaging more than 20 points each, into Titan Gym, and McQuarn’s top two scorers--Kevin Henderson and Richard Morton--were sitting on the bench with injuries.

But the athletes (who ended up shooting 66% from the floor) were in the faces of the shooters (who hit just 41% of their field-goal attempts) all night and the result was a 66-54 Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. upset win for Fullerton. The Titans are 3-3 in conference play and 10-8 overall. UCI drops to 3-2 and 7-7.

“Quickness . . . it’s the quickness,” Mulligan said. “It was the super-quickness that we just don’t have. I don’t know how much better Henderson and Morton could have played.”

They could have combined for 70 points without missing a shot and McQuarn wouldn’t have been any happier.

This game wasn’t just a big win over a county rival when more than half of his offense could offer nothing but moral support. It was vindication of all of McQuarn’s coaching philosophies, everything he has preached to every basketball player who would listen. It proved teamwork can win basketball games and “playing hard” can indeed make a difference.

“It was a tremendous effort,” McQuarn said, beaming. “I thought we played great defense for 40 minutes. And we got great support from the bench . . . players who knew their roles were just to come in and give someone a rest.”

McQuarn was especially pleased with the job the Titan inside players--Herman Webster, Kerry Boagni, Tee Williamson and Vincent Blow--did on Murphy and Rogers. Murphy still scored 19 and Rogers had 15, but those points didn’t come easily. Both scored almost half of their points at the free-throw line.

But the rest of the Titans were getting it done defensively, too. No other Anteater scored more than eight.

Fullerton’s aggressive man-to-man defense took Irvine out of its offense in the early going and the Titans scored 11 in a row to turn a 9-5 deficit into a 16-9 lead. They never trailed again.

UCI made a mini-run at the outset of the second half and tied the score, 29-29, but the slumping Boagni awoke and hit three quick jumpers to put Fullerton up by 8 (39-31) with 14:44 remaining.

Fullerton maintained an 8- to 12-point lead most of the way after that and the Titans finally started to celebrate when Alexander Hamilton stole the ball at midcourt and typified the Titan athleticism with a flying reverse dunk that made it 66-52 with 30 seconds left.

“Coach (McQuarn) showed us the tapes of the second half against San Jose State (when Fullerton rebounded from eight points down to beat the Spartans, 41-40, after Morton was hurt),” sophomore forward Henry Turner said. “It inspired me to play really hard. He told us even though things look bad, don’t ever give up.

“I think we wanted it more than them.”

Turner, who rediscovered his outside shooting touch, led Fullerton with 18 points. Boagni was so far back in the doghouse lately he didn’t see daylight--yet alone action--in the second half Monday against University of the Pacific. But he gave the Titans a huge lift by hitting six of eight jumpers Thursday.

But then it was one of those games when everyone in blue and orange seemed to have a big night. Blow had a career-high 10 points, making all four from the floor and both shots from the line.

Before the injuries to guards Henderson and Morton, the game was supposed to be a battle between UCI’s big men inside and Fullerton’s smaller big men outside.

As it turned out, the Titan guards, in this case Eugene Jackson and Hamilton, may have been the big difference, anyway. They combined to make 9 of 14 from the field, had 5 steals and both tied their career-high scoring outputs (13 for Hamilton and 12 for Jackson).

“We needed a shot in the arm, we needed some juice ,” McQuarn said, his voice rising.

“They really tried to do what the ol’ coach asked ‘em to,” he added quietly.

And then he actually smiled.