Brooks Makes Point for Tiny, Mighty UC Irvine

The reporter from Wichita had come down all the way to Tulsa to see this one, a 92-91 tip-at-the-buzzer, come-from-behind overtime victory by UC Irvine over Oral Roberts.

He came away disappointed.

“Y’all didn’t shoot your three-pointers,” he lamented.

Word of mouth travels fast, and already, after just five games, the 1986-87 Irvine Anteaters have a national identity. They are known for two things.

They are short.

They can shoot.

For this, credit must be given Scott Brooks. Call him The Imagemaker. At once, Brooks is both the shortest, and the shootingest, Anteater--a 5-11 blur of blond hair, stubby legs and set-and-grunt heaves from beyond the three-point line.

He is a symbol, the biggest misfit on a group of misfits that is a surprising 3-2 after upsets of such heavies as Nebraska and Bradley.

Watch Scott Brooks scramble around in the powder blue-and-gold of Irvine, heading Bill Mulligan’s offense for the ‘80s, and you quickly conclude that there is something wrong with this picture. Where are the black high-tops, the greasy crew cut? With that strange little set shot of his, sending basketballs disappearing into the lights and then resurfacing in the net, Brooks belongs in one of those grainy 1955 newsreels, launching the shots of yesteryear.

He looks like a man out of time, but in no way is Scott Brooks an anachronism. He scored 36 points against Nebraska, an Irvine record for a guard. He had 28 points against Bradley and 22 against both Oral Roberts and Boise State. He is averaging 25 points a game, shooting 53% from the field and 51% from three-point territory.

That’s state-of-the-art enough for Mulligan.

Mulligan, himself a member of Undersized Anonymous, has a special appreciation for what Brooks can do in the land of the giants.

“He’s shown the little guy can still play,” Mulligan said. “His ability to hit the three-point play really opens things up for us. They have to honor him out there and that creates a lot of things for us inside.

“He has the green light. We don’t hold him back. We want him to put it up, off the break, whenever.”

Brooks does. And usually, the shot travels the same path.

First it draws laughs. Then rain. Then applause.

Describing it is nearly as much fun as watching it.

“It’s almost a shotput,” Mulligan says.

“A catapult,” offers Irvine assistant Mike Bokosky. “It almost seems like he puts it up there on a platter.”

Brooks wonders about all the fuss. To him, his shot looks pretty good.

“I’ve heard I shoot it from under my chin, but I think I have great form,” Brooks said. “I shoot with a lot of arc. I always have. But I played with a lot of guys bigger than me when I was younger. People were blocking my shot constantly.

“My high school coach and I worked on a shot that would work. I had to find a way to get it over the bigger guys.”

Brooks had lots of practice. From Day 1 of high school, his daily challenge was getting the ball over the bigger guys.

“Going into high school, I was 4-11 3/4,” said Brooks, making sure to get the three-quarters in there. “I was a little shrimp. But I did all right. I averaged 19 points on the freshman team.

“Then, that summer, I grew seven inches. I thought, ‘Hey, if I grow seven inches each summer, I’m going to be something special. Seven-seven in high school.

“But after that,” he adds with a touch of remorse, “it started slowing down.”

Brooks topped out at 5-10 in high school, where he averaged 28 points a game. In Lathrop, Calif., a town of 5,000 just outside Stockton, that was fairly heady stuff. And when little Scotty got an actual scholarship offer from big-time TCU, the town folk were mighty impressed indeed.

Brooks, though, was close enough to the ground to keep his feet on it.

“I was recruited, basically, only by TCU,” he said. “And that was through luck. A former assistant coach to (TCU Coach Jim) Killingsworth used to coach at a high school in the area. He told him about me.”

But when Killingsworth called, Brooks didn’t hesitate to accept.

“The thought of being at a big-time school in the Southwest Conference and playing against Akeem Olajuwon, that was the bait,” Brooks said. “And I was like a little guppy.”

Akeem Olajuwon?

“I saw him on TV and thought he was the greatest player I’d ever seen,” he said.

So Brooks went to TCU. And he played. And, finally, he got his moment against Akeem.

Brooks remembers it as “the most intimidating experience I’ve ever been through.”

Brooks: “Here I am, 18 years old, coming out for warm-ups, and there are the Houston Cougars, Phi Slama Jama, dunking the basketball left and right. It was something like I’d never felt before.

“But I had my best game at TCU--12 points, 7 assists.”

And, one memorable drive against Akeem Olajuwon.

“I have a picture of me shooting a jumper over him,” Brooks said with a laugh. He held two fingers six inches apart. “The ball is this much over his hand and he’s three feet off the ground, so he really altered the shot. It didn’t come close.”

Brooks smiles.

“But, in 20 years, I’ll show that photo and tell you, ‘Yeah, I made that shot.’ ”

So much for Great Moments at TCU, Scott Brooks File. After finishing the season, Brooks felt he was finished as a Horned Frog.

“I averaged 18 minutes as a freshman, which was good in the Southwest Conference, especially with Killingsworth, who (usually) didn’t play freshmen,” Brooks said. “But, mainly, I was homesick. I was so far away. I was only 17, 18 years old--the baby in a family of seven. I don’t think I was ready to leave. I just never adjusted.”

In a way, TCU was too big for Brooks. Brooks actually thrived on Lathrop’s smallness.

The leading industry in Lathrop?

“We had a Circle K,” Brooks said with a giggle. “And a Tokyo Joe’s restaurant. There’s not much at all. You just roam the streets or play basketball in the local gym.”

Which was fine with Brooks.

So he returned to Northern California and enrolled in Stockton’s San Joaquin Delta Community College, where he averaged 14.5 points on a team that was ranked No. 1 in the state before losing to Riverside in the state tournament.

It was during that loss that Mulligan first noticed Brooks.

Mulligan: “I was there to scout another kid, Tarre Isiah of Riverside. I noticed this little white guy on the other team, playing with the brothers. He was so tough and he could shoot.

“I asked about him and found out he played at TCU. I know Killingsworth from his days at Cerritos (College) and asked him, ‘You know that little guy?’ Killingsworth says, ‘Yeah, he played for me. He liked the program but hated the state.’

“I asked, ‘You want him back?’ And he said, ‘No, he quit. But he was the toughest kid I had.’ ”

So Mulligan began the pursuit. He didn’t have much competition. New Mexico State showed some interest. So did Westmont. The local university, the University of the Pacific, seemed a natural--but the Tigers were offering only a partial scholarship.

Brooks describes his recruiting trip to Irvine as “a baby with a piece of candy. It was my first time in Southern California. The beach was 10 minutes from here, I couldn’t believe how everything was so new. Nice cars, beautiful campus.”

For Mulligan, it was an easy sell.

Thus, one of the all-time collegiate career sweeps was complete. From Horned Frog to Anteater . . . a parlay that may never again be equaled.

At Irvine, Brooks served a junior season of apprenticeship. He was the setup man, not the set-shot man. Last season, two of Brooks’ teammates were Tod Murphy and Johnny Rogers. Murphy and Rogers got Irvine into the National Invitational Tournament, where Murphy and Rogers led Irvine past UCLA.

“Last year, our job was to get the ball to John and Tod,” Brooks said. “Which was the fair thing to do. They’ll lead us to the promised land. Last year, the guards were not looking to score. Last year, a good night for us was 25 points . . . combined.”

This year, the guards are The Guys. Along with Brooks, senior Joe Buchanan is averaging 14.8 points and junior Mike Hess 11.0.

“I like this year’s job better,” Brooks said.

With more shots have come more points. And with more points has come, uh, more confidence.

He’ll cast away the three-pointer unflinchingly--shooting it off the fast break, off set plays, virtually anytime.

He takes the court with the half-strut, half-swagger of a bullfighter. Or, at least, a pit-bull fighter.

“At that size, he has to walk that way,” Mulligan said. “I know. They say I have a Chicago strut. But when I was growing up, if I wanted to go outside the house, I had to walk like that.”

And with the women at UC Irvine, Brooks has a certain reputation as a big man on campus. Gotta be a basketball hero.

“The darling of Crawford Hall,” sports information director Bob Olson calls him. “All the women love him.”

Ask Brooks about it, though, and he’ll say, “ Awwww, I don’t want to talk about it.”

See, Brooks has a girlfriend back in Lathrop. But he really doesn’t want to talk about her, either. Because, what the girls at Irvine don’t know . . .

“I’m just havin’ fun,” he said, his face reddening.

More quick facts about Brooks:

--His nickname among the Anteaters is Coffee Mocha. Buchanan gave him that one. “JoJo says it’s because I have some funk to my game,” Brooks explained. “I’m not black, I don’t play like a white guy. I’m right in between. Light brown, mocha, I guess.”

--He rooms with Wayne Engelstad, the 6-8, 240-pound center. “Wayne’s my Baskin Robbins buddy,” Brooks said. “I love chocolate chip. I like the one flavor, he gets the other 30.”

--His hobbies do not include hang-gliding, although that’s what Olson printed in the Irvine media guide. “That’s a joke!” Brooks said, laughing. His grin then turns impish. “Well, I wrote it down (on a questionnaire), but I didn’t think Bob would believe me.”

--He could never play for Indiana. “He’s the all-time overachiever,” Bokosky said. “He’s overzealous defensively, he gets out of position, but he always seems to be in position when he needs to be. Bobby Knight would go goofy with him.”

--Frank Woods saved his life. Woods, of course, is the junior forward who tipped in the winning basket for Irvine against Oral Roberts. Woods tipped in a shot originally missed by Brooks. “Frank Woods saved my life,” Brooks said, “because I hate to lose. That would have been the worst.”

--He wants to get into coaching, if a playing stint overseas or in the planned 6-4-and-under professional league doesn’t materialize. “He’d be ideal in the 6-4-and-under league,” Mulligan said. Brooks isn’t so sure. “Is that hearsay or what?” Brooks said. “Is it really going to come off? I never really thought about it.”

Right now, Brooks is concerned with leading the 3-2 Anteaters--or, the “Runnin’ Anteaters,” as he calls them--to 4-2. Irvine plays at Montana tonight.

Then, there’s the Crawford Hall finale against Pepperdine Saturday. And then, right around New Year’s Day, there are meetings with No. 3 Iowa and No. 1 Nevada-Las Vegas--separated by just three days.

“I think about those games,” Brooks said. “There’s a chance we could be playing the No. 2 and No. 1 teams in the nation. With two upsets, what would that make us?

“We’ve been opening some eyes as the season progresses. I’m not making any predictions, but we’re capable of giving a lot of teams predicted at the top of our league a run for their money this season.”

And a shrimp shall lead them.