Irvine Gets Its Meeting With Iowa : Anteaters Rout Eastern Washington, 97-68, to Gain Final

UC Irvine will get its day on court against mighty Iowa and all that that means--the 11-0 record, the No. 3 national ranking, Roy Marble and the other front-line pillars, the busloads and busloads of black-and-maize crazies. And isn’t that all the Anteaters ever wanted?

Irvine put together its very own two-day, four-team tournament in order to lure the Hawkeyes out here. To accommodate the traveling bands of Iowa fans, the Anteaters even switched playing sites--abandoning friendly but puny Crawford Hall for spacious but neutral Long Beach Arena.

And then, just to make sure an Iowa-Irvine matchup would materialize in tonight’s Anteater Tournament final, Irvine brought in a first-round opponent named Eastern Washington University.

Maybe next year, the Anteaters can just schedule themselves a bye and be done with it.

Irvine extends itself more in shoot-arounds than it did in Sunday night’s 97-68 victory over a pitiable Eastern Washington team that has been ravaged by graduation, injury and player defections. What did it all prove? Irvine sleepwalked into the 8 p.m. title game against Iowa, a 84-65 winner over Portland, and Eastern Washington received its eighth straight thrashing.

The Eagles are 1-9, but that only tells part of the story. All five starters from last season are gone, as are junior guard Tracey Mackey (left school), junior center Orville Butler (quit team) and junior forward Randy Smith (knee surgery). Their only victory came against state rival Gonzaga, which came back four weeks later to beat EWU by 29 points. Of their nine losses, the smallest margin of defeat has been 18 points.

The Anteaters, making an attempt at diplomacy, tried not to say the obvious.

But it all eventually came out.

“I don’t want to become a bad guy,” said Irvine guard Scott Brooks, who scored 29 points, “but they were pretty bad. Well, their guards were good. I can say that with a straight face.”

From Coach Bill Mulligan: “They’re well-coached. They just don’t have any players.”

From last-man-on-the-bench Peter Strauss, who played three minutes and scored two points: “If I can score off them, they must be pretty bad.”

Irvine (5-3) could scarcely maintain interest for more than a half. The Anteaters shot 54% from the field in the first half--Brooks was 5 of 7 from three-point range--while Eastern Washington shot 42%, its season average.