UCI Goes Big Time, Fans Go Wild in Center

It took 20 years, but the UC Irvine basketball team finally graduated from high school.

Commencement exercises were held Thursday night in the newly christened Donald Bren Events Center, where the Anteaters moved into their 4,500-seat arena and severed ties with 1,500-seat Crawford Hall.

The former home of the Anteaters, which so many coaches, players and fans had compared to a high school gym, is but a few full-court passes away from the Bren Center on the Irvine campus. But Thursday night, Crawford Hall seemed a million miles away.

The stage and curtains behind press row, the pull-out bleachers on one side of the court, those jokes by opposing players who practiced in gyms bigger than Crawford Hall--they’re all distant memories for the Anteaters.

You got the feeling Thursday night that college basketball, real college basketball, had finally arrived in Irvine.

It had nothing to do with the quality of the product on the floor, which at times during Irvine’s game against Utah State was questionable by Division I standards.

It had plenty to do with the atmosphere in the Bren Center, which seemed distinctly major collegesque .

First there was the arena itself. You walk in, look up above center court, and there’s this giant scoreboard, similar to those at most professional and college basketball arenas. On the south wall of the arena is a color message board.

Then there were the fans who filled the Bren Center. The sell-out crowd of 4,542 screamed at all the right times, they waved blue-and-gold pompons, they went wild in the seats behind the basket when an opposing player shot a free throw.

There were even a few who painted their faces, half blue and half gold, and wore “ZOT” T-shirts. And, yes, they did the wave.

All of which might not make anyone forget Duke vs. North Carolina or Syracuse vs. Georgetown. But compared to games in cozy Crawford Hall, this was prime-time college basketball.

“I loved it,” Anteater Coach Bill Mulligan said after Irvine’s 118-96 victory. “I was beginning to wonder if we had students, but I found out tonight that we do.”

The fans loved it, too.

“I’ve been here for five years and I’ve never seen school support like this,” said Colleen Patton, a senior psychology student. “There’s so much energy in here.”

There were times in Crawford Hall, during the Kevin Magee years, when such energy was present at Irvine’s home games. But there’s a big difference between 1,500 screaming fans and 4,500 screaming fans.

“A lot more people in here creates a lot more energy,” said Michelle Uszler, a freshman majoring in biological science. “There’s a lot more spirit and excitement. It really adds a lot.”

Several fans believed that the new atmosphere will breed a new and better image of UC Irvine basketball. The Anteaters, they believe, can finally call themselves a major college basketball team.

“It seems like this might make us an acceptable college basketball school, as opposed to a circus that comes through town,” said Greg Stoddard, a 1986 graduate. “Maybe they’ll spell our name right now.”

Added Greg Berbaum, a senior electrical engineering major: “This is definitely a step up from the hole we used to be in. That (Crawford Hall) was kind of a small place. This (arena) should build the prestige of our program, so we can bring some good players in. If they came and saw this game, I think they’d be impressed.”

Finally, this from Christa Patton, Colleen’s sister and a graduate student: “It seems real professional in here. Maybe now, they won’t call us Cal-Irving anymore.”