Brooks Beats Pain, Helps UCI Beat UOP

Take a seat, Scott Brooks--once, twice, three times--right where it hurts. In an 83-77 UC Irvine victory over the University of the Pacific Monday night, the Tigers found Brooks’ sore spot--a deep bruise in his right buttock--and sent him landing on it three times.

“I was in pain throughout the whole game,” Brooks said.

Yet Brooks kept standing, limping his way through 35 minutes of playing time and gimping his way to 22 points that helped Irvine to its third straight Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. triumph in front of 1,777 in the Bren Center.

See, Brooks has been dealt worse from Pacific. Growing up a few three-point baskets away from the Stockton campus, and dreaming of someday wearing the Tigers’ orange and black, Brooks reached college age, only to be turned away by the Pacific coaching staff.

Twice.

“It’s a sore subject with me,” Brooks said. “Playing for UOP, that’s all I ever wanted. My high school coach, Bill Stricker, played there. He was my idol. I wanted to play there too.”

Brooks played for Stricker at East Union High in Lathrop, a small town located “about five or six miles from UOP,” according to Brooks. Brooks averaged 28 points his senior year.

“Every time (Pacific scouts) watched me, I had a great game,” Brooks said. “But they didn’t offer me anything at all.”

After one year at TCU and another at Stockton’s San Joaquin Delta Community College, Brooks was there for Pacific’s taking again.

“They wanted me to walk on,” Brooks said. “Too short, that was the rumor. They said they wanted to be loyal to their returning guards, but I heard through the grapevine that it was because I was too short.”

And Brooks’ response?

“I don’t know it you can print it,” he said. “Basically, ‘See ya later.’ ”

Brooks wound up at Irvine, where he is averaging 24 points a game and views every Anteater meeting with Pacific as a sacred mission.

That’s why re-bruising the bruise didn’t seem to matter to Brooks in the grand scheme.

“I had to play,” Brooks said. “I do not want to lose to them. This is for bragging rights.”

And after Monday’s victory, Brooks was proud to brag, “So far, I’m 3 for 3.”

Tom O’Neill, the Pacific coach, was asked if he regretted signing a local boy who has scored 43, 36, 30, 29 and 28 points in games for Irvine this season.

“I would love to coach Scotty Brooks,” O’Neill said. “We talked to him in high school, but at that time we had just brought in three freshman guards, so we needed to go for big guys. We also had a redshirt who was also 5-11. You can only have so many 5-11 guards.

“It was the same situation after JC. We had five guards and all of them were sophomores.”

One of them, James Gleaves, started for the Tigers Monday. He played 18 minutes, missed all five shots he attempted and did not score.

Brooks was playing with what he called “a bruised behind,” a nagging injury he sustained against Iowa when one of the Hawkeyes sent him sailing into the basket standard. Against Pacific, Brooks went sailing again. But he wasn’t alone. Bodies fell all evening in a brutish and brutal game, one that caused wincing from players and spectators alike.

“We got past it, that’s the way I look at it,” Irvine guard Mike Hess said in his postgame summation. “If we can play like that and win. . . .”

Sloppy was too light a description for the first half. Irvine (3-2, 8-6) shot 38% and made 10 turnovers. Pacific (2-3, 6-8) shot 40% with 11 turnovers.

After 20 minutes of slow-mo, Irvine led, 36-33.

After the first-half buzzer sounded, Anteater Coach Bill Mulligan slowly arose from his seat, shook his head and trudged into the locker room.

“Coach made a few points at halftime” was how Hess put it. And center Wayne Engelstad swore that Mulligan broke no chairs, tables or blackboards.

Irvine came out and shot 51% in the second half, just enough for the victory.

Engelstad had 19 points and Frank Woods and Joe Buchanan each contributed 13 for the Anteaters.

Pacific received 26 points from Christian Gray and 20 apiece from James Ray Richardson and Brent Counts.

And then there were Brooks’ 22.

Brooks was asked if he felt Pacific had erred in its judgment of him.

“I think they did,” he said. “But I’m happy at Irvine. You don’t always get what you want.

“I wanted to be ‘Local Boy Makes Good.’ Instead, it was ‘Local Boy Goes to Irvine . . . and Does Better Than Expected.”