UCI Beats Fullerton, 76-70, to Snap Titans’ Series Win Streak at 6

While Cal State Fullerton players met behind closed doors Thursday night in Titan Gym--perhaps to discuss the perils of schizophrenia--UC Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan was all aglow.

Mulligan looked like a man who just had a giant burden lifted from his shoulders. Or was it a giant monkey off his back?

Irvine’s 76-70 Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. victory in front of 3,354 spectators left Mulligan feeling considerably better about himself. After six straight losses to the Titans, he was beginning to feel pretty miserable.

But that series of frustrations finally ended as Fullerton, with Coach George McQuarn home in bed trying to recover from bronchial pneumonia, continued its fall from grace, and Irvine continued its surprising uprising. The Anteaters are 4-2 in the PCAA, 9-6 overall. Fullerton, with its fourth loss in the last five games, fell to 1-3 in conference play, 8-5 overall.

Trailing, 32-29, at halftime, Irvine outscored the Titans, 20-5, in the first seven minutes of the second half to take a 49-39 lead. Fullerton pulled to within six points but could get no closer. The Titans are not a good come-from-behind team. At the moment, they’re not a good team, period.

Sophomore forward Kevin Floyd, a transfer from Georgetown who came to Irvine with a reputation as a defensive specialist, had a career-high 24 points and senior guard Mike Hess, filling in for ailing Joe Buchanan, had 13 points and 6 assists to lead Irvine to a victory that was an instant addition to Mulligan’s most-cherished list.

“It’s right up there,” Mulligan said. “The two at Vegas, the one in Pauley Pavilion, and this one.”

This one because it means that Mulligan will no longer have to hear about the Titans’ complete domination of this series the past two seasons. And because it came against a Fullerton team that showed such promise in starting the season with a 7-1 record.

The Titans seemed to have an entirely different personality then. They played with confidence. They played with intensity. Now, they appear timid and unsure of themselves.

“I can’t put a finger on it,” said Fullerton assistant coach John Sneed, who assumed the coaching duties in McQuarn’s absence. “After the UOP loss (on Jan. 5) we took a giant step backwards, and we haven’t been the same since.”

Henry Turner led Fullerton with a career-high 25 points. Guard Richard Morton continued his search for his missing jump shot, going 4 for 14 from the field to run his PCAA shooting totals to 20 of 62.

Morton’s poor shooting is just part of the reason for the Titans’ January swoon. McQuarn’s illness and the fact that a flu bug has prevented Fullerton from following a normal practice schedule this week are also possible explanations. But there’s more to it than that. The Titans seem like a completely different team than the one that, in December, had five straight victories over teams that played in postseason tournaments last March.

“Great teams are able to bounce back after losses,” Sneed said. “At this point, we haven’t been able to do that. We had so much success early that we didn’t really know what losing felt like.”

Mulligan had seen Fullerton play in person only once this season, a 100-58 victory over Southern Utah on Dec. 8. He said there was a noticeable difference in the Titans’ intensity in that game.

“Next time they play us, they’ll be as intense as hell,” he said. “I know that. But tonight, I get to enjoy this.”

It was an unlikely victory for a couple reasons. With Buchanan hospitalized with severe stomach pains, the result of a still-mysterious ailment, the Anteaters were without their best ballhandler against Fullerton’s pressure defense. Hess turned out to be a more-than-capable replacement. But when Irvine guard Scott Brooks, who came into the game averaging 24.1 points a game, is held to two points in the first half and a season-low 11 for the game, the Anteaters figure to be in trouble.

But along came Floyd with a 9-of-15 shooting performance to offset the loss of Brooks’ scoring. The Titans overplayed Brooks and left Floyd with a number of shot opportunities, and he took full advantage.

Said Brooks: “He does it in practice. In previous games, he hasn’t shot enough to have a good shooting game.”

Sneed said the performance surprised him, and cut a large hole in the Fullerton game plan.

“In the first half, he did exactly what we expected him to do,” he said. “But I really thought at the time that I’d give him another 10 points if we could hold Brooks to another two.”