Utah State Hands UC Irvine Another Road Loss, 106-103

A final score of 106-103, two teams shooting better than 50%, and four players setting personal career scoring records were among the offerings provided by UC Irvine and Utah State at the Spectrum Saturday night.

“What else do you expect when the Anteaters and Aggies get together?” Utah State Coach Rod Tueller said.

Well, usually you expect an Irvine victory. Before Saturday, the Anteaters had won 12 of their last 15 meetings with Utah State, and the town of Logan had become a private oasis on the arid Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. road for Irvine. Excluding an overtime decision over Oral Roberts last December, the Anteaters haven’t won outside Orange County since March, 1986. But at Logan, they owned a 5-1 record in six seasons under Coach Bill Mulligan.

Again, that was prior to Saturday. This time, amid all the points and all the personal bests, Utah State emerged a 106-103 winner when a hurried, three-point shot attempt by Irvine’s Wayne Engelstad kicked off the front of the rim with four seconds left.

Yes, with the game on the line, the Anteaters had their 6-8, 240-pound center cast off the decisive shot from 20 feet. And it was the shot the Anteaters wanted, the only realistic shot they had.

It was that kind of night.

Irvine was scrambling, trailing by six points with 38 seconds left, before Engelstad and Kevin Floyd pulled the Anteaters to within one with 11 seconds remaining. Engelstad hit a three-pointer and Floyd sank two baskets in the lane to cut Utah State’s lead to 104-103.

But a desperation foul sent the Aggies’ Kevin Nixon to the free-throw line and Nixon made both shots to put Utah State ahead by three. The Anteaters took the ball out of bounds with no timeouts left and four players on the bench with five fouls.

Among the disqualified were three-point specialist Scott Brooks and Irvine’s only other long-range threat, Mike Hess.

“We had no three-point shooters left,” Mulligan said. “We had no timeouts left. We still got the ball into the hands of one guy who’s a pretty good shooter.”

That was Engelstad. The Anteaters sprinted down the floor and got the ball to Engelstad, who already owned a career-high 30 points.

“And I thought I had 33,” he said.

Engelstad released the ball from beyond the three-point stripe with four seconds on the clock and the shot was on line. “It was as good a shot as we could’ve gotten,” Engelstad said.

But not quite good enough. Engelstad’s attempt was inches short, bouncing off the lip of the rim. Utah State rebounded and held onto both the ball and the victory.

Even if Engelstad’s shot had found net, forcing the game into overtime, the Anteaters were still in big trouble. With Brooks, Hess, Frank Woods and Rob Doktorczyk all having fouled out, Irvine was down to a lineup of Engelstad, Floyd, Mike Doktorczyk, Steve Florentine and Peter Strauss. Florentine and Strauss both average 1.9 points a game.

“I don’t know if we could’ve won in overtime,” said Engelstad, whose 30 points came on 10-of-19 shooting from the field. “We had no players left.”

When asked how his team might have fared in the extra period, Mulligan simply laughed.

The loss was the third straight for Irvine, dropping the Anteaters to 6-7 in the PCAA and 11-11 overall. It marks the first time they have been under .500 in conference since they were 1-2 in early January.

The loss also left Irvine with a road record of 1-6 in conference and 2-9 overall. The Anteaters’ lone PCAA victory outside the Bren Center came Jan. 15 at Cal State Fullerton.

Utah State (5-7, 12-12) received career-high scoring outputs from Nixon, who finished with 33 points, and forward Danny Conway, who had 26. That helped negate Engelstad’s 30 points and Hess’ 17, another personal high.

Brooks, who scored 43 points during a 118-96 victory over Utah State a month ago, was limited to just 18 before fouling out. He was 6 of 13 from the field and 2 of 8 from three-point range.

“I just choked,” Brooks said. “They came out planning to stop me and they did a good job of that. I didn’t do anything about it.”

Utah State had finally rediscovered the way to win against Irvine. Mulligan, coaching a slumping team that plays little defense and is currently playing without point guard Joe Buchanan, almost saw it coming.

“This was the year to get us,” he said.