Freedom Bowl Tournament : Anteaters Show Up Without Their Defense, Still Get Past Army

UC Irvine’s basketball team won its season opener Friday night, defeating Army, 90-68, in the Freedom Bowl tournament before a crowd of 1,469 at the Bren Center.

The Anteaters won rather easily, but they weren’t exactly awe-inspiring . . . or impressive . . . or even pretty good. They shot reasonably well (49% from the floor) and ran the offense on occasion, but their defense was, well, pretty bad.

Army lost its top four scorers--including Kevin Houston, who led the nation in scoring with a 32.9 average last season--to graduation and Cadet Coach Leo Wothke was wondering where the points would come from this season.

If Friday night was any indication, they’ll come from directly beneath the basket. Almost half of Army’s points, including the first 14 in the second half, came via the layup.

Of course the Cadets aren’t the first--and, undoubtedly, not the last--to discover that a trip to the Bren Center can be an instant remedy for the offensive blues.

The Anteaters, who meet Manhattan College for the tournament championship at 8 tonight, have been stressing defense since the first day of practice, but it didn’t pay many dividends Friday. Army, picked to finish last in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, plays Air Force for in the consolation game at 6.

“We’re so into trying to get in the passing lanes and deny the pass that we let them get open for the layups,” Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan said. “We didn’t have enough pressure on the ball, but we adjusted after the early going in the second half and they didn’t score too many more layups.”

Mulligan was obviously not overjoyed with the Anteaters’ defensive intensity in the early going. He grimaced after layups, turned red and paced along the bench after short baseline jumpers and finally screamed: “See the ball. See the ball. Where’s the . . . ball, Wayne?”

Wayne is Wayne Engelstad, who led Irvine with 23 points and is a common target of Mulligan’s tirades. But he wasn’t the only Anteater getting lost on defense. Army, using a version of a four-corners offense much of the first half, continually beat the Anteaters to the basket.

Irvine may not be playing much better defense these days, but it’s fouling more. The Anteaters committed 9 first-half personal fouls and three players--Frank Woods, Mike Doktorczyk and Jeff Herdman--had three fouls at halftime. A great many of those fouls came when the Cadets were going in for layups.

“We substituted a lot and got into foul trouble,” Mulligan said. “You can’t force a team to play your way unless you can get it done on the defensive end.”

The Anteaters won, however, because they did what they do best--shoot.

“They take the kind of shots that normally you’d like a team to take, but they’re such a fine outside shooting team,” Wothke said, shaking his head. “They really lit it up.”

Engelstad provided almost all of Irvine’s inside offense and designated shooters Doktorczyk, who had 16 points, and freshman Justin Anderson (10 points) did much of the long-range scoring. Woods added 13 points.

Army was led by center Todd Mattson, who scored 11 points.

In the first game Friday night, Manhattan outscored Air Force, 26-14, in the final nine minutes to beat the Falcons, 76-71. Senior guard Billy Wheeler, who scored 25 points in the second half for the Jaspers to finish with a game-high 32, scored 12 in the nine-minute Manhattan rally.

Air Force shot 60% from the field in the first half and led, 35-27, at the intermission. But Manhattan slowly cut the margin and caught the Falcons (61-61) with 4:28 remaining in the game.

The Falcons made one more field goal than the Jaspers (26-25), but Manhattan was 23-of-38 at the free throw line and Air Force was 15-of-17.