UC Irvine Plays Host to Utah State

Instead of practicing Sunday night, Coach Bill Mulligan of UC Irvine held a 3 1/2-hour meeting with his basketball team. The players looked at the videotape of Saturday’s 103-68 loss to Nevada Las Vegas, evaluated their overall situation and listened to Mulligan yell.

“I guess we give our guys too many options on offense,” Mulligan said. “I want to be able to look at the tape of a game we lost and say, ‘We lost, but you did what I wanted. You ran the offense.’ ”

The Anteaters (6-6 overall and 1-2 in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn.) would rather run in practice than watch themselves make mistakes for three hours. They will get a chance to change Mulligan’s mood tonight at 7:30 when they play Utah State (9-4, 4-0) at the Bren Center.