UC Irvine Notebook / John Weyler : Mulligan Isn’t Afraid to Change His Game Plan . . . or His Mind

Jerry Tarkanian, the quintessential college basketball coach and the consummate college basketball fan, plopped down in a seat in the San Diego Sports Arena with a clipboard in one hand and a box of popcorn in the other.

“You know why Bill Mulligan’s the best coach in America?” asked the Nevada Las Vegas coach, who as the winningest active coach in the country could stake claim to that title himself. “Because he’s the only coach who can change his plan in the middle of the season and still be successful.

“Look at what he did last year. He changed completely and . . . “

Tarkanian didn’t need to finish the sentence. Mulligan switched the Anteaters’ offensive scheme at midseason to complement center Wayne Engelstad and Irvine upset Tarkanian’s Runnin’ Rebels in the semifinals of the conference tournament.

If Tarkanian was impressed with Mulligan’s chameleon act last season, he must have been awe struck Friday night as he watched Mulligan do the Philosophy Flip-Flop at halftime against San Diego State.

And it was the second game-plan reversal in a 4-game-old season. A quick chronology:

- Mulligan talks all preseason about Irvine’s plan to take a run at the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. record for scoring average and then the Anteaters are humiliated in the season opener when their opponent--lightly regarded Georgia State--blows them off the Bren Center court and rolls to a 109-84 victory.

- Mulligan junks the full-court press, slows down the offense and Irvine beats Texas Christian, 83-75.

- For game No. 3, Mulligan shifts the offense again, using three different players to bring the ball upcourt and Irvine loses in the final seconds to the University of San Francisco, 82-80.

- San Diego State rolls to a 45-27 halftime lead against Irvine’s passive, sagging defense. The Anteaters go back to the press and the running game in the second half and close the gap to 6 points twice before losing, 102-88.

Now, the question: Is this genius? Or madness?

Inflexibility is a trademark of a great many college basketball coaches. Georgetown’s John Thompson took a lot of heat for playing the game his way and losing the gold medal in the Olympics. But the Hoyas have been very successful under his iron rule.

The problem with comparisons of this kind is that not all programs are created equal. The Tarkanians and the Thompsons of the world can recruit players with talents that fit into their game plan. The Mulligans are left to sift through the leftovers.

And Mulligan’s recruiting philosophy is to grab the best players he can--whether they’re big, slow inside players or pure shooters with negligible defensive skills or quick ballhandlers who can defend but can’t score.

This year, Mulligan believed he had enough players with enough quickness and defensive prowess to play the up-tempo style he has long advocated. But the single most important factor in the running game is the press. If you want to run and the other team doesn’t, the only way to force the tempo is to press.

As it turns out, Mulligan probably doesn’t have the players to go with a full-tilt running game and a full-fledged, full-court press.

The not-so-obvious problems:

- Point guard Rod Palmer, a transfer from UCLA, has not displayed the ballhandling skills Mulligan & Co. envisioned. And while Palmer gives an all-out effort on defense, he cannot stop a deft point guard from dribbling through the press.

- Off-guard Kevin Floyd, never known as a defensive wizard despite an awesome array of athletic talents, has suffered numerous defensive breakdowns thus far.

- And forward Mike Labat, who the coaches have been calling the team’s best defender since he arrived from the University of Idaho last year, has shown that his good positioning and long arms are better suited to half-court defense than the full-court press.

The obvious problem:

- The Anteaters have three excellent shooters--Jeff Herdman, Justin Anderson and Rob Doktorczyk--who don’t have the speed to be much help in the press. At least one of them is always on the court, and it doesn’t take long for a team to find the weak link in a full-court press and exploit it for bunches and bunches of breakaway layups.

So Mulligan has fiddled with his once-grand scheme. And he’s still fiddling. Saturday night against Pepperdine, Irvine will unveil its new three-quarter-court press . . . probably.

“I know this is a good story, but I don’t want to talk about it because it makes us look like we don’t know what the hell we’re doing,” Mulligan said.

But Mulligan, never one to hold back his opinions, kept on talking.

“We’re still going to press when we need to if a team refuses to run with us,” he said. “But now we’re going to be into adjustments. We just can’t afford to be dogmatic. If we run into a post player we can’t handle, we’ll sag and double on him. If we play against a point guard we can’t defend, we’ll back off the press.

“Some coaches stick with the same plan year-in and year-out, whether it works or not. I just don’t have the patience for that.”

But can the players handle all this now-we’re-pressing-now-we’re-not, now-we’re-running-now-we’re-not stuff?

Herdman: “I think we’ve got to pick a way to play and stick with it.”

Palmer: “We’ve been making a lot of mistakes and I guess some people not being too sure what they were supposed to do could be part of the problem.”

Floyd: “Changing back and forth . . . well, sometimes you don’t know whether to take a quick shot or slow up and run the offense.”

Labat: “I don’t have any answers. I guess there will be a lot of teaching going on this week. I’m not sure what we’re going to be doing.”

Right now, it appears the Anteaters aren’t too sure whether they’re coming or going. They’re all aware, however, that their winning percentage is going down in a hurry.

As for the current game plan, well, Mulligan says Irvine will start with a run-and-press attack against Pepperdine. Watch out for that first timeout, though. After that, who knows what might happen.

Anteater Notes

The women’s volleyball team suffered a devastating loss in a 5-game match at Cal State Long Beach last Saturday that ended its first venture into the NCAA playoffs. But Coach Mike Puritz was able to put it all in perspective this week. The Anteaters had a 14-13 lead in the final game and had two spike attempts that could have won it before losing, 16-14. Irvine’s best hitters--Kris Roberts and Ali Wood--had rotated to the back row for the crucial final points. “It was a painful loss, but it was a season full of positives,” Puritz said. “We’ve got everyone back but two players, so I’m already thinking about next year.” . . . Assistant Mike Bokosky says he thinks the players are “confused,” but Coach Bill Mulligan thinks the players need to shoulder some of the blame for the basketball team’s failure to make his full-court press work. “I’ve always prided myself on getting my guys to play hard and right now we’ve got a few guys who are not playing as hard as they should,” he said. Later, he communicated that feeling to his players during practice. “The bottom line is how aggressive you play,” Mulligan said. “I want you guys to watch 5 minutes of tape of (Nevada Las) Vegas. Five minutes is all we’ll need. After you watch it, if you can honestly tell me that you’re playing as hard as they are, then I’ll stay off your (butt) the rest of the season.”

The return to the press should mean more playing time for Troy Whiteto. The 6-2 transfer’s job will be to stop opponents from dribbling through the press and force a pass that will allow his teammates to trap. “Troy is the only guy in the gym who can defend the ball,” Mulligan said. “He doesn’t have to do anything else to get a lot of playing time.” . . . Former Irvine star Kevin Magee called Mulligan from Israel the other night to tell him he had a player for him. “He said he had this 6-4 Israeli guy who can really shoot,” Mulligan said. “I asked him how well he moved and he said, ‘Not that great, but he can really shoot.’ I told him thanks anyway, but I’ve got lots of guys like that. I guess he’d seen our scores in some American papers over there and was feeling sorry for me.” . . . About 400 tickets for the Irvine-UCLA game on Dec. 28 are on sale at the Bren Center box office. The game was previously announced as a sellout, but UCLA returned 400 tickets of its original allocation.