A Little Defense Works Wonders for UC Irvine Against Fresno State

UC Irvine’s basketball team has dabbled in just about every kind of defensive and offensive scheme this season, but Thursday night the Anteaters tried something new: Good old-fashioned man-to-man defense.

As a result, Irvine turned the tables on defense-minded Fresno State and came away with a 64-61 Big West victory in front of 2,946 in the Bren Center.

Yep, hard as it is to believe, Irvine (5-9 overall, 2-3 in the conference) won a game with defense.

Granted, most of it came in a concentrated stretch late in the second half. Fresno tied the score at 49, with 9:24 left in the game and then went almost 5 minutes without scoring. Then Irvine really turned up the intensity level on the defensive end and blocked 3 consecutive Bulldog shots in the last 3 minutes.

For Irvine, Even a little defense is a lot this season.

With 3:15 to play, guard Rod Palmer made a diving save of a loose ball and flipped it back off the foot of the Bulldogs’ Jervis Cole before it ricocheted out of bounds. That play seemed to inspire Palmer’s teammates to new defensive heights.

On Fresno’s next possession, Mike Doktorczyk blocked a shot by Pat Riddlesprigger. Then Ricky Butler swatted away a shot by Bijou Baly. And then a flying Palmer raced back to block Baly’s layup attempt.

Doktorczyk made 4 of 5 free throws in the final 43 seconds to drop Fresno State to 8-7 overall and 3-3 in the Big West.

“I thought they played good defense, especially in the second half,” Fresno Coach Ron Adams said. “They worked hard and their pressure hurt us. Sometimes, teams figure they’re going to be in a defensive contest when they play us and it works against us.”

It certainly didn’t appear that way early when the Anteaters came down with yet another case of opening-minutes stage fright.

First, a huge Anteater hanging from the Bren Center rafters was unveiled in a pregame ceremony, and then it promptly began to deflate. Shortly thereafter, the Anteaters began losing air and Fresno jumped out to a 22-9 lead with 9:01 remaining in the half. But Irvine, buoyed by the 3-point shooting of Palmer, rallied and trailed only 32-28 at halftime.

Palmer, a junior transfer from UCLA, finished with a game-high 20 points. He was 8 of 13 from the floor and 4 of 6 from 3-point range. Guard Kevin Floyd, who scored 12, and forward Ricky Butler, who also had 12, were the only other Anteaters in double figures.

“It was a nice time for me to come out of my shooting slump,” Palmer said. “It felt real nice. I think everyone gave that little bit extra on defense tonight, and now we’ve finally proved to ourselves we can stop someone.”

It was an extremely physical game. The officials whistled 40 fouls. Only Bulldog center Rene Ebeltjes fouled out, but seven other players had 3 or more fouls.

“It was physical but it was fun,” said Butler, who led Irvine with 10 rebounds, including 5 offensive rebounds. “I think I got a chipped tooth once when I got hit in the jaw, but we’ve been working on defense in practice a lot lately and this time it carried over into the game.”

Floyd drew the assignment of guarding Cole, the Bulldogs’ top scorer. Coach Bill Mulligan, displeased with Floyd’s defensive efforts of late, said he wanted to “challenge” his senior guard.

So much for that motivational ploy. Floyd didn’t exactly shut down Cole, who had 11 points at halftime after making 5 of 8 shots. Mike Labat took over after the intermission and Cole finished with 15.

“I just tried to deny him the ball,” said Labat, who last week lost his status as a starter after making 22 starts in a row over 2 seasons. Mulligan had referred to Labat’s play as “lethargic,” but he was singing the junior forward’s praises Thursday night.

“I was kind of down when he didn’t play me in San Jose,” Labat said, “but I realized he just wanted me to play harder.”

That just about summarizes Irvine’s season so far. The Anteaters are down and Mulligan wants them to play harder. Thursday night, they gave it a try . . . and it worked.