Irvine Has Off Night in 72-67 Loss to Long Beach

UC Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan was feeling so good about his team this week that he ventured to say it was better than last season’s squad because of the number of “offensive weapons.”

All five starters had scored 25 or more points in a game.

Mulligan probably hadn’t even considered the possibility that all those weapons would turn out to be duds on the same night.

Until Thursday night.

Cal State Long Beach made five of nine free throws in the final 1:12 and hung on for a 72-67 Big West Conference victory at Irvine’s Bren Center.

But this was more a game of what Irvine (11-13 overall and 8-7 in the conference) failed to do, than of what Long Beach (13-12, 10-6) accomplished.

Irvine, the No. 6 team in the country in three-point field goal percentage, made just two of 13 three-pointers. The Anteaters free-lanced all night and rarely ran their offense. And they played virtually no inside defense, allowing 49er post players to make a combined 22 of 32 shots. As a result, the 49ers shot 64% for the night.

Long Beach center John Hatten, who scored 37 in the first game between these teams, scored 16 points but played just 27 minutes because of foul problems. It it was the inside play of forward Rudy Harvey, reserve Marco Fleming and guard Tyrone Mitchell, who spends more time posting up than working the perimeter, that carried the 49ers to victory.

Mitchell made six of eight shots--including a rare three-pointer with 1:46 left to propel Long Beach to a seven-point (67-60) lead--and finished with 16 points. Fleming made five of six shots and scored 14 points. Harvey hit four of six shots and scored 11 points.

“I’m really proud of this group of guys,” Long Beach Coach Joe Harrington said. “They’ve overcome a lot of adversity--injuries, playing with such a short team. They’ve shown a lot of character.”

For Irvine, forward Jeff Herdman, who scored 29 points in a win at Fresno State, made two of seven shots and scored five points. Mike Doktorczyk, the Big West player of the week last week, scored 12 points with five turnovers. Guard Rod Palmer made four of 11 shots and finished with nine points.

Senior guard Kevin Floyd and sophomore forward Ricky Butler each had 18 points for Irvine.

“We started going one-on-one early on, and that sort of set the tone for the game,” Doktorczyk said. “Actually, we didn’t do much of anything right.”

Butler: “Don’t ask me how or why, but somehow the December team showed up tonight.”

Irvine was 2-5 in December, but the Anteaters thought that was just a bad memory. Thursday night, they had a flashback, and it was definitely a bad trip.