Long Beach Hands Irvine 15th Loss in a Row, 102-63

Cal State Long Beach buried UC Irvine under an avalanche of dunks, acrobatic moves to the basket and long-range jump shots in a 102-63 Big West Conference victory before 1,649 at the Long Beach gymnasium Thursday night.

Even by Irvine’s standards, this was a blowout of major proportions. Irvine has lost 15 consecutive games.

Much of the 49ers’ scoring rampage was fueled by an aggressive full-court press.

It was the worst loss for Anteater Coach Bill Mulligan in his 10 seasons at Irvine, eclipsing a 36-point loss at Nevada Las Vegas earlier this season.

The Anteaters’ 15th consecutive loss tied the school record of 20 losses in a season set in 1979-80, the year before Mulligan became coach.

Irvine, which hasn’t won since Dec. 16, fell to 2-20 overall, 0-13 in Big West play. Long Beach, which had lost four of its past six conference games, is 15-7 and 7-6.

The game was close for 2 minutes 4 seconds. A layup by the 49ers’ Tyrone Mitchell gave Long Beach the lead, 6-5.

Then a 17-0 run by the 49ers over the next 5:29 broke the game open. Irvine, which trailed, 39-21, at halftime, got no closer than 13 points the rest of the way.

“I’d like to apologize for a terrible performance,” Mulligan said. “I can’t explain it. We played a great game against New Mexico State (a 79-75 loss last Thursday at Las Cruces) and against a press, too, and almost pulled it out.”

The Anteaters made only five of 21 shots from the field (23.8%) and had 15 turnovers in the first half, a season-high 28 for the game.

“We haven’t had many games like we had tonight,” 49er Coach Joe Harrington said. “We played like we were angry. We haven’t done that in a long, long time.”

Rudy Harvey had 16 points, Darrell Faulkner 14 and Bobby Sears and Kevin Cutler 12 each for Long Beach.

Jeff Von Lutzow had 12 points to lead Irvine.