Anteaters Handle Titans From Start : College basketball: Behind freshman Dylan Rigdon’s nine-for-nine shooting, UC Irvine routs Cal State Fullerton, 94-76.

Sure UC Irvine’s woebegone basketball team has been improving lately. Things couldn’t stay as bad as they had been.

But who could have predicted a 94-76 Anteater victory over Cal State Fullerton Saturday?

Certainly not Irvine assistant coaches Ernie Carr and Tim Murphy, filling in for Coach Bill Mulligan, who was attending his mother’s funeral in Chicago.

“I’ve got a better winning percentage than Tark,” Murphy shouted as he hurried to do a postgame TV interview. “That was fun,” Carr said.

Nevada Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian has the best winning percentage of any active coach in the NCAA.

Carr and Murphy are 1-0, awaiting Mulligan’s return.

And who could have guessed that freshman Dylan Rigdon would come up with a 26-point, nine-for-nine shooting performance? Even Rigdon, who made seven three-point baskets, seemed surprised by his long-range accuracy.

“I never shot it like that before,” he said.

His teammates were equally stunned.

“For a while,” center Ricky Butler said, “I wasn’t even rebounding. I’d just say, ‘Count it,’ and start running down court.”

It was all strange but true as Irvine pounded Fullerton before a crowd of 2,412 at the Bren Center.

The Anteaters, who had lost 15 of their past 16 games and had fallen to the Titans by 27 points last month, quickly found themselves in an unfamiliar position Saturday.

Irvine had a 10-0 lead before the game was 3:22 old. Rigdon had swished two three-pointers by then and the rout was on.

By halftime, Irvine’s lead was 43-28. It swelled to 64-44 after Jeff Herdman’s three-pointer with 12:10 left to play and topped out at 24 points, the last time, 87-63, with 2:42 remaining.

In nine shots, Rigdon never hit the rim. Everything he shot--even a first-half moon ball over the outstretched hands of Cedric Ceballos, Fullerton’s 6-foot-7 forward--hit nothing but net.

Rigdon’s shooting was infectious.

Herdman had 20 points off the bench, making five of eight from the field, including three three-pointers. Butler had 10 points and hit four of five shots.

Craig Marshall also had 10 points for Irvine (4-21 and 2-14 in the Big West).

The Anteaters made 14 of 22 (63.6%) three-pointers, shot 50.8% overall from the field and 80% from the free-throw line.

By contrast, the Titans shot 42.5% from the field and 61.5% from the free-throw line.

Ceballos led Fullerton (12-14, 6-11) with 32 points and 18 rebounds.

The loss was the Titans’ sixth in a row and their 11th in 14 road games this season.

“We were never ready to play,” Fullerton Coach John Sneed said. “I was even disappointed with how we took the court for warm-ups. We were flat and they had an outstanding shooting percentage, and together that made for a long day.”

Aside from Ceballos and brief flashes from Agee Ward, who had 11 points, the Titans offered little resistance.

“We played catch-up all night and lost all execution on offense,” Sneed said.

Irvine has never looked better, not in its 98-97 upset of UC Santa Barbara last Saturday.

“We outworked them,” said Carr, who was the interim head coach at Saddleback College last year and spent 12 seasons at Dominguez High School in Compton before coming to Irvine. “We didn’t have any lulls in our energy levels.”

Anteater Notes

Irvine’s 63.6% three-point shooting percentage was just shy of the school record of 66.7% set in a 121-111 victory over Bradley Dec. 18, 1986. . . . Dylan Rigdon’s 100% field-goal shooting percentage was bettered only by Mike Doktorczyk’s 12-for-12 performance last season.

The loss clinched a losing regular-season record for Fullerton. The Titans play host to fourth-ranked Nevada Las Vegas on Saturday. . . . Irvine closes out the regular season at San Jose State Thursday and at Utah State Saturday.

If the season ended today, Fullerton and Irvine would play in the first round of the Big West Conference tournament March 7 at the Long Beach Arena. . . . This was Irvine’s first conference victory in the Bren Center since the Anteaters beat San Jose, 91-69, Feb. 9, 1989--a span of 13 games.

The 18-point margin was the largest in the Irvine-Fullerton series since a 98-72 victory by the Anteaters in the 1966-67 season. . . . Fullerton leads the series, 25-22, but Irvine has won six of the past nine games.