Dylan Has Fullerton Tangled Up in Blue

Three minutes into Saturday afternoon’s game at the Bren Center, UC Irvine’s Jeff Von Lutzow tipped in a missed shot, giving the Anteaters a 7-0 lead, and a solitary voice rang out from the crowd:

“Final Four, baby!”

Not winning hasn’t stopped the grinning at Irvine. With the Can’t-beaters and their fans, a sense of humor has been the last thing to go.

The laughs keep coming, although by sundown, the one-liner of the day was in need of a re-write.

The Anteaters’ postgame battle cry?

Finally, four, baby.

That’s four as in 4-21, Irvine’s record now. Three games ago, however, it was 2-20, so in relative terms, things are going just great for the ‘Eaters these days.

Consider Saturday’s 94-76 triumph over Cal State Fullerton. On Jan. 25, Fullerton played host to Irvine at Titan Gym and rolled to an 82-55 victory. One month later, they meet again and the Anteaters win by 18 points--a one-game swing of 45 points.

Some turnaround. Some month. Today, Irvine is Orange County’s basketball team on the move and Fullerton, 0-6 since Feb. 3, is now the team mired in the dregs of a gnarled losing streak.

What in the world has happened between then and now?

You mean, besides Dylan Rigdon?

The blowout at Fullerton wasn’t a total washout for Irvine, in that Anteater Coach Bill Mulligan decided to junk his starting lineup immediately afterward. This was one negative that begat a positive, with Mulligan moving Rigdon and two other freshmen, Von Lutzow and Craig Marshall, into the starting five and keeping them there.

If this year was in the dumpster, why not play some kids and begin tryouts for the 1990-91 season a little early?

Rigdon’s impact was instant. In his first start, against Fresno State, he scored 20 points. Irvine lost by three. The next game, against the University of the Pacific, Rigdon scored 22. Irvine lost by one.

The Anteaters were getting closer. And last Saturday, at last, Rigdon helped them break through, scoring 24 points as the Anteaters stopped their school-record 15-game losing streak with a stunning upset at UC Santa Barbara.

“That broke the ice,” Rigdon says. “It kind of clicked in our heads that we’re not as bad as we’ve been made out to be. We can beat some people.”

Well, not Las Vegas people. Not yet. Thursday night, Nevada Las Vegas handed Irvine its expected 22-point setback.

But Fullerton people?

Why not?

The last time North and South Orange County collided, Irvine didn’t have anybody sinking moonshots from all over the gym, going 7 for 7 from three-point land and 9 for 9 overall.

Saturday, it did.

In the rematch, Rigdon was a human catapult, but more than that, he was sheer perfection. Pick a spot on the Bren Center floor, any spot, and Rigdon was right on.

All net, too. Tapes will have to be studied to determine if Rigdon so much as grazed the rim with any of his nine bull’s-eyes. Human eyes could detect no contact.

“He’s got a little Scott Brooks in him,” mused Anteater assistant coach Tim Murphy, alluding to the little Irvine bomber who now plays for the Philadelphia 76ers. Like Brooks, Rigdon has the type of high-arcing shot that brings rain. A hard rain, as another Dylan once wrote.

“Coach (Mike) Hess tells me that one of these days, I’m going to hit one of the lights,” Rigdon said with a smile.

In the first half, he nearly did. With Fullerton’s Cedric Ceballos taking a running lunge at him, Rigdon had to sky the ball so high, it passed through re-entry before passing through the hoop.

“I had to do that to get it off,” Rigdon said. “You know Ceballos, he’s a pretty big kid.”

Kid? Kid? Ceballos will have finished his second NBA season before Rigdon is legally old enough to drink his first beer.

But, then, Rigdon is a freshman growing up in a hurry.

As a senior at Mater Dei High School, Rigdon was hardly recruited at all. Besides Irvine, Pepperdine showed the most interest. San Diego State, Montana and Santa Barbara also gave him a call. “I wasn’t heavily recruited,” Rigdon said. “I was just known as a shooter.”

At Irvine, that’s usually enough. Rigdon averaged 19.3 points last season at Mater Dei and hit 195 of an astounding 223 free throw attempts, good for a county-high 87.7%

From Randy Whieldon to Johnny Rogers to Scott Brooks, the gunning Anteaters have lived on that kind of shooting for years.

But it took the desperation that comes with 15 consecutive losses for Rigdon to get the chance to add his name to the honor roll.

“Coach Mulligan has told me, ‘If we weren’t losing, you probably wouldn’t be playing,’ ” Rigdon said. “If we were 17-10 or something, I could understand that. I’d accept that I wasn’t good enough to play yet and I needed another year or two to work my way into the lineup.”

But when Irvine left Titan Gym at 2-16, Rigdon quickly became good enough.

“Our losing gave all the freshmen a chance to play,” Murphy said. “We got Rigdon in there, we got Von Lutzow in there. Craig started getting more than his usual five to 10 minutes a game.

“The freshmen are playing and they’re gaining great confidence in themselves.”

Chalk it up as a step in the proper direction. Final Four? At Irvine, they’ll gladly settle for finally forward.