McArthur Is Armed and Dangerous : College basketball: UC Santa Barbara center ranks with nation’s leading rebounders, shot-blockers.

Most men’s fingertips graze the bottom of their shorts. Eric McArthur’s wrists meet the hem of his shorts, and his hands dangle below, slender fingers reaching toward his knees.

McArthur is 6-feet-7, but from fingertip to fingertip, his arms measure 7 feet 3 1/4 inches--”maybe 3 1/2,” he says.

His nickname at UC Santa Barbara is The Freeze, which even McArthur finds difficult to explain. To his oldest and best friends, he remains “Arms.”

Those limbs are among the reasons McArthur is among the leading NCAA Division I rebounders and one of the top shot-blockers.

“My mom always said my arms were real long,” he said. “She didn’t know if it was normal or a defect.”

Such a defect can make a man famous.

“I think I may have a genetic disorder,” he says, laughing. “I’ve heard all the jokes, like I can scratch my knees without bending. But that’s nice. My arms have enabled me to succeed.”

McArthur is averaging 13.5 rebounds a game, which leads the nation but is just 0.02 rebounds per game ahead of Anthony Bonner of St. Louis.

“The pressure of being the leading rebounder in the country is kind of difficult,” said McArthur, who will lead the Gauchos against Nevada Las Vegas tonight in Santa Barbara. “When you have a bad game, you’re worrying about what the other guys in the country are doing. If they get 16 or 17 rebounds, they can catch up pretty quick. It’s been distracting.”

In 18 of the 24 games he has played for Santa Barbara this season, McArthur has had at least 10 rebounds. He has had more than 15 eight times, more than 20 four times. In a loss to New Mexico State last month, he had 28.

At 6-7, McArthur must go against many taller players. Although he jumps quickly and with fine timing, he does not have extraordinary leaping ability. His vertical leap is about 36 or 37 inches, he said.

“I think people don’t understand how much difference long arms make,” said Laker General Manager Jerry West, who has scouted McArthur.

He has developed their use slowly. As a freshman at Santa Barbara, fresh out of South Pasadena High School where he averaged 19.2 rebounds a game as a senior, McArthur was out-rebounded in practice by Brian Shaw, the Gauchos’ 6-6 guard who became a first-round draft choice of the Boston Celtics.

“Brian Shaw would come swooping down the middle, grab it off the glass and start the break,” McArthur said. “I’d be like, ‘Brian, why are you taking my rebounds away?’ ”

Ben Howland, a Gaucho assistant coach, would turn on him.

“Because that’s his job,” Howland would say.

McArthur, who was 6-5 1/2, 180 pounds as a freshman, played in 15 games that season and averaged 1.8 rebounds. As a sophomore, he became a starter and averaged 6.5. Last season, he averaged 10.1. As a senior, he is more able to hold his own inside.

“I didn’t really get that many the first two years,” McArthur said. “Then I got the mentality: just go get the ball. I’ve always been in the right position. I always go to the off-side or wherever the angle is. But my aggressiveness has come up a couple of notches.”

He has also learned to choose his spots on defense, cutting down on fouls he used to make while trying to block shots. After fouling out of eight games last season, he has been disqualified only three times this season.

“By backing off, he can get more rebounds because he stays in the game longer,” Santa Barbara Coach Jerry Pimm said.

Thirty-five percent of his rebounds are offensive.

“Offensive rebounding is just within me,” he said. “I go where I think the ball is going to come off, and it usually does. My arms are so long I can just extend them, and tap the ball toward me.”

He is not merely a rebounder. He is also the Gauchos’ leading scorer, averaging 16.1 points a game. In a loss to New Mexico State, he had 18 points and 28 rebounds. In an overtime victory over Cal State Fullerton last month, he had 28 points and 21 rebounds.

And he blocks 3.1 shots per game.

Last month against UC Irvine, McArthur blocked five Ricky Butler shots.

Butler, a 6-7, 255-pound center, wasn’t being guarded by McArthur, but nearly every time he shot, McArthur ranged over to reject the effort, usually swatting it back toward Butler with enough force that Butler had to duck. Butler shot one for seven that night.

Against Fullerton recently, Santa Barbara was trying to hold off a Titan rally in the final two minutes. Fullerton’s Dareck Crane set up for a shot near the top of the key, and McArthur rushed from under the basket to block it beyond the three-point line.

Most of McArthur’s blocks come not against his own man, but against someone else’s. This is in part because he knows the men he guards are so conscious of him that they are likely to try to pump-fake or pass around him. So McArthur stays home on them, and then rushes out to block the shots of the unwary.

It’s a gamble, because it leaves McArthur’s own man open, ready to rebound. Pimm has responded to the situation with a fairly unorthodox drill, a four-on-four defensive rotation drill designed to make the players react defensively when McArthur goes for a block.

“It’s a big gamble, but that’s where I get most of my blocks,” McArthur said.

His prowess affects not only his own statistics, but the team’s as well.

Other teams shoot only 40% against Santa Barbara, the lowest opponents’ field-goal percentage in the Big West Conference.

“Most of the time, if he doesn’t block the shot, he’s going to make them alter the shots,” Pimm said. “That’s the reason our opponents’ shooting percentage is so low.”

McArthur has his eyes on the NBA, where he will have to move from center to small forward. The biggest questions will be about his offense.

“From an offensive standpoint, he has a way to go in the pros,” Pimm said. “He has an inside game. He can turn and shoot, use the drop step, shoot a little hook.”

But McArthur will need to develop more of a perimeter game, and scouts say he will be watched closely in postseason all-star games to see how he responds to playing in other systems and to playing farther from the basket.

McArthur is waiting, armed and ready.