Titans Put UCI Out of Its Misery : College basketball: Cal State Fullerton’s 82-63 victory in the Big West tournament brings an end to UC Irvine’s longest season.

Bill Mulligan could pick up a calendar and pinpoint it weeks in advance. The happiest day of his life, waiting for his arrival.

As of March 7, Mulligan and his UC Irvine basketball team would be rid of the worst season in the school’s 25-year history, and through with that losing streak, no matter how long it had stretched.

The day came Wednesday, and as expected, the season ended before the day did. Irvine’s last loss in a 5-23 season came against Cal State Fullerton, 82-63, in the first round of the Big West Conference tournament at Long Beach Arena.

Fullerton, which stopped a seven-game losing streak, advances to a quarterfinal game against third-ranked Nevada Las Vegas at 9 p.m. Friday.

Some reward: UNLV has eliminated Fullerton each of the past five tournaments and beat the Titans by 28 and 18 points this season.

Irvine arrived at the final day of its season as scheduled, but a funny thing happened on the way to the celebration. Irvine actually had cause for disappointment. After breaking their school-record losing streak at 15 games against UC Santa Barbara, the Anteaters won three of their final six games--.500 ball--including an 18-point victory over Fullerton.

“We thought we were really good,” Mulligan said, and waited a beat. “We weren’t.”

No, they weren’t.

Fullerton put the final stamp on a strange season’s series between the teams. The Titans won by 27 points, and lost the second by 18. This time they jumped to a 36-16 lead in the first half, and that was about it.

Against Fullerton late last month, Irvine shot 51% from the field, 80% from the line, and 64% from three-point range--14 of 22.

Dylan Rigdon, a freshman, made seven of seven three-pointers in that game and nine of nine shots.

Against Fullerton Wednesday night? No resemblance.

In the first half, Irvine went 0 for 9 from three-point range. And Fullerton made seven of 11, including all three attempts by Van Anderson, a reserve forward who averages three points a game.

By the game’s end, Irvine had made only 41% of its shots. Excepting the work of center Ricky Butler, who made 10 of 14 shots and scored 22 points, the Anteaters made only 16 of 50 shots--32%.

From the free-throw line, they made only six of 13--46%.

And Rigdon, unflappable and unstoppable in the previous game, made only one shot, a layup, and went 0 for 5 from three-point range.

It was a big difference from the first time.

“Yeah, he missed shots tonight,” Fullerton Coach John Sneed said of Rigdon. “Last time, from 19, 25 feet, everything he threw up went in. We had a little more awareness of where he was this time.”

Rod Palmer, the only senior starter on the Irvine team, added 20 points, including five three-pointers.

Fullerton shot 51%, and made eight of 17 three-pointers.

“On a given night, there’s no substitute for shooting the basketball,” Sneed said. “I think Mulligan will agree with that.”

For the only time this season, Fullerton started a game without Cedric Ceballos on the court. Sneed benched him for the first four minutes for being late to Tuesday’s practice.

Ceballos, who wore a black armband with the name “Hank” on it, said he was late after attending the memorial service for Hank Gathers, who was his teammate on a summer league team at Cal State Los Angeles.

Ceballos finished with 19 points and 12 rebounds.

Mark Hill led Fullerton with 22 points, making nine of 15 shots, including two three-pointers.

“We didn’t want to go out tonight and lose the game,” Hill said.

As Ceballos saw it, Fullerton owed Irvine something.

“That was a hard loss,” he said of the teams’ previous meeting. “We expected to get that one. It put us in the position of having to play Irvine (in the tournament’s first round). If we had won, they probably would have played someone else.”

Fullerton (13-15), which has struggled lately, played much better.

“Unbelieveable,” Sneed said. “It couldn’t have come at a better time.”

Just in time for a game against UNLV.

Mulligan, pressed for a prediction, tried to be diplomatic, with little success.

“I don’t want to get into that,” he said. “I don’t know, you know, maybe they can hang in there and do a good job . . . I think Vegas is a Final Four team. I’ve said that all along.”

Ceballos, who have averaged 28 points and 15 rebounds in the five games he has played against UNLV in his career, has a theory himself.

“I think it’s time for an upset,” he said.

Tournament Notes

As expected, Larry Johnson of Nevada Las Vegas was chosen the Big West Conference player of the year in a polling of the coaches. UNLV’s Stacey Augmon, last year’s player of the year, didn’t make the first or second team, earning only honorable mention. . . . Cedric Ceballos, runner-up to Augmon last year, repeated as a first-team selection. . . . There is hope for the future for Irvine, which placed two players on the all-freshman team: Dylan Rigdon and Jeff Von Lutzow. Other members were Lucious Harris of Cal State Long Beach, Idris Jones of UC Santa Barbara and Kevin Logan of San Jose State.