Anteaters Do Have Experience : College basketball: UC Irvine women’s team has 12 players back from last year’s 1-27 season.

“A disaster,” Dean Andrea said. “An embarrassment.”

The UC Irvine women’s basketball team won one game last season, 59-57 over Southern Utah State.

They lost the other 27.

The average score was 73-48.

Is it good news or bad that 12 players are back from that team?

Andrea, in his 13th season as Irvine coach, says the good news is that this season’s team is playing hard.

“That’s a start,” he said. “That’s what we didn’t do last year, to be honest.”

Irvine’s first game will be Friday against Portland State in the University of Idaho tournament in Moscow.

With last year behind them and the memory of that season etched in their minds, the Anteaters should be better, Andrea said.

“We learned a lot from last year,” he said. “With the season we had last year, you either become stronger or fold.”

Because most of the team is back for more, assume they’re stronger.

“We have experienced young ladies. They are not overly talented or skillful,” Andrea said.

The most encouraging aspect of last season was the performance of Yvonne Catala, a 6-foot-1 forward who not only broke into the starting lineup as a freshman but also was the team’s leading scorer (11 points per game) and rebounder (five per game) by the end of the season.

The backcourt returns intact. Jenny Lee, a senior point guard, and junior Kathy Lizarraga, the shooting guard, were second and third in scoring last season.

Andrea had hoped to strengthen the inside game, but two returning players who seemed likely to help there have been beaten out at their positions, at least for now.

Kim Cox, a 6-4 sophomore who started 19 games and blocked 16 shots last season, is playing behind Geanine Hobbs, a junior who started 15 games but is three inches shorter.

Shurrell Johnson, a senior forward who redshirted last season because of a shin fracture, was expected to inject leadership. Instead, she is playing behind Denise Gandara, a freshman guard who averaged 22 points at University High last season.

“Johnson has been somewhat of a disappointment,” Andrea said. “She did not come back in very good shape.”

Gandara earned a start in her first college game, against the Bulgarian national team in the Anteaters’ exhibition.

Irvine started well and was down by only three at halftime, 34-31, against a team that includes half of Bulgaria’s Olympic team. But in the second half, Andrea said, the team “ran out of gas” and lost, 82-56.

And with another long season ahead, it’s far too early to be running out of gas.