McDonald and Rigdon Help Irvine Win a Title

Complain, if you will, that UC Irvine’s shooting guard can hardly hit a shot, and that its point guard hardly has any assists.

The complaints are being shushed for the moment at Irvine, where despite such oddities, the Anteaters won their Freedom Bowl Classic by defeating Bradley, 94-85, Saturday in the Bren Center.

With that, the Anteaters have a two-game winning streak for the first time since February, 1989. And with a 3-2 record, they are above .500 for the first time since March, 1988.

“Long as we’re winning, it’s fine,” said point guard Gerald McDonald, who scored 21 points and made three three-point shots in the second half as Irvine came back after trailing at halftime, 36-33.

While McDonald was scoring, the Anteaters’ slumping shooting guard, Dylan Rigdon, was handing out assists, finishing with nine, seven of them in the second half. Rigdon scored 14 points, but 11 of them came on the free-throw line, where he missed only one shot. Rigdon was one of seven from the field.

Ricky Butler added 18 for Irvine, and Jeff Herdman had 14 including four three-pointers.

Irvine fell behind in the first half, shooting 28% from the floor. Bradley’s Curtis Stuckey, who led all scorers with 29 points, scored 11 in the first half.

“We played with intensity both halves,” said Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan. “The difference was that in the first half, we shot 28%.”

Irvine shot 58% in the second half, finishing at 42%.

Rigdon’s shooting has been a continuing source of bewilderment on this team. As a freshman last year, Rigdon averaged 17 points over the final nine games.

After four games this season, he was averaging only 9.5 points. Surprisingly, he had only eight field goals, and was shooting 26% from the field.

He is the player Irvine would most like to see shoot. But as he has struggled, and against the backdrop of Mulligan’s cries of “Shoot! Shoot!” Rigdon has led the team in a most unlikely category: assists.

He entered the game against Bradley with 17, an average of four per game. By contrast, the Anteaters’ point guard, McDonald, entered the game with only nine assists, although he added a season-high Saturday night.

Rigdon did not have a field goal in the first 36 minutes of the game, but the first, when it came, was big one--a three-pointer that gave Irvine a nine-point lead with four minutes left.

The slump, Rigdon says, is a shooter’s burden.

“There’s no pressure,” Rigdon said. “Coach tells me to shoot whenever I get it. The team is giving me the ball, I’ve just got to let go and let it come to me.

“I’ve wound up being tentative. But I think every shooter goes through it, especially three-point shooters. You can’t shoot 45 or 50% the whole year.”

The passing, he says, is his chance to contribute--and it might have been the difference down the stretch, Rigdon creating openings for Butler.

“That’s about all,” Rigdon said.

That and free-throw shooting, which apparently is not affected by the slump.

Irvine made 12 of 14 free throws down the stretch, and Rigdon made eight of eight.

Irvine took a lead early in the second half. They couldn’t pull away, though, until the final eight minutes, on the passing of Rigdon, the shooting guard, and the shooting of McDonald, the point guard.

The last time these teams met in 1987, they broke both schools’ records for most points by two teams, combining for 258 in Bradley’s 139-119 victory. Hersey Hawkins had 51 points in that game.

This time, the scoring was less frenetic.

Irvine has played a zone defense almost exclusively this season, and Bradley (1-2) was content to work against it patiently, passing around the perimeter until an opening appeared. More often than not, it was Stuckey who found them. Stuckey, a senior guard, scored 32 and 33 points in the Braves’ first two games.

Tournament Notes

UC Irvine’s Ricky Butler was named the tournament’s most valuable player, and was joined on the all-tournament team by Jeff Herdman, Loyola Marymount’s Terrell Lowery, Idaho State’s Alex Kreps (formerly of Golden West College), and Curtis Stuckey and Xanthus Houston of Bradley.