Anteaters Turn Lead Into Loss to Gauchos : Basketball: Santa Barbara holds UCI without a basket for 10 minutes of the second half.

The whistle blew, and a misguided fan Saturday night in the Bren Center berated the official who had just called UC Irvine’s Craig Marshall for traveling.

“Calls like that are making Mulligan quit!” the fan shouted.

The Anteaters are trying for a decent sendoff for Coach Bill Mulligan, who Wednesday announced his resignation, but they came up short after turning a one-point halftime lead into a 69-60 loss to UC Santa Barbara by going 10 minutes without a basket in the second half.

“ Now you know why I got out of this damn game,” Mulligan said afterward, only half in jest.

Mulligan, 61, has resigned effective the end of the season after 11 years at Irvine. With four games remaining, his teams have won only 13 times in the past two seasons.

Irvine led by as many as five points in the first half, but was ahead by only one at halftime after Santa Barbara’s Michael Meyer hit a three-pointer in the final minute.

Then came the second-half dry spell, made up partly of Irvine miscues, partly of Santa Barbara defense.

“I thought a lot of it was (defense),” Santa Barbara Coach Jerry Pimm said. “Obviously not all of it. It’s never all of it.”

Mulligan credited the team of one of his longstanding rivals.

“I thought Santa Barbara’s defense was magnificent,” Mulligan said.

Irvine scored only four points, two of them on free throws, in a nearly 12 1/2-minute stretch that took them from a 40-37 lead with 15 minutes 8 seconds to play to a 58-44 deficit with 3 1/2 minutes left.

The Anteaters’ only points between the 13:13 mark and the 3:13 mark were two free throws by Jeff Herdman, who scored 20 points, including three three-pointers.

“We had one of those spells where we just lost it,” Herdman said.

With the loss in front of 2,816 in the Bren Center, Irvine solidified its hold on last place in the conference, alone in 10th and two games out of a tie for eighth with Cal State Long Beach and San Jose State.

Irvine is 8-18, and 3-11 in the Big West, and has lost five games in a row and nine of its past 10.

Santa Barbara (11-12, 6-8) faced a difficult assignment, trying to defend against center Ricky Butler, Irvine’s leading scorer, with two of its inside players missing. Bob Erbst, a reserve forward and former Katella High School player, was not with the team because of a disciplinary suspension. The second backup post player, Sam Robson, was on the bench with back trouble.

That left the task of stopping Butler to Gary Gray, who picked up two fouls in the first half and was called for his third midway through the second half.

It looked like Butler’s opening.

“We were in trouble,” Pimm said. “We were in a world of hurt with all the fouls and without Erbst and Robson.

“Ricky Butler is really good inside.”

But Butler’s big night never materialized.

He had eight points and 10 rebounds at halftime, but scored only four points in the second half, finishing with 12 points and 14 rebounds.

The double-double didn’t mean much to Butler, who has shot 56% this season, but made only six of 17 shots.

“I just wasn’t making my shots,” Butler said. “I think that’s the worst I’ve ever shot, and that’s pretty bad, shooting two-footers.”

He also missed all five free-throw attempts.

“Aw, man. . .” Butler said at the thought of it. “I guess I just can’t shoot.”

Gray hung in there, despite the foul trouble, never committing his fourth and scoring a team-high 17 points, many on half-hooks.

Meyer scored 16 for Santa Barbara, and hit a three-pointer that Mulligan called one of the biggest shots of the game, starting the hemorrhaging midway through the second half by turning a four-point Santa Barbara lead into seven.

Anteater Notes

Happy 25th: UC Irvine commemorated its first basketball season Saturday by honoring the 1965-66 Anteater team. Jeff Herdman commemorated it, unwittingly, by hitting a 25-foot-plus three-point shot in the first half, standing squarely in the anniversary circle on the court that reads “UCI 25.” . . . Dylan Rigdon, who has played sparingly the past two games because of an ankle injury, did not start and played 14 minutes, scoring seven points. . . . Coach Bill Mulligan admitted there is temptation to go his own way in the final games, and play the pressing, running game he loves--except, he says, at Nevada Las Vegas . . . UC Santa Barbara had lost five of its past six games, including back-to-back games against No. 12 New Mexico State and No. 1 UNLV. . . Lucius Davis, who scored 30 points against Irvine last month, finished with 13.