UC Irvine Should Give Cerebral Ball a Shot

Think UC Irvine, think South Orange County, and try to picture what kind of basketball would ever sell there.

Showtime would sell. The pace would have to frantic, the action nonstop, the fast break irrepressible and triple digits on the scoreboard a way of life.

Stars would sell. What you’d need is an All-American center, or a tiny shooting guard who makes rain from beyond the three-point line, or maybe a Refrigerator Perry-type character--say, a roly-poly power forward with a flattop who looks like Spanky Goes to College but can’t be stopped going to the hoop.

Winning would sell. A 23-7 season would bring them in. A 19-10 season would bring them in. Victories over UNLV and UCLA, certainly, would bring them in.

Charisma would sell. This would have to start with the coach, who’d have to be witty and outgoing and quotable, who could court both the press and the community over one-liners and beers.

Who could bring all of this to UC Irvine?

You could start with the coach who’s leaving UC Irvine.

Bill Mulligan was probably the perfect man for the job of head basketball coach at Irvine, which gives you a clue as to the imperfection of the situation there. Hopeful of drawing a crowd, Mulligan blatantly played to it--trading dull defense for the sheer entertainment value of rapid-fire offense; building his teams around big scorers (Kevin Magee) or short scorers (Scott Brooks) or wide scorers (Wayne Engelstad); concentrating on beating the big boys (UNLV six times, UCLA twice); ranting and raving and making friends and enemies with whatever came out of his run-and-gun mouth.

And what did it get Mulligan?

Bitter retirement at age 61 and crowds of 2,400 for home games at the Bren Center.

Now, Irvine and its new athletic director, Tom Ford, get a chance to try it again. Maybe they will do it differently this time around.

But can they do it any better?

The new coach will be able to win at Irvine, according to Mulligan. That much is still possible. “To be competitive with Vegas is one thing,” Mulligan says, “but you can be competitive with New Mexico State and the other people in the Big West. I don’t think we’re that far away. I really don’t. I thought we could’ve taken third place this year.”

But numbers in the victory column don’t necessarily translate into numbers in the seats at Irvine. And Mulligan frankly wonders if they ever will.

“I honestly feel right now that if we had 20 wins, we’d get maybe 500 more people out for home games,” Mulligan says. “I don’t think it’s marketing; we’ve done a good job there. I really don’t know what the answer is.”

As perverse as it sounds, maybe Irvine should try taking the Mulligan system and turning it on its head. Hire the antimulligan--a coach who will slow down the offense and jack up the defense; who will emphasize the half-court game; who will play to win, 62-60; who will play the “vomit basketball” Mulligan claimed to so detest.

For 11 years, Mulligan fought a system he was never going to beat. The kind of program he always wanted was the University of Nevada-Las Vegas-at-Irvine. The kind of players he was allowed to recruit were the ones who went to Stanford and Northwestern. There is no hotel management major at Irvine. Irvine is a science and mathematics and economics school, the research center of the UC system. The closest thing to a “coast” is social ecology, which encompasses psychology and criminal justice.

Mulligan tried but couldn’t get Eric Leckner into school. Ricky Butler had to sit out a year while he reinflated his grade-point average. On those occasions when the Mulligan program and the UC Irvine student-athlete mesh, the result is a sort of second-level Loyola Marymount. When it doesn’t, the Anteaters go 5-23 and 8-18.

Instead of straining against the inherent constraints, the new coach should play to Irvine’s strengths. Create a mini-Duke, a South Coast Stanford, a hang-loose Princeton. If you can’t outrun them, how about outthinking them?

Who knows, Cerebral Ball might even play at the Bren Center. Harass them, harass them, make them relinquish the ball. Market it as chess with big, sweaty pawns. Maybe the four-corners is what it takes to interest the geometry students.

If Ford is interested in testing this route, he knows where to look. Mike Krzyzewski’s staff at Duke. Rollie Massimino’s staff at Villanova. Mike Montgomery’s staff at Stanford.

Ford says he wants a big name. He won’t get one, not with the money Irvine can offer--but he might get a big name’s No. 1 assistant.

A veteran head coach? Some of the names making the rounds are valedictorians from the school of defense-first, offense-whenever. Boyd Grant. Bobby Dye. They, of course, are old masters at squeezing the maximum out of a minimum--and the thought of either one of these longtime Irvine villains enlisting with the enemy does play pinball with the imagination.

But reviving interest in Irvine basketball, and sustaining it, requires the energy and passion of a young man. Basketball coaches should not be allowed to grow old and tired at Irvine. They should win and excite and move on, the way Bill Mulligan thought it would be 11 seasons ago.