Unselfish Anteaters Win Opener

Two minutes into the game and a hounding, harassing UC Irvine guard forces the first five-second violation-and-turnover of the season, about two weeks ahead of traditional scheduling.

Five minutes into the game and UC Irvine commits its first turnover.

Seven minutes and 35 seconds into the game and UC Irvine sinks its first three-point basket.

Nineteen minutes and 59 seconds into the game and UC Irvine scores its 30th point.

UC Irvine played its first regular-season basketball game under Rod Baker Saturday evening.

For better or worse, depending on one’s taste and the results that await, it’s the end of UC Irvine basketball as we know it.

For one night, the Anteaters felt fine.

That’s because the Anteaters won, 79-64, over San Diego State, giving Irvine a season-opening victory for the first time during the Bush administration. At 1-0, Irvine has a winning record for the first time in precisely a year; on Dec. 1, 1990, Bill Mulligan’s last Anteater team beat Bradley to go 3-2.

Since that date in history, Irvine had lost 17 of the 25 games that followed, which helped bring us to Saturday night at the Bren Center and a new figure on the home team’s bench, a figure clad in a tailored charcoal double-breasted suit--not a saddle shoe in sight--and so immersed in a philosophy of defense-first, defense-second and defense-third that he almost forgot to bring an offense out with him.

Some first-half Irvine statistics:

Field-goal percentage: .333.

Three-point percentage: .143.

Turnovers: 10.

Assists: 3.

Reportedly, Baker’s offense this season will be predicated around a passing game, but most of what the Anteaters showed before halftime was an “I-pass” game. You shoot. No, after you. No, no, I insist. Anteaters would plant their feet and pull up to shoot, think about it, think about it a little more, pump and then pass to somebody else. It was contents-under-pressure basketball, with everybody wearing white looking too tense to make a mistake--or take a shot outside nine feet.

By intermission, Irvine was 11-for-33 from the field, down by a point (32-31), and for that, Baker blamed himself.

“That was probably my fault,” Baker said. “We’ve put in so much work on the defensive (scheme), put so much emphasis on it, that we neglected our offense. We didn’t spend as much as we needed in putting in our offense.”

In fact, Baker didn’t begin putting in the offense until the first week of November, and only because Irvine had an exhibition scheduled for Nov. 9. Then Irvine won that exhibition, over the Lafayette Hustlers, 100-92. It looked easy, much too easy.

San Diego State presented Irvine with some problems--namely, a tall front line to shoot over and little offensive direction itself, which helped turned the game’s early flow into a drop-by-drop trickle. The Aztecs (0-3) had six field goals after 20 minutes--and still were ahead.

Baker, meanwhile, looked at matters a different way.

“I thought at halftime, we were in good shape,” he claimed. “We played horrendously in the first half and we were down by one. We were playing aggressively. I thought we were in good position. I thought we’d be all right.”

The shots began to fall in the second half. Irvine shot 59% from the field in the final 20 minutes and was 4-for-6 from beyond the three-point line.

Reason?

“We turned it up defensively,” Baker said. “We really got after them and San Diego bent a little for us. I don’t want to say they broke, but I think they bent over a little bit for us.”

Soon, Irvine was up by 15 points and on to victory, leaving fallen Aztecs here, there, nearly everywhere. The game dragged on for more than two hours because both teams combined to commit 51 fouls and shoot 80 free throws.

The way the Anteaters played their opener, it looked as if Baker wasn’t intent on bringing winning basketball back to the school, but winning football as well.

“We have to play hard,” Baker reasoned. “We’re not good enough not to play hard. I don’t like all the fouls we committed, but we had to play up to a certain level of intensity.”

So, Irvine won its opener, something new, something it hadn’t done since 1987. But it played to the same old crowd--in other words, intimate. Official attendance was 2,169, including Mulligan and family. Mulligan was stretched out in the very last row in the arena, high atop Section 117, before deciding to leave with 7:42 to play and Irvine holding a 61-46 lead.

Baker said he hadn’t noticed him sitting there. He said he hadn’t noticed the other 2,168 much, either. “How many people did we have?” he asked reporters. “I don’t notice those things. When I’m coaching a game, I just don’t notice anything outside the court.”

He was told that the crowd was small but supportive.

“Good,” he said. “We play Colorado on Monday. I hope everybody who was here tonight comes again--and tells somebody about the good time they had.”