He’s Calmed Down, Technically Speaking : Basketball: Joe Harrington, former Cal State Long Beach coach now at Colorado, has learned to control his temper.

The garish green-gold neon uniforms stayed behind when Joe Harrington left Cal State Long Beach for Colorado after the 1990 basketball season. So far, the shade Long Beach calls California Gold hasn’t been mined as Colorado Gold in Boulder.

Harrington left behind the technical fouls, too. The foot-stomping temper that once earned him four technicals in two games at Long Beach has been quieted.

“Last year, I had two the whole year, and one was in the last game of the Big Eight playoffs,” said Harrington, whose Buffaloes play UC Irvine tonight at the Bren Center. “I may not get any this year.”

But the basketball style--press, run, win--went with him. Harrington inherited a Colorado team with five seniors--including first-round NBA draft pick Shaun Vandiver--and turned a hapless team into one that went to the final four of the National Invitation Tournament.

Colorado’s 19-14 record was its best in 22 years, and its first winning season since 1983-84. The team broke a 56-game streak of losses in conference road games. The excitement built--Harrington says being the focal point of an entire state and the brother of the Colorado football team helped, and Colorado’s largest crowd ever in the Coors Event Center--11,291--came out to a game.

It was a sweetheart of a year--it’s not often a new coach inherits that kind of talent--and now Harrington is out to continue the success with a team that includes seven new players.

“It’s a lot like when I went to Long Beach,” Harrington said. “I had a senior-dominated team that had been losing for a long time, and they were tired of losing. At Long Beach it was Morlon Wiley, DeAnthony Langston. At Colorado, it was Shaun Vandiver and Stevie Wise. A change is good sometimes. You take on a program that’s been down a long time, and you can see a lot of progress right away.”

Then that senior class leaves. And even though Harrington now has two recruiting classes presumed to be in the nation’s top 25, it can get tougher. Harrington knows he’s built up expectations.

“You lose that first-year charisma,” he said.

He doesn’t yearn for 2,200-seat University Gym, but Harrington says he has a fondness for Long Beach as he makes his first return to play a Big West Conference opponent.

“Long Beach is really special to me because it did a lot for me,” said Harrington, 45, whose young looks belie that this is his fourth head coaching job. “Professionally, I gained a new identity. Back East, I was still Lefty Driesell’s assistant, still a former Maryland player. I didn’t have a chance to establish my own identity.”

At Long Beach, he quickly did.

Before Harrington arrived, Long Beach hadn’t had a winning season since 1980-81, under Tex Winter.

Harrington’s first team went 17-12 in 1987-88. His second stumbled a bit, to 13-15. His third went 23-9, got snubbed by the NCAA selection committee . . . and proved to be his last.

Harrington, meanwhile, had gained a grudging if not resentful reputation among a number of Big West coaches as a bold Easterner, relentless on the recruiting trail, who would argue a traveling call in the final minute of a blowout.

“I didn’t realize that when I got out here I was that aggressive, but looking back, I see I was,” Harrington said. “I was aggressive with the officials, aggressive with the people at Long Beach. But I think that was part of the reason we won.”

His act changed during his final year at Long Beach.

“I got four (technicals) in two games, and I just didn’t want to be sending the wrong message to the team,” Harrington said. “I told them I wasn’t going to get any T’s the rest of the year.”

Harrington went public with the pledge, and promised a $1,000 donation to charity if he got another.

The next game, a referee gave him a teasing threat.

“Hey Joe,” he said. “I just talked to the American Cancer Society, and I’m gonna get $500 and they’re gonna get $500.”

By Harrington’s recollection, he didn’t get another, Long Beach went on a run that left it just short of the NCAA tournament--and Harrington left for Colorado, where he is quieter, but the crowd is louder.