Everything Goes Bad in Irvine’s 84-51 Loss

Some of the sense of possibility went sputtering out of UC Irvine’s basketball season Thursday night in an 84-51 loss to Loyola of Chicago in front of 1,047 at the Rosemont Horizon.

The Anteaters fell behind by 21 points by halftime, missing 16 of the 22 shots they tried in the first half, and lost their fifth consecutive game.

Irvine (1-5) shot 31%, making 17 of 55 shots, and watched Loyola’s Keir Rogers score 31 points, including 15 of 16 free throws. Rogers added 10 rebounds and five assists.

For the Anteaters, who started this season under new Coach Rod Baker with a new defensive mind-set and a victory over San Diego State, it was a sobering evening.

“I would say this one took a pretty good hole out of what we developed before,” Baker said. “We talked about that. Let’s think about how we were feeling after San Diego State and now. We’ve got to figure out what we did then that we didn’t do tonight. You tell me, is that team 45 points better than San Diego State?”

Irvine was outrebounded by a smaller team, and regularly beaten down the floor on the break.

Loyola’s halftime lead was 37-16. Irvine hasn’t scored fewer points in a half since Feb. 11, 1985, when Fresno State held the Anteaters to 15 in the second half of a 52-40 Irvine loss in Fresno.

The final margin of 33 was nothing to rival Irvine records; the Anteaters lost two games by larger margins than that last season. But those losses were to Nevada Las Vegas (117-76) and UCLA (134-101).

Loyola has a 3-2 record that was picked to finish fifth in the six-team Midwestern Collegiate Conference.

The outing was a sour homecoming for Irvine’s Don May and Elgin Rogers, who grew up near Chicago.

“We had a really bad first half,” May said. “I think the thing that surprised me was we didn’t gain ground in the second half. It’s hard to comment about being glad to be home after that.”