Loyola of Chicago Routs Cold-Shooting Irvine : College basketball: Anteaters make only 31% of shots in 84-51 loss, spoiling homecoming for Elgin Rogers, Don May.

The newness and 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 for the fifth consecutive game.

Irvine (1-5) shot 31% for the game, making 17 of 55 shots, and watched Loyola guard Keir Rogers riddle its defense for 31 points, including 15 of 16 free throws. He 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 in their opener, 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?”

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

Loyola, no UNLV or UCLA, is a team with a 3-2 record that was picked to finish fifth in the six-team Midwestern Collegiate Conference.

Irvine was outrebounded by a smaller team--41-29--and regularly beaten down the floor on the break.

It spoiled what might have been a pleasant homecoming for Elgin Rogers and Don May, who both grew up in the Chicago area.

Rogers, who entered the game as Irvine’s leading scorer, averaging 14 points, scored five points, and has scored only 11 in the past two games. Gerald McDonald was the leading Irvine scorer, finishing with 13 points after making four of 12 shots.

“It was real tough,” Rogers said. “We didn’t do any of the things we prepared to do. The offense isn’t working. Guys aren’t running cuts hard. Besides that, we’re not getting back. Teams shouldn’t be beating us back.”

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.

Baker, who has granted that his team might have spent too much time on defense and not enough on offense in the past, couldn’t fault Irvine’s shot selection, only its failure to make shots.

“We got wide-open shots,” Baker said.

Loyola held only an 8-7 lead after more than five minutes, but that was after the first basket of what turned into a 25-6 spree.

Baker wouldn’t fault the players or the offense, just the execution.

“We make ‘em every day,” he said. “We came in this building and shot the lights out this afternoon.”

It was Loyola that shot the lights out Thursday night, hitting 56% for the game and 64% in the second half.

Loyola made its living off bounce passes, back-door cuts and three-point plays.

Keir Rogers finished four points shy of his career-high, but Loyola’s opponent’s name had a familiar ring. It was in a victory over Irvine in a 1989 game that Rogers scored 35.

His night was only one of Irvine’s many disappointments.

“We thought we would never have a problem rebounding,” Baker said. “We thought we could pull down everything we wanted. We thought we could get after their guards.”

It just didn’t turn out that way.

“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.”

Notes

Keith Stewart, still waiting to play his first game as an Anteater, has been declared academically ineligible. However, he can regain his eligibility by finishing incomplete course work from the fall semester. Stewart, a guard whom Coach Rod Baker says is “a scorer,” transferred from Marquette last winter. He will not join Irvine for its game against Bradley in Peoria, Ill., Saturday, but might be eligible in time for a game against Lafayette in the Bren Center on Dec. 28. . . . There are still 2,000 tickets available for Irvine’s game against Nevada Las Vegas in the Bren Center Jan. 4. . . . David Hollaway, who scored 19 and 23 points in the past two games, couldn’t find his shot Thursday, making one of nine shots and finishing with five points.