Anteaters Beat Bradley in Overtime : Irvine: Rogers has 19 points and eight rebounds. Von Lutzow scores 15.
The familiar downward spiral of a string of losses was tugging at UC Irvine’s basketball team, but in the two days following their 33-point loss to Loyola, the players talked among themselves about the tailspin that was beginning.
On Saturday, they hollered stop.
Irvine and Bradley were both winless since Nov. 30, but the Anteaters tugged hardest, rallying to force an overtime and take a 61-57 victory in front of 6,730 in Carver Arena.
Two days after getting handed their uniforms in an embarrassing loss to a fair Loyola team, Irvine salvaged what looked like the beginning of a vintage Anteater collapse.
Irvine (2-5) won Saturday despite blowing an eight-point halftime lead after scoring only two points in the first 11 minutes of the second half.
“Our guys don’t like losing, even though it looked like they did the other night,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said. “It might have looked like they liked it, they did it so well.”
On Saturday, couple of veterans of losing seasons stepped up to stem the tide.
Jeff Von Lutzow, a wispy, 6-foot-9 forward who is talented but erratic, made four three-pointers, including a wild bank-shot that rattled home from beyond the line with 58 seconds left in regulation to help send the game to overtime.
“Thank God there’s glass behind there, or that ball would still be rolling, I think,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said. “We checked it for glass shards.”
Von Lutzow, who came into the game shooting an uncharacteristic 38% from the field, said he discovered his touch in the shoot-around Saturday afternoon. He finished with 15 points, and made four of six from three-point range.
“We knew we needed a game,” Von Lutzow said. “If we had lost this one, it would have gotten tough. Nobody understands a team on a losing streak. We lose to a team like Loyola by whatever, then if we lose this one after being up by eight at halftime, it would have been a big weight on our shoulders. Once you start losing, it’s hard to get out of that rut.”
Elgin Rogers, who is Irvine’s leading scorer but had been held to 11 points combined in the past two games, led the Anteaters with 19 points and eight rebounds.
Rogers’ free throw with 18 seconds left in overtime--he missed the second of two--gave Irvine a 59-55 lead after Bradley’s James Hamilton fouled out when he was called for charging against Rogers on a desperate scoring attempt.
Irvine’s Gerald McDonald added 12 points, and completed a three-point play that gave Irvine the final lead with 2:29 left in overtime after being fouled on a jumper.
After a 16-point first half against Loyola on Thursday, Irvine took a 31-23 halftime lead here.
That lead was built with Bradley’s Hamilton out, after picking up three fouls in a six-second span in the first half.
Until Rogers hit a short jumper with 8 minutes 34 seconds left in the second half, the Anteater offense had gone stagnant, the only ripple a driving layup by McDonald.
“I guess we played about as good as we possibly could, and as bad as we possibly could, all in 40 minutes,” Baker said.
Hamilton, back in the lineup, sparked a 16-2 run, and Irvine fell behind by as many as eight.
A three-pointer by Von Lutzow got Irvine back within striking distance, down three, 49-46, with 2:45 left. He added a leaning bank shot off the fast break to cut it to one point about 30 seconds later.
Bradley took a 51-48 lead with 1:40 left, but Von Lutzow’s banked three-pointer tied it.
Bradley Coach Jim Molinari felt the tide turning.
“I thought we had ‘em on the ropes until they made those two shots,” said Molinari, whose team fell to 3-4.
Instead, Irvine came off the ropes.
“We aren’t good enough to win without all our parts,” Baker said. “Thank goodness they stepped up.
“Jeff Von Lutzow decided he wanted to play tonight. Elgin Rogers came back--I think he’d been on vacation for a couple of games.”
Notes
Ten years ago to the day Saturday, Bradley played a seven-overtime, 75- minute game against Cincinnati that remains the longest in NCAA history. Cincinnati won, 75-73. . . . Former UC Irvine coach Bill Mulligan has reached an agreement with SportsChannel to be the color commentator on three Big West Conference games this season.