UCI Has Scoring Lapse in 71-52 Loss to UNLV

UC Irvine is no stranger to scoreless stretches, but this one stretched the imagination.

For 9 minutes 45 seconds against Nevada Las Vegas Monday night, Irvine was stuck at six points, clamped there by UNLV’s unyielding zone and its own ineptitude.

By halftime of their 71-52 Big West Conference loss to the 25th-ranked Rebels in the Thomas & Mack Center, the Anteaters had scored a mere 12 points, and trailed by 23.

It wasn’t the lowest scoring half in Irvine history--in a 1980 game against Cal State Long Beach, Irvine scored only eight points in the second half of a 30-26 slowdown loss. But it is believed to be the lowest scoring first half in school history.

“We go into these little lost weekends, where we don’t score for six, seven, eight minutes at a time,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said. “It gets worse before it gets better. We suffer from some extreme cases of being tentative.”

UNLV (15-2, 7-0), which returned to the top 25 Monday for the first time since early December, had quite a bit to do with it.

The Rebels opened in a man defense but soon switched to a 1-2-2 zone, a defense Coach Jerry Tarkanian revived this season. Tarkanian hadn’t used the defense since his days at Cal State Long Beach in the early 1970s.

Irvine spent much of its time futilely passing the ball around the perimeter. When the Anteaters did penetrate, they were plagued by turnovers and the menace of the UNLV shotblockers, who rejected six shots, led by Elmore Spencer’s three blocks, in the first half alone.

“I thought when we went to the zone in the first half, it was incredible,” Tarkanian said. “Irvine only had two field goals in the first half after we went to the zone.”

At the half, Irvine had made four of 23 shots--17.4%--and was 0 for seven from three-point range. Had the Anteaters not gone four for four from the free-throw line, they might have been held to an eight-point half.

“You have to get the ball inside,” Baker said. “But the guys inside didn’t want it. You have to get the ball inside, then kick it back out. The first half we spent too much time passing around the perimeter. That’s a very, very good zone, and passing around outside allows the zone to expand. You get further and further away from makable shots.”

Irvine (3-12, 0-6) has struggled offensively all season. But this performance, on the heels of a season-best 54% shooting game against Cal State Fullerton, was a distressing one, even if UNLV is holding its opponents to 37.2% shooting. Irvine had made considerable changes in its offense, but that had little impact Monday.

The score was 6-6 after Craig Marshall scored on a layup off a pass from Don May at the 15:39 mark of the first half. By the time May grabbed a tipped ball and hit a two-footer with 5:54 left, UNLV led, 22-8.

“We were trying to count the minutes and the possessions on the bench,” Baker said. “We lost track.”

It would have been hard not to. The bungled plays and the UNLV defensive stops started running together. There was Jeff Von Lutzow’s outstanding drive down the lane--one that ended with a swatted shot by Spencer. On the next possession, Irvine played catch on the perimeter until the shot-clock horn sounded. On the next, they passed around until Gerald McDonald took a desperate 23-footer with six seconds left on the shot clock. On the next, Uzoma Obiekea stepped on the baseline, giving possession to UNLV.

Baker took his solace in the second half--a half Irvine won, 40-36.

“We scored 40 points against their zone in the second half. It’s very good, but we scored 40 points. Are you going to tell me they packed it in? I don’t think so.”

It was the second--and mercifully for Irvine’s sake, the final--meeting between these teams this season. Irvine lost to UNLV, 71-57, Jan. 4 in the Bren Center in a game the Anteaters played without leading scorer and rebounder Elgin Rogers, who was benched a game for unspecified disciplinary reasons.

Rogers made little difference this time, getting four points on one-of-10 shooting.

J.R. Rider scored 25 for UNLV, and Von Lutzow and Marshall each had 10 for Irvine.

“We always play hard,” Baker said. “We have that. That’s the main thing. This would be a very futile situation for me, except that we played hard.”