Baker Taking UCI’s Losing Streak on the Chin

The bad news is that the beard looks good.

A week ago, it was still in Aspiring Derelict mode.

Two weeks before that, the look was Couch Potato After a Lost Weekend.

But that was when the losing streak was young, as young as the rough stubble on Rod Baker’s face. Today, the winless streak is 11 games, the bladeless streak is 24 days and Baker now looks as if he should be posing for $5 bills or boxes of Smith Bros. cough drops.

Baker, the basketball coach at UC Irvine, hasn’t shaved since Jan. 11, the day his Anteaters lost to Fresno State, defeat No. 5 in the chain. He swore off Norelcos until Irvine won again. Win a game, clean a slate, clean a face. But it hasn’t happened. Six more losses have, though--and now Baker has a beard that looks positively distinguished, the first and only time that adjective has been applied to Irvine basketball this season.

For 3 1/2 weeks, the only close shaves Baker has seen are on the court. A three-point loss to Cal State Fullerton. A two-point loss to UC Santa Barbara. A three-point loss to Cal State Long Beach. It’s driving Baker crazy--and at his weekly media luncheon Tuesday, Baker admitted to recently running a razor over his neck because “it was itching too much.”

“The rope fits better that way,” Tim Tift suggested. Tift knows something about Irvine basketball, having coached it from 1969 to 1980, and he knows something about 11-game losing streaks, having broached one during his final season. Tift was invited to the luncheon, apparently, on the assumption that misery might want company.

Baker laughed.

“Yeah,” he responded, “I don’t want to pull any hairs when I tighten it.”

Gallows humor. It wasn’t on the menu, but Tift and Baker ordered up enough of it to go around.

“I’ve come to some of Coach Baker’s games this year,” Tift said, “and I find it’s almost like I’m coaching again. I start to wake up at 4:30 in the morning with a knot in my stomach. This is not worth it. I’m the chair of the P.E. department--why am I worrying about his problems?”

But he does, and sometimes, it’s too gruesome to watch.

“The last couple of games, when we were up by seven points with five minutes to go, I left,” Tift said. “I just couldn’t bear to watch any more.”

Baker: “It’s nice to have that option, isn’t it?”

Last weekend, Baker’s first season with the Anteaters was officially classified a disaster area. Irvine heard it through the Grapevine, at back-to-back stops in Stockton and San Jose, where Irvine met two teams with a combined Big West record of 1-13 and couldn’t beat either of them.

The University of the Pacific was 1-5 in conference before it met the Anteaters. San Jose State was 0-8, 2-15 overall. Irvine trailed Pacific by as many as 13 points in the second half and shot a season-low 28% from the field at San Jose. And one season low begat another; San Jose, which is basically a rec-league team with scholarships, broke its 10-game losing streak by defeating Irvine, a triumph that doubled the Spartans’ 1991-92 victory total.

Where do the Anteaters go from here?

You don’t want to know.

The longest losing streak in school history is 15--and with Fresno State, Utah State, Fullerton, Santa Barbara and Long Beach next on the schedule, 16 in ’92 is now the odds-on favorite.

The worst record in school history is 5-23, set by Bill Mulligan’s next-to-last team in 1989-90. The current Anteaters are 3-16 with seven games remaining. Only three are against teams with losing records--Fullerton, San Jose and Pacific--and Irvine has already lost to each of them.

“I never thought I’d be sitting here, talking about these things with you,” Baker said. “Never. It never even crossed my mind.

“Maybe it was part of my being naive about what was really there and what we’re competing against, but it never once crossed my mind. Did I ever think we’d be 3-and-whatever at this point of the season? No. Never. Not even once.”

So what went wrong?

Oh, everything.

Baker suspected this team would be lacking in the jump shot department, what with Ricky Butler and Jeff Herdman running out of eligibility and Dylan Rigdon transferring to Arizona. He has not been pleasantly surprised; the Anteaters are shooting 40.9% as a team--if it holds, it’s the poorest percentage in Irvine history--and the starting guards, Gerald McDonald and Craig Marshall, are shooting 31.6% and 36.6%, respectively.

But Baker promised defense--and Irvine opponents are shooting better than 49% from the field. Much of this Baker attributes to rebounding, another Anteater shortcoming. “You miss a jump shot, get the rebound and put it back in--that’s shooting 50%,” Baker explained.

“Now is the time when I’m glad I’m not single,” Baker said. “I’m glad I have kids. Now, when you need another focus, you don’t have to dwell on the losing.

“Rachel has a cold. Zachary has a birthday coming. I have other things I have to worry about, so I don’t start counting, ‘Oh, that’s eight in a row, nine in a row, 10 in a row, we’re getting closer to 15 in a row.’ It’s nice to have that other focus.”

Family can help in other ways, or can at least make the attempt. Baker reached into his right pants pocket and pulled out what appeared to be two brightly polished Brazil nuts. “African prayer beads,” Baker said. “My wife, Deborah, gave them to me before Saturday’s game.” The beads are 0-for-1, but Baker won’t leave home without them, just in case.

The beard goes along as well, and Baker won’t have another chance to shave until Thursday. Not a good chance--the opposition is 13-7 Fresno State--but a chance nonetheless.

“If we get up by two,” Baker said with a laugh, “I’ll shave it right then.”

Maybe Irvine officials can hand out disposable razors at the Bren Center door. Bladeless, of course. Make a promotional night out of it. Usher in a new era of fan interaction.

Out with The Wave, make way for The Shave.