UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK : As Players Continue to Drop, Women Hit Bottom in Basketball

The downward spiral of UC Irvine basketball carried the women’s team to the bottom of the Big West Conference standings Saturday, a few hours before it deposited the men’s team beside them.

Before their game, the women saw promise in their matchup against San Jose State. So what if Irvine had lost 14 consecutive conference games; the Spartans had lost 29.

“We went into the game thinking, ‘OK, we’ve got San Jose State.’ Last year we beat them by 20 both times,” said Karie Yoshioka, a sophomore guard for the Anteaters. “Then we were all amazed when we were down 15 or 20. There was a point where it was, ‘What’s wrong? How can we be down to them?”’

The women’s team (4-15, 0-10), which plays Nevada Las Vegas at 5 p.m. today in the Bren Center, has lost its grip on what once seemed like a season of improvement. Losing games is nothing new to the team--over the past three seasons, the Anteater women have won only 10 games.

But losing players is. Leading scorer Kathy Lizarraga went down with a career-ending knee injury. In addition, Yvonne Catala, then the second-leading scorer, missed five games with a lower-back strain before returning against San Jose State.

Somebody had to step up. Yoshioka figured it might as well be her. Given the playing time she craved last season, when she averaged less than 11 minutes a game, Yoshioka has become the Anteaters’ leading scorer, averaging 12.7 points a game. That is precisely the average Lizarraga had when she hurt her knee nine games ago.

Yoshioka, who is from El Toro High School, started making her presence felt even before Lizarraga was injured. She had a 19-point game early in the season, and after breaking into the starting lineup in the sixth game, she had back-to-back 16-point and 17-point games just before Lizarraga went down.

She has kept it going, leading the team in scoring in nine of the last 11 games, and reaching double figures in every game she has started except Saturday’s loss to San Jose State, when she was troubled with stomach problems.

After averaging only 3.4 points a game last season as a freshman under former coach Dean Andrea, Yoshioka has proven herself as a shooter this year. She has made 50% of her 28 three-point attempts, and is shooting 43% overall. From the line, she’s third among Big West players, making 81.8%. She has missed only two of her past 27 free throws.

“I’m just really happy I’m getting a chance to play,” said Yoshioka, who chose Irvine despite the team’s struggles because she liked the campus, academics and proximity to her home. “I think (Andrea) believed very much in first impressions. I guess his first one of me wasn’t a good one.”

Her own success has obviously been overshadowed by the team’s struggles. And with a roster that is down to nine players--eight when Catala was out--there is little rest for the weary.

“It’s kind of hard,” Yoshioka said. “Today, we only had seven people in practice. The manager had to play. If you look at it, a lot of players are playing 35, 37 minutes. Sometimes, you have to ask to come out.”

Yoshioka had higher hopes for Irvine’s first season under Coach Colleen Matsuhara.

“I think the combination of losing Lizarraga, Catala’s been out, Felicia Dixon hasn’t been eligible . . . I think we could have done better,” she said.

She’s hoping for an infusion of ability and leadership next season, perhaps in the form of community college recruits.

As for this season, it has started to drag.

“I don’t know how they did it when they were 1-27,” Yoshioka said, referring to Irvine’s record two years ago. “It’s kind of getting monotonous now. Another loss, another loss.”

Ugly Stat of the Week: Despite an emphasis on defense, Irvine’s 3-16 men’s basketball team has allowed 11 of 19 opponents to shoot better than 50% from the field. The team’s defensive field-goal percentage is 49.4%, uncomfortably close to the 50.1% average of last season’s team--a statistic Coach Rod Baker pointed out as a big reason for Irvine’s 11-19 record.

Despite that statistic, Irvine is holding opponents to 74.2 points a game compared to 92 last season. No Irvine team has held opponent scoring that low since the 1983-84 team allowed 74.

One partial explanation is that Irvine’s opponents are getting fewer shots overall--51 a game compared to 68 last season--because Irvine’s offense uses more of the clock itself than last year’s run-and-gun team.

As for Irvine’s defense, what the statistics probably mean is that while Irvine’s opponents are still getting good shots, it’s taking them longer to get them.

“I think we’re starting to give up too many second shots. Those are easier shots because they’re close to the basket,” Baker said. “I think we’re playing good perimeter defense--I don’t think anybody has buried us from the three-point line. But I think maybe we break down on the interior. You get a guy to miss a jump shot, then one of their guys rebounds and puts it back. There’s 50% right there.”

The swimming program’s lack of a sophisticated timing system at the Irvine pool probably cost the men a chance for victory Saturday against UC Santa Barbara, the 13-time reigning Big West champion.

The meet was decided by the 200-yard freestyle relay, in which Irvine had the faster time--according to those hand-timing the race with watches poolside--but Santa Barbara was declared the winner. The reason: An official has the prerogative of overruling hand-timed results.

So why on earth do they hand-time races at Irvine’s pool? Because a timing system would cost at least $15,000, Coach Charlie Schober said.

Irvine Notes

The men’s volleyball team’s victory over San Diego State last week was its first in seven matches against the Aztecs. . . . Women’s tennis Coach Doreen Irish, in her 19th season at Irvine, earned her 300th victory last week. . . . The men’s tennis team (2-2) remains ranked 21st after losses to sixth-ranked Texas Christian and eighth-ranked Miami. . . . The sailing team won a title in the Southern Series 1 & 2 competition at Newport Beach last weekend.