UC Irvine’s Good Effort Not Quite Good Enough : College Basketball: Anteaters come up short again as all five Long Beach starters score in double figures during 89-72 victory.

UC Irvine ran hard again Saturday night, but Cal State Long Beach was a little quicker. The Anteaters shot the basketball well enough, but the 49ers were more accurate. Irvine was strong enough inside to outrebound Long Beach but couldn’t stop the 49ers’ big players from scoring often.

The result was simply another loss for Irvine, which couldn’t match Long Beach for the full 40 minutes and fell, 89-72, in front of 1,565 in the University Gym.

All five Long Beach starters scored in double figures, led by Lucious Harris with 20 points. Keith Stewart, who had 16 points, was the only Irvine player to score in double figures, and that was just one of the stumbling blocks for the Anteaters (5-19, 2-13 in the Big West).

Long Beach (15-9, 9-6) outshot Irvine, 56.5% to 45.5%, but the Anteaters outrebounded the 49ers, 31-28. But the most eye-catching numbers on the final box score were those in the free-throw columns. The 49ers made 34 of 43 from the line; Irvine made 22 of 30.

“There always was a free throw that made the lead 10 instead of eight,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said. “We’d score, then they’d score. We’d miss. They’d miss, but they’d get fouled and hit their free throws.”

Forward Bryon Russell, who scored 19 points, and center Chris Tower, who had 14, dominated the post play. And when Tower got in foul trouble, Mike Atkinson came off the 49er bench to throw his weight around and score nine points.

“Russell, Tower and Atkinson all duck into the lane, do a great job of getting you on their back--with you behind them,” Baker said. “And their guards get the ball to them.”

By contrast, Irvine had only 22 points combined by its starting front-line players. Center Elgin Rogers had nine points, and forwards Jeff Von Lutzow and Craig Marshall had seven and six.

With Khari Johnson hobbled by a sprained ankle and Von Lutzow in foul trouble, freshman forward Elzie Love played 12 minutes, including eight in the second half, but was ineffective. He had eight points and four turnovers.

So what was Irvine doing tied, 50-50, after Stewart’s 15-foot jump shot almost seven minutes into the second half?

Long Beach had a 46-34 lead by halftime and appeared to be on the verge of turning the game into a runaway. A 10-0 Long Beach run highlighted by monster fast-break dunks by Russell and Atkinson late in the half had pushed a three-point lead to 38-25 with 4:18 left.

But Irvine, which was 1-9 on the road coming into the game and was playing in a gym where the 49ers were 11-0, fought back. The Anteaters scored the first 12 points of the second half to pull even at 46-46 with 16:34 left.

Even a timeout by Long Beach Coach Seth Greenberg couldn’t stop Irvine’s momentum.

“I challenged them to compete,” Greenberg said later of his timeout speech. “I wasn’t happy with their attitude, their presence on the floor.”

It took awhile, but Long Beach responded and ran away from Irvine slowly, steadily and surely over the final 15 minutes.

What happened? Baker was asked.

“They got over the shock of losing it (the lead),” he said.

Late in the game, the 49ers made their free throws and burned the Anteaters with several backdoor passes that led to dunks.

“It didn’t mean enough to us when they scored,” said Baker, who was disappointed with the Anteaters’ defense. “Because we scored easily, we felt it was important to return the favor (and let Long Beach score).”

Anteater Notes

Cal State Long Beach’s 89 points were the most allowed by the Anteaters in a Big West game this season. Only Tulane, a 96-77 winner over Irvine, and Loyola Marymount (95-84) scored more than than Long Beach. . . . Center Khari Johnson, who suffered a sprained ankle in the first half of Thursday’s 80-74 loss to UC Santa Barbara, did not start against Long Beach. A starter in the last four games, Johnson had nine points in 22 minutes. Elgin Rogers started in his place, scoring nine points in 21 minutes. . . . Next: Irvine plays host to San Jose State at 7:30 p.m. Thursday night in a game that will go a long way in determining which team will qualify for the final Big West Conference tournament berth. San Jose State defeated Irvine, 58-52, Feb. 1 at San Jose, the Spartans’ only conference victory.