UCI Loses Another Close One : Basketball: Missouri Kansas City’s Dumas scores with five seconds left to hand Anteaters second last-minute loss in two games.

UC Irvine had a one-point lead with 21 seconds left Friday night at Kemper Arena. But make no mistake, Missouri Kansas City had the advantage.

It had Tony Dumas and the basketball.

“You don’t need to be John Wooden to figure out Tony Dumas or Ronnie Schmitz is going to get the ball,” said Irvine Coach Rod Baker, whose team lost, 86-85, after Dumas broke open to take a pass, dribbled to the left of the lane and buried a closely guarded 10-footer with five seconds left.

There was no mystery, but that didn’t help Irvine stop Dumas, a slender 6-foot-5 junior guard with a lightning first step. Dumas was held to eight points in the first half but finished with 32, including the basket that handed Irvine its second last-minute loss in two games.

“You can’t keep a good player down,” said Baker, who watched player after player get into foul trouble as they tried to guard Dumas, who beat back some of the pressure by dumping passes inside to Rick Muller, who scored 23 points. “You can’t hold him forever.”

Irvine wanted to deny Dumas the ball on the last play, but he got it anyway. Baker, fearful that Dumas would cut backdoor for an easy basket if Irvine overplayed him, said the Anteaters were willing to concede him the ball well outside.

Elzie Love came back into the game specifically to guard Dumas, but he didn’t stop him.

“That was a great shot he made,” Love sad. “I was going to deny him the ball, but he cut up fast and I was lost. He just made the great shot. I was on him all the way, too.”

Love stayed in front of Dumas and went up with him on the shot. He managed not to foul, but Dumas’ shot sank anyway.

“He did a good job against him. He stopped him at 10 feet,” Baker said. “They ran this play they run a lot. It’s called get it to Tony Dumas and get out of his way.”

Keith Stewart, who scored 18 points and helped Irvine take the lead in the second half with sharp outside shooting, was another of a host of Irvine players who took turns guarding Dumas.

“He made a tough shot,” Stewart said. “Elzie played great D, right in his face.”

Irvine had only five seconds to try to scramble back before the buzzer. Baker told his team to take a timeout to set up a play only if there were more than 10 seconds left after Missouri Kansas City scored. So point guard Lloyd Mumford pushed the ball upcourt hoping to take advantage of the chaos that followed the final basket. But Mumford didn’t get his desperation shot off in time, and it bounced off the backboard anyway.

Missouri Kansas City advanced to meet No. 2 Kansas tonight in the final of the Golden Harvest Classic. Irvine will face another high-scoring guard in Alphonzo Ford, whose Mississippi Valley State team was a 94-46 loser to Kansas on Friday. Ford was the second-leading scorer in the country last season, averaging 27.5 points.

Missouri Kansas City (2-2) outshot Irvine, 54% to 43.3%, but still needed the final shot to win.

Jeff Von Lutzow scored only six points in the first half, but tied his career-high with 27 points and had 13 rebounds for his second double-double in two games.

Irvine had a chance to go up by three with about a minute left, but after Mumford drove and missed a shot, Missouri Kansas City rebounded and passed upcourt quickly to take an 84-83 lead with 42 seconds on a layup by Schmitz, a three-point specialist who was held to seven points.

Irvine regained the lead with 25 seconds left on two free throws by Stewart, who went to the line after Dumas was called for blocking as Stewart drove the lane.

Mumford, a transfer from Villanova, made four of 10 shots, and has made only seven of 21 shots in his first two games.

“We’ve just got to come out strong in the first half,” Von Lutzow said. “We didn’t do it against Boston University, we didn’t do it tonight.