UCI Going from Bad to Worse : Basketball: Pacific hands the Anteaters, winless in the Big West Conference, their eight consecutive loss, 68-62.

Eventually, getting close but not getting there ceases to be a commendation.

UC Irvine is a team well on its way from being labeled as underachieving to being just plain bad.

The Anteaters lost their eighth consecutive game Thursday, falling to Pacific, 68-62, in front of a season-low crowd of 1,890 in the Bren Center.

“We’re just trying to get a win,” Irvine guard Keith Stewart said. “Trying to put together a whole game.”

Irvine only does bits and pieces, not finished jobs. The Anteaters jumped to a 7-0 lead in this game, then gave it away by letting Pacific score 13 points in a row and going scoreless themselves for 7 1/2 minutes.

Pacific (9-7, 5-3 in the Big West) led by as many as 14 in the first half and 13 in the second. A decent Anteater comeback--and a horrid string of nine consecutive missed free throws by the Tigers--got Irvine as close as three with 1 minute 21 seconds left on Stewart’s 22-foot three-pointer.

The Anteaters were there, close enough to imagine what a win might feel like.

But with a chance to cut the lead to two with a minute left, Elzie Love--a 68% free-throw shooter--missed two free throws. With 35 seconds and a chance to trim the growing lead to four, he missed one and made one.

“They missed free throws, then we felt hospitable and missed some ourselves,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said. “We got it to the situation where it was right there. If we could have capitalized on it, we’d have been all right.”

Pacific Coach Bob Thomason watched some of his best shooters bang shots off the rim.

“We were horrible,” he said. “Thank goodness they were horrible, too.”

The Tigers pulled it together in the final minute, making seven in a row, then missing two of their last four in the final 20 seconds.

Only Love’s three-pointer with 3.2 seconds left made the final margin six.

Irvine’s problems aren’t small. One of them is the play of center Dee Boyer, who ought to have dominated Pacific’s smallish front line, but instead attempted only one shot before giving way to freshman Shaun Battle, who is more of an offensive threat and a better rebounder.

Another problem remains turnovers. The Anteaters trailed at halftime, 40-30, despite shooting 56%. The problem was Pacific tried 32 shots to their 18, the result of 11 first-half turnovers by Irvine.

The Anteaters are 2-11 and winless (0-6) in the Big West Conference. Granted four of their losses are to Top 25 teams. Seven of their losses are by five or fewer points. But close doesn’t get you into the Big West tournament, and Irvine is two victories behind the nearest opposition and has already lost to Nevada, which, in its first year in the conference, is considered a contender for the bottom.

Irvine’s last chance for a victory in the month of January comes Saturday against San Jose State, which beat only two teams last season and made Irvine one of them. Even San Jose State has two Big West victories.

Pacific, led by guard Tony Amundsen’s 18 points, held off several Irvine runs in the second half.

The lead was still 10 with 2:38 left, but then Jeff Von Lutzow, fouled on a shot beyond the three-point line, made all three free throws to cut it to seven. Pacific went on its free-throw famine, and Irvine finally cut the lead to three, 59-56, on the shot by Stewart, who led Irvine with 19.

But that was as close as the Anteaters got.

No cigar again.

*

Anteater Notes

The UC Irvine coaching staff is holding out hope that Daniel Lyton will still fulfill requirements to come to Irvine next year, despite leaving Riverside College last week before first semester exams. Lyton, a 6-foot-7 power forward who originally signed with Missouri, has returned to his home in Detroit, but has told Irvine he will seek to complete his academic work there. He must receive his associate of arts degree and have 48 hours of transferable credit to be eligible. . . . Pacific’s Ben Rishwain, who transferred from Irvine to Pacific after his freshman year, scored 11 points, nine in the first half.