Anteaters Can’t Hold Off Gauchos : Basketball: Without looking for revenge, UC Santa Barbara pays back UC Irvine by rallying for a 67-58 victory.

UC Santa Barbara wanted to forget. UC Irvine wanted to remember.

The Anteaters knocked Santa Barbara out of contention for an NCAA tournament bid last season by upsetting the top-seeded Gauchos in the first round of the Big West Conference tournament. But Santa Barbara Coach Jerry Pimm said no one brought it up before Monday’s game at the Bren Center.

The Gauchos say they weren’t bent on revenge, but they got it, defeating the Anteaters, 67-58, in front of 2,597.

Pimm may not have talked about last year’s game, but the Anteaters did. That game was the Anteaters’ only real moment of glory in recent years. They remember, and Irvine Coach Rod Baker expected Santa Barbara to be out for revenge. He would have been.

“We screwed their whole life up,” Baker said. “That was a team that was going to the NCAA tournament; if they get past us, they’re going. If I switched places with Jerry, their wake-up call yesterday would have been, ‘It’s 8 o’clock, and by the way, UCI stopped you from going to the NCAA tournament.’ ”

Pimm insisted it wasn’t motivation.

“We did not talk about it at all,” Pimm said. “I think my guys remember--it’s hard to forget. But the incentive we have is to try to get ourselves back in the conference race.”

They took a step Monday. Santa Barbara improved to 11-6, 4-5 in the Big West. Irvine is 3-12 and 1-7.

The game was hard-fought, with Santa Barbara coming from eight points behind in the second half.

The Gauchos trailed, 37-29, with 13 1/2 minutes to play, but they pulled ahead, 44-43, when Ray Kelly found Paul Johnson open for a jump shot outside.

Irvine tied the score at 46-46, but never led again, as Kelly and Johnson took over for the Gauchos.

Johnson scored 18 points and Kelly had 17.

“Ray Kelly gets in the lane a zillion times, and nobody makes it difficult for him,” Baker said.

Kelly and Johnson each scored 14 points in the second half and contributed to the Gauchos making 15 of 16 free throws in the final five minutes. Santa Barbara made 21 of 22 free throws in the game and the Gauchos shot 63.2% from the field in the second half.

Irvine was led in scoring by Keith Stewart’s 16. Jeff Von Lutzow had 15 points and 11 rebounds. Center Dee Boyer, in his second good performance in a row, had 11 points, five rebounds and four blocks. But he had two consecutive turnovers and missed some key free throws as Irvine tried to keep Santa Barbara from pulling away.

Irvine point guard Lloyd Mumford had some success, but Kelly helped keep him in check and Mumford finished with 10 points on 3-of-13 shooting.

Santa Barbara pulled ahead by seven points, largely behind Kelly’s drives. Once the Gauchos got to the line, the lead swelled to as many as 12 with 31 seconds left.

Irvine led by three at halftime, 24-21, after a tightly played defensive half in which both teams shot less than 35% from the field. Irvine took its edge with a defensive stand that lasted 8 minutes 45 seconds.

Santa Barbara was ahead by nine, 17-8, midway through the half, but Irvine scored the next 14 points while holding the Gauchos scoreless, largely with an aggressive, persistent zone.

It was the sort of thing that usually happens to the Anteaters, not the other way around. They didn’t make it easy on themselves, allowing a handful of offensive rebounds. But their defense won out. The Gauchos turned the ball over on a shot-clock violation once, twice on offensive fouls and lost it three times in a row on Irvine steals. They were stuck on 17 from the 10:17 mark until Phillip Turner hit a baseline jumper with 1:32 left in the half.

Anteater Notes

UC Irvine’s players took a second after-practice swim Sunday hoping it would prove the charm it did before their victory over San Jose State on Saturday. They are 1-1 after pool visits. . . . Reserve center Uzoma Obiekea re-joined the team Monday after serving a two-week suspension imposed by the Big West Conference for his actions in a postgame altercation with Cal State Fullerton. Obiekea missed three games, and has also been barred from the Feb. 13 rematch with Fullerton. . . . Senior Craig Marshall made his second consecutive start, filling the forward spot that has been shared by Elzie Love, LaDay Smith and Khari Johnson. . . . Smith, who started five games before missing the past four with a stress fracture in his left foot, will not make the trip to Nevada and Utah State this week, trainer Jim Pluemer said. That means Smith will return no sooner than Feb. 15 at UC Santa Barbara, because he must serve a one-game fighting suspension during the Fullerton game.