These Guys Look Awfully Familiar

Everywhere you look inside the Bren Center, the letters are there. On the scoreboard, on the half-court circle, on the camera well in the upper deck, on the blue-and-gold banner hanging on the south wall.

UCI

It is shorthand for the basketball team that plays its home games here.

U ndera C h I evers.

They are the biggest disappointments in the Big West this basketball season, although sheer numbers suggest that the UC Irvine Anteaters are doing nothing differently in 1992-93 than they did in 1991-92 or 1990-91 or 1989-90. The record shows that this is a basketball program that knows how to lose--5-15 this season and 7-22 last season and 11-19 the season before that and 5-23 the season before that.

Still clanking after all these years?

So tell us something new.

What was new at Irvine this season was the level of expectation. Rod Baker was a rookie coach no longer. The leftovers of Bill Mulligan, by and large, had scattered. A point guard who once started at Villanova transferred in. So did a pair of California Golden Bears. The recruiting class had been hailed as one of the top 25 in the nation, the kind of recruiting class Jim Harrick now only gets to dream about.

Hoopheads across the land remembered that score from the last Big West Tournament--UC Irvine 88, UC Santa Barbara 67--and reached the same conclusion about the Anteaters:

This is a team on the upswing.

Now, about that follow-through . . .

By the time the buzzer sounded Saturday evening, ending another round of pain against Cal State Long Beach, Irvine’s conference record stood at 3-10--no higher than San Jose State, the tattered panhandler of the Big West, and just a heartbeat above 3-12 Nevada, the Big West rookie that has every reason to stretch out in last place.

Irvine has five conference games left, and two of them are against Nevada Las Vegas and New Mexico State. Very probably, that works out to 3-12. There will also be a rematch at Long Beach. Very probably, 3-13. That leaves two games next weekend, at San Jose Thursday and at Pacific Saturday. Very probably, Irvine needs to win them both. A split is good only if the Anteaters beat San Jose.

Otherwise, Irvine sits out the Big West Tournament for the second time in three seasons.

Baker’s grand rebuilding program has no room for such a view.

“The toughest season I’ve ever had,” Baker said as he leaned dejectedly against a wall outside the Irvine locker room. Normally, he conducts these postgame therapy sessions sitting dejectedly in an empty locker stall inside an empty women’s locker room, but this time the women’s basketball team booted him into the hallway. Down and out--can it get any worse from here?

“It’s been tough,” Baker went on, “mostly because the one thing we needed to have come true never did. We need chemistry and consistency--and right from the start, we had neither.”

Baker flashed to the opener against Boston University.

“It’s our first game, on the road, and Dee Boyer was hurt. LaDay Smith wasn’t eligible. Lloyd (Mumford) and Elzie (Love) both had stomach viruses. So we have four key guys, either out, injured or ill, and our season just went from there.

“Up until about three weeks ago, we did not have any situation where we had everybody on the roster together for one practice. We needed our new people to spend time together, but it never happened.

“Our worst dream came true.”

Every coach deals with injuries. Every coach has to cope with morale-busting defeats--and Baker has had more than his share this season, eight losses by six points or fewer.

But not every coach has transfers from Marquette, Villanova and Cal among his top four scorers. At 0-0, Baker’s cadre of proven Division I talent was considered a major asset. At 5-15, it is portrayed as a handicap: Baker built his program around other people’s rejects. There has to be a reason Keith Stewart, Lloyd Mumford and LaDay Smith transferred.

“I’m sure there is a reason they left,” Baker said. “But it’s not the reason everyone probably thinks. I hope and pray they transferred because they wanted to play here. They wanted to play--and they can play.”

Down the hall, Long Beach’s Chris Tower reveled in the fruits of victory. He, too, is a transfer, having bolted the University of New Mexico three years ago. But he wears no scarlet letter.

“There must be a reason Chris Tower left, too,” Baker said. “Chris Tower has proven to be a pretty good player for Long Beach. I still don’t believe there’s a better point guard in the conference than Lloyd Mumford.

“I like to think these players are here because, maybe, they made a mistake going (elsewhere) in the beginning. Maybe they’re looking at this as an opportunity to rectify that mistake.”

And about those preseason touts and roses tossed in Irvine’s direction, now old and moldy?

“I still believe we’re headed there,” Baker said. “It’s very easy to say, but at times, we are as good as anybody. I don’t mean anybody in the conference. I mean anybody. But there are also times when we look as bad as anybody . . .

“I look at this team and ask myself, ‘Is it talented?’ Yes. ‘Is it committed?’ Yes. ‘Is it tough?’ Yes, I think so.

“Is it as good as I’d like it to be? No. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be.”

Baker was beginning to sound as if he had read one too many Anthony Robbins books. Awaken the giant within? Baker keeps saying the right things, but nobody in blue and gold seems to be listening.

“That’s just the way I am,” Baker said. “This is what I do. I didn’t feel any differently when I was teaching English, and I had some students fail. I felt bad about it, but I didn’t quit teaching.”

So it is now with Baker’s latest batch of slow learners. The teacher continues to teach, but for all practical purposes, the great UC Irvine rebuilding program is on suspension.

* MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Lucious Harris sat, but UC Irvine couldn’t capitalize and lost, 88-74. C6