Aggies Get Up to Beat UC Irvine

New Mexico State was playing for its first outright Big West Conference championship. UC Irvine was playing for its seventh victory and the last berth in the eight-team conference tournament.

Five minutes into the second half, Irvine led by 10 points. With 9:40 to play, Aggie Coach Neil McCarthy’s complaints earned him a double-technical and ejection.

But New Mexico State got to raise the banner with a 76-74 victory in front of 2,660 Saturday in the Bren Center.

Irvine trailed by five points with 13 seconds to play and cut the lead to two with 5.9 seconds left on Jeff Von Lutzow’s three-pointer. But the Anteaters were out of timeouts and ran out of time.

“It’s extremely disappointing,” said Irvine Coach Rod Baker, whose team will face the top-seeded Aggies in a rematch at 3 p.m. Friday in the first round of the tournament at Long Beach Arena. “To have a team as good as this one down and really on the ropes a little bit--to let them off the hook is extremely disappointing.”

When McCarthy was ejected--”I deserved it,” he said--Irvine had a 57-52 lead. Not much later, Aggie guard Sam Crawford took over.

Crawford passed, shot and forced turnovers, tying the score, 64-64, on a layup with 4:08 to play.

On Irvine’s next possession, Crawford battled Lloyd Mumford for a loose ball, barely tipping it ahead on the break, and Cliff Reed finished with a dunk for a four-point lead. Irvine tied the score once more, but Crawford used a screen to get open and sink a baseline 12-footer for a four-point lead with 1:33 left and made the lead six with two free throws with 50 seconds left.

Crawford finished with 23 points and nine assists for New Mexico State (23-6, 15-3). Irvine (6-20, 4-14) was led by a 21-point, 10-assist performance from Mumford.