UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Anteaters Still Not Responding to Baker on the Court

During the final minutes of Cal State Fullerton’s victory over UC Irvine Thursday night in the Bren Center, a Titan fan stood up and screamed, “Better update your resume, Rod.”

Coach Rod Baker, in the third year of a four-year contract, isn’t going anywhere for one reason: this is not an athletic department with the funds to pay for two coaches, even if Athletic Director Dan Guerrero were so inclined.

But clearly, this has been a season of discontent for the Anteaters. They embarked on the season buoyed by optimism, despite a 13-43 record in Baker’s first two years. Experience and depth would carry them to new heights.

They have managed one miracle a month--an upset of Iowa in December, a victory at Utah State in January and Saturday night’s defeat of then 25th-ranked New Mexico State--but there have been far too many periods of darkness between highlights.

If this were the final year of Baker’s contract, Irvine would be compelled to explore alternatives. The Anteaters (7-17 and 4-12 in the Big West) have the talent to beat most opponents. Baker believes it. His assistants believe it. Guerrero believes it. And Saturday night, during a 95-87 upset of New Mexico State, the Anteaters proved it.

The missing ingredients are consistency of effort, of concentration, of focus, of commitment. And all of those eventually come back to coaching. Why can’t Baker get these student-athletes to compete at an optimum level game after game?

He wishes he knew.

“From a motivational standpoint, I think I’ve pushed every button that can be pushed,” Baker said. “I’ve gone back and forth, made changes in my approach, I’ve forced our assistants to make changes, I’ve forced players to make changes. We’ve given them rein, we’ve pulled it back.

“But when all is said and done, guys have got to step on the floor. It’s extremely frustrating, sure, but so what? That’s all retrospect. Just like Saturday night’s win is over. It’s the past. The fact is you better worry about the next one because the last one is gone.”

That surely will be Baker’s fate if he can’t solve this mystery by next season, a grace period born of financial necessity.

“I can only control things I can control and if someone wants to have another basketball coach here, they’re welcome to go ahead,” Baker said. “I’m not trying to be smart. It’s just that I can only deal with the things I can deal with.

“I think that what I do, straight across the board, is the right thing to do. Not only from a basketball standpoint, but from an academic standpoint, from a social standpoint, et cetera. If somebody else thinks that it’s not, there’s nothing I can do about it.

“But I’m going to continue to do what I think is right.”

There is no question Baker’s players admire and respect him as a man, but they haven’t responded on the court. Guerrero has no qualms about Baker’s people skills, but he obviously has some major concerns about the direction of the basketball program.

“One of Rod’s strengths, and what put him into the position to get a Division I coaching job, has been his ability to develop relationships with student-athletes,” Guerrero said. “That’s why he’s such a successful recruiter.

“He has a really caring attitude about his players. He’s genuinely concerned about them, and he makes a concerted effort to make sure our kids are held accountable academically. And there’s certainly a reciprocal admiration from his players.

“Of course, in the end, he’s a basketball coach and what we do on the court is obviously first and foremost and extremely critical to any evaluation.”

Translation: A dozen victories in 1994-95 won’t be enough to earn Baker a new contract.

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Double-edged sword: The upset of New Mexico State should give the Anteaters some momentum going into the final week of the regular season and maybe even carry over into the Big West tournament, which begins March 10 in Las Vegas.

It raises hope, but it also raises questions.

“We’ll be going into the tournament knowing we can beat the team that will very likely be the No. 1 seed,” Guerrero said. “So I think it’s clear the tournament title is up for grabs. What we need to do is perform at a level that we’ve haven’t shown we’re capable of doing, and that’s putting together three or four good solid efforts in a row.

“The victory over New Mexico State is both very satisfying and very disappointing because we should be able to do that every night. It was the kind of effort we’ve been expecting all year.”

Baker hopes his players feel similarly. After the game, he said he hoped they were angry because they hadn’t been able to sustain that kind of effort all season.

“It was a great win Saturday, but there’s some ying and yang to what you do with it,” Baker said. “Do we say, ‘Oh, this was wonderful,’ and we’re satisfied? Or do we say, ‘OK, that was good and let’s do it all the time.’ ”

Junior guard Chris Brown, who scored 39 points in the victory over the Aggies, tried after the game to emphasize the latter.

“We’re glad that we beat the top team in the conference, it’s good for our confidence, but we’re still in last place,” he said. “We think we’re a much better team than our record shows. Now we have to prove it.”

Anteater Notes

Chris Brown, who scored 69 points in two games last week, was named Big West player of the week. Brown made 18 of 35 three-pointers, nine in each game. He’s averaging 4.5 three-point field goals, which should make him No. 1 in the country when the NCAA rankings are released today. . . . Freshman Laura Monson posted lifetime bests to win the 3,000 meters and take second in the 1,500 in a track and field meet Saturday at Cal State Fullerton. Her time (nine minutes 56.66 seconds) in the 3,000 was three seconds better than her previous best, set last week at Long Beach State when she bettered her lifetime best by 30 seconds. . . . The Irvine athletic department has instituted a community outreach program that involves coaches, their staffs and student-athletes visiting schools and other youth groups. Coach Colleen Matsuhara and the women’s basketball team recently participated in a practice scrimmage with two junior national teams.