Anteaters Snuffle Way Into Conference Final : Basketball: 10th-seeded UC Irvine beats Pacific, 82-78, and will play for Big West title today.

The impossible dream is still alive.

UC Irvine, the only 10th-seeded team in the Big West’s 15-year history to win a game in the conference tournament, is one victory from earning a part in the Really Big Show. The Anteaters, their high-top Cinderella slippers still firmly laced to their feet, beat Pacific, 82-78, in the semifinals Saturday night in front of 8,959 in the Thomas & Mack Center.

Today at 12:30 p.m., they meet New Mexico State--an 82-64 winner over Nevada Las Vegas in the other semifinal--for a berth in the NCAA tournament.

Irvine (10-19) won its third game in a row for the the first time in Rod Baker’s three-season tenure as head coach, and once again it was the play of senior point guard Lloyd Mumford that guided the Anteaters to victory. His regular-season performances varied from spectacular to out of control to just plain ragged, but he has been nothing short of inspired during Irvine’s three-day Las Vegas fling.

When Pacific (17-14) closed to within five points with four minutes to play, Mumford responded with two three-point plays--a steal and layup and free throw and an acrobatic baseline bank shot and free throw--to put Irvine ahead by 11. When the Tigers made a couple of three-pointers down the stretch, Mumford controlled the ball, drew the fouls and made six of eight free throws in the final two minutes.

Mumford, who finished with a game-high 29 points and seven assists, might have been tired, but he clearly wasn’t running on empty.

“I was a little fatigued, but I was focused,” he said. “The game was right there in your hands and you want to close your fist around it.”

The Anteaters have shown the commitment and concentration that was so obviously absent from their regular-season follies, but that’s all history, according to Baker.

“I was watching some films with my assistants, and they were yelling about mistakes we were making two months ago,” Baker said. “I don’t give a damn about two months ago. I wish we were 19-10 instead of 10-19, but that’s all gone.

“In fact, I’d trade every win we had all year for these three right now.”

The Anteaters are living for the moment, and having to play four games in a row doesn’t seem to intimidate them.

“I still feel good,” center DeForrest Boyer said. “I think we’re all pretty pumped up.”

Pacific Coach Bob Thomason believes Irvine’s chances today are at least 50-50.

“They’re one of the few teams who can afford to play four games because they have enough athletes and depth,” he said. “And they’re playing with a lot more poise than they did earlier in the season.

“They were giving up those big runs to everyone, but their offense is keeping them out of those situations and their defense is more conservative now.”

Irvine came into the tournament last in the conference in field-goal percentage defense (48%). In the three tournament games, they’ve allowed opponents to shot only 36% from the field.

For the second night in a row, the Anteaters played a lot of zone defense, and for the second night in a row, an outside shooter had an explosive first half. Friday night, Utah State’s Corwin Woodard had 24 points, and Saturday, Pacific’s Adam Peterson made five of seven three-pointers for 17 first-half points. But as they did against Woodard, the Anteaters were able to make the defensive adjustments to stop Peterson. He made one free throw after halftime.

Irvine’s three-point specialist Chris Brown was held scoreless by the Tigers’ box-and-one zone in the first half, but he got a few looks at the basket and made four of seven three-pointers in the second.

The score was tied, 52-52, when Brown and Todd Whitehead buried consecutive three-pointers, and when Brown hit another three with 5:35 remaining, the Anteaters were up by seven, 66-59.

The Anteater offense, which sputtered and choked through much of the regular season, was a fine-tuned engine in the second half. They shot 63% from the floor, 56% from three-point range and 77% from the free-throw line after the intermission.

“With numbers like that in the second half, you better win a basketball game,” Baker said. “I think for the first time all year, we’re really dictating the tempo. We’ve decided when we would run and when we would wait and set it up.”