UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Keefe’s Move to the West Coast Gives the Anteaters Another Shooter

Brian Keefe was resigned to putting his college basketball career on hold and attending a prep school in the East. His SAT scores weren’t lacking and his grade-point average was fine, but Keefe wasn’t happy with the kinds of college opportunities afforded him.

“I thought with a year of playing at a prep school, I could get to a better level of Division I basketball,” he said.

But Keefe’s play last summer in an AAU tournament in Las Vegas drew notice and, all of sudden, he had scholarship offers from Rutgers, Boston University, Duquesne, Drexel, Richmond . . . and UC Irvine. The Anteaters had a scholarship to offer when Todd Whitehead left school because of academic difficulties.

“Coach (Rod) Baker told me he wanted me,” Keefe said. “My parents kind of made me take the trip out here to see the school. It’s a long way from home (Winchester, Mass.) and that was a big factor for me. I thought about it for two weeks before I decided. And how far away it is is what I thought about most.

“But I really liked the coaches and when I weighed UCI with the other offers I got, this came down to the best opportunity. The coaches said I would get the chance to play some minutes because there’s really only one other player at (the shooting guard) position.”

Talk about significant others . . . the Anteaters’ starting shooting guard is senior Chris Brown, the nation’s No. 1 three-point shooter last season. Maybe Keefe would have gotten more playing time at that prep school. But the 6-foot-4 freshman has been impressive in practices and scrimmages. And he’s proven that he’s more than just a shooter.

“I wouldn’t say he has been a surprise,” Baker said. “It’s more of one of those occasions when a player turns out to be exactly what we thought he would be. All too often, it’s the other way around, when a player isn’t as good as you thought and you have to start making adjustments.”

At Winchester High, Keefe averaged 28 points as a senior, was the Middlesex League Most Valuable Player and still wasn’t a campus hero.

“Basketball isn’t given that much attention in our town,” Keefe said. “I mean a lot of people come to the games, but football is the big sport in our town.

“We didn’t have a very successful basketball team. I was really the only one who concentrated on basketball. Everyone else on the team came out as like a second sport.”

Keefe’s focus resulted in his ascent to the top of Winchester’s all-time scoring list with 1,163 points during his career.

“Yeah, I was the focus of the team,” Keefe said, “but it’s not like I’ll have to make this big adjustment to play here. On my AAU team, I played with guys who are going to Kentucky and North Carolina, so you don’t go into it thinking you’re going to be the man on those teams.”

Baker says Keefe came into his own in competition with the big boys and sees the same kind of improvement every day during practice.

“He has pretty good fundamental skills,” Baker said. “He listens. He learns. He plays hard. And, as a sidebar to that, his ego is not a problem. I don’t doubt that it’s in there, but he keeps it in check.”

On occasion, however, Keefe’s self-confidence shows. After a few weeks of pickup games against teammates and other area college players, he was asked for his feelings about the local talent.

“I’ve played against better,” he said. “I think the players back East are a little bit better. I think I can play here.”

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Sequestered: Baker isn’t exactly overjoyed with the new NCAA cost-containment rule that prohibits coaches from scouting other teams.

“It’s all football,” Baker said. “They do all their scouting by tape, so why can’t we? But they all play on the same day. They have no choice.

“We have to hope that (an opponent) will provide us with tape, unless we can somehow get it off the airwaves. Anyway, you can only get nuts and bolts from tape. You can’t get a feeling about how a team reacts to changes or certain situations from a tape.”

Baker never misses a chance to take in a game, even when he has to accept the abuse he gets from Cal State Fullerton fans at Titan Gym. He admits coaches probably will circumvent the rule by sending local high school coaches or even educated boosters, but it won’t be the same.

“There are a ton of people you can send, but it’s not the same,” he said. “I want to be there, or have one of my assistants.”

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Polo yo-yo: The water polo team is ranked eighth in the nation, which means it’s a down year for the Anteaters. But they’re up at the moment, having upset sixth-ranked UCLA Sunday to extend their winning streak to three.

Irvine (8-11) will be seeded sixth in this weekend’s Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach. The Anteaters play ninth-seeded Long Beach State at 2 p.m. Friday.

Anteater Notes

Former Corona del Mar standout Keri Phebus of UCLA is the top-seeded player for the Rolex/International Tennis Assn. Southern California Women’s Tennis Regional, Wednesday through Sunday at the UCI Tennis Stadium. The singles final is scheduled for 10 a.m Sunday, to be followed by the doubles final. . . . The men’s and women’s cross-country teams compete Saturday in the NCAA District 8 Championships on the Randolph Golf Course in Tucson, Ariz. . . . Rod Baker on freshman Kevin Simmons, who had his nose broken and front teeth loosened in practice 10 days ago: “He was back in practice (two days later) on Monday with a mouth guard and a nose thing and there’s something to be said for that. We’ve had a few guys here who would’ve set up residence in the training room and been out six months.” . . . Skipper Andy Beeckman and crew Danielle Hill, Eric Knopf and Jonathan Posner won the Sloop qualifying race at Waikiki Yacht Club last week to qualify for the Sloop Nationals at St. Petersburg, Fla., Nov. 18-20. . . . Mark Roberts, play-by-play announcer for the Riverside Pilots, will handle Irvine basketball broadcasts this season for KUCI (88.9 FM). Roberts has done play-by-play for Birmingham and Pensacola of the Continental Basketball Assn. . . . Members of the women’s basketball team put in a lot of work during the off-season, according to Coach Colleen Matsuhara, and the result has been spirited early-season practices. “So far, I’m quite pleased with overall conditioning level,” she said. “It’s been much better than I thought it would be, a very pleasant surprise.”