UC Irvine Shoots Down Long Beach : College basketball: Anteaters are better than 50% from the floor for first time this season and beat 49ers, 78-68.

Sunday’s victory over a hapless 1-13 San Jose State team did little but end UC Irvine’s six-game losing streak. Thursday night’s 78-68 defeat of Long Beach State proved that the Anteaters indeed can live up to their potential against Big West competition.

The Anteaters shot better than 50% from the floor for the first time this season and managed to make a double-figure first-half lead stand up for a change, improving their record to 6-9, 2-6 in conference.

“This was the first time in a long time that we demonstrated character,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said. “Every one of these helps us learn how to win. If you get ahead but you don’t stay up, it doesn’t do any good. Tonight, we took their hits and still showed some poise.”

In the first half, Irvine shot 60% from the floor and Long Beach (7-6, 3-3) shot only 38%. The teams were almost even in rebounds and turnovers, but the Anteaters led by only six, 40-34.

“We were a little upset we were only up by six,” Baker said, “but they hit a couple of big threes that hurt us and we had played pretty well.”

The Anteaters played their second consecutive game using only a 2-3 zone, a defense Baker installed one day before the San Jose State game. He had never used the defense in nine years of coaching and doesn’t like it much, but was flexible enough to give it a try after his team had lost six in a row and smart enough to keep playing it until somebody beats it.

“Gets better every day,” Baker said. “Tonight I think we did a good job of shading toward the people who were hurting us.”

Irvine, which led by 11 early in the game, increased its lead to 12 on three occasions in the second half. The Anteaters led, 56-44, with 12 minutes 23 seconds left in the game when point guard Raimonds Miglinieks, picking up one of his season-high 14 assists, fed Shaun Battle for a dunk.

But the 49ers finally found the outside range and went on a 13-2 run to cut Irvine’s lead to a point. Tye Mays hit a three-pointer, Eric Brown made two and when Long Beach’s Jamie Davis sank one from beyond the arc at the 6:16 mark, the score was tied, 62-62.

“We had it right where we wanted it, but we got caught up in the emotion of the comeback and got some fouls called,” Long Beach Coach Seth Greenberg said. “But I thought we played good basketball to get back into the game.”

Irvine, paced again by the offense of freshman forward Kevin Simmons (18 points), the rebounding of forward Michael Tate (10) and the quarterbacking of Miglinieks, made only eight of 14 free throws in the final 3:25. But the Anteaters refused to fold and held the 49ers to a single shot on each of their last three possessions.

Brown’s three-pointer with 2:03 left cut Irvine’s lead to two (70-68), but the 49ers didn’t score again and the Anteaters, with key rebounds by Simmons, Tate and Khalid Channell, forced Long Beach into the foul-and-hope-they-miss mode.

The ploy almost worked as Irvine struggled at the line, with Simmons, Tate and Channell each making only one of two shots at the line. But when Miglinieks fired a left-handed pass on the baseline to Tate, who took a power step and got a power slam, Irvine had a 75-68 advantage.

Simmons, who leads the conference in scoring in Big West play, scored 14 first-half points and hit a key 18-foot jumper when the Irvine offense had stagnated in the second half.