UCI Stars in Another Disaster Film

UC Irvine, on a weeklong quest to star in Aggie highlight films, put together another Oscar-quality performance as the fall guys.

After suffering a 25-point loss to the New Mexico State Aggies Saturday night in Irvine, the Anteaters outdid themselves Thursday night, playing their part like the gang of ninjas who get thrashed by the good guy in a martial-arts flick, as the Utah State Aggies rolled up a 94-67 victory in front of 6,865 at The Spectrum.

The altitude here in the Wasatch Mountains (about 5,000 feet) wasn’t really the problem for the Anteaters, but the altitude of the Aggies definitely was. Utah State turned 21 Irvine turnovers into a dunkfest, ramming down 10 slams in all sorts of one- and two-handed flying, twisting and 360-degree styles.

“It was a very fun game,” said forward Silas Mills, who led Utah State with 23 points and five dunks. “We played pretty well.”

Indeed. Utah State’s starters made 24 of 35 shots from the field and the Aggies’ field-goal percentage was 64%. They also piled up 25 assists, held Irvine to 39% from the floor and 26% from three-point range.

The game was over midway through the first half when the Aggies went on a 19-5 run to take a 37-23 lead that they built on the rest of the evening.

“We played the two best teams in the conference back to back and got hammered by both of them,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said. “Hammered.”

Silas, who Utah Jazz President Frank Layden said was the third best player in Utah--after John Stockton and Karl Malone--looked the part Thursday. He made 10 of 14 shots, including two flying slams on alley-oop passes and one double-pump, left-handed swooping dunk that looked like something out of the contest at the NBA All-Star game.

“Silas might be our best player right now,” Utah State Coach Larry Eustachy said. “He’s more aggressive, looking to the basket more and he’s playing within the system.”

Utah State made mincemeat of Irvine’s system, the 2-3 zone defense that helped the Anteaters win four in a row before they encountered the dreaded Aggies.

“If you’ll remember, I didn’t like the bleeping thing anyway,” Baker said. “It’s a defense with holes in it, I’ve always liked to play against it, and we have coaches in this league who prepare.

“They really overloaded the baseline and dragged us over to one side.”

Utah State’s guards--Myron Simms, Corwin Woodard, Roddie Anderson and Covington Cormier--seemed able to penetrate the Irvine zone at will. And when they didn’t continue to the hoop for a lay-up, they dished off to a teammate.

The quartet of guards, three of whom were often on the court at the same time, made 17 of 29 shots and 14 assists.

The only fight the Anteaters showed came with 12 minutes 50 seconds remaining when Irvine’s Michael Tate and Utah State’s Maurice Spillers went chest to chest and received technical fouls.

“We didn’t have it together tonight and they took advantage of it,” said Tate, who scored 10 points and grabbed four rebounds before fouling out. “That was just a little trash-talking, no big deal.”

Tate had much more to say to his teammates when he returned to the bench screaming and cussing about the Anteaters’ lack of effort and emotion. “This ain’t over,” he bellowed. “Turn it up. Turn it up.”

Baker said he thought his team played better after Tate’s outburst, but asked if he thought anyone played well, he pointed to little-used reserves Dan Augulis and Shauhin Talesh, who got into the game in the waning minutes when all hope was lost.

Baker also had only disdain for the performance of the officials, whom he thought were influenced by the celebrating Aggie crowd.

“You can go ahead and write it,” he said. “This isn’t the NBA. They aren’t going to fine me. Maybe they’ll just (suspend) me for a game. In fact, I wish they would have made me sit out this one.”