UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Anteaters Wondering If They Should Be Unloading Their Zone

One-on-one or 2-3?

There’s bound to be a lot of serious deliberations going on behind the closed doors of the Irvine basketball offices this week. Coach Rod Baker and his staff face a dilemma.

Should we stay (in the 2-3) or should we go now?

Irvine has been in and then out of a zone--defense, that is--for more than a year, and they’ve either been riding high or sinking to new depths as a result. Consider:

* Last season, Irvine played mostly man-to-man in the regular season and then changed to a zone for the Big West tournament. After staggering to a 4-14 conference record, the Anteaters won three postseason games in a row and came up a few baskets short of going to the NCAA tournament.

“I think by the end of the year we finally learned how to play in this league,” assistant Greg Vetrone said before this season. “There’s just not that many great shooters, and running around chasing everybody just ends up in too many layups.

“I think we’re going to pack it in a little more, mix in more zone this year.”

* That made sense, but the Anteaters began the season playing mostly man-to-man . . . and playing well. They went 4-3--losing to two teams ranked in the top 15 nationally--in nonconference action. They were playing solid defense, but more important was their ability to rebound well out of the man. Players knew who they had to block out and they were doing a pretty good job of it.

In the four games Irvine won, it outrebounded the opponent by an average of nine a game.

* Then came the dreaded Big West, a basketball conference the Anteaters haven’t been able to compete with in the last five years . . . six if you want to count this one. And 1994-95 began to look as if it might be more infamous than Bill Mulligan’s three-victory ‘89-90 regular season or Baker’s 3-15 in ‘91-92.

The Anteaters lost their first six despite scoring 80 points or more four times and 77 once. As point guard Raimonds Miglinieks pointed out, “Offense is not our problem. Defense is our problem.”

New Mexico State shot 58% from the floor Jan. 9 and won by only five. Anteater opponents made almost half of their shots during the six-game losing streak.

* While losing No. 6 at Pacific, Baker decided he liked the effectiveness of the Tigers’ 2-3 zone, the way it pinched the post guys and dared you to shoot over the top.

He still hated the defense, but in desperation installed it the next day in practice, and the Anteaters began a four-game winning streak one night later.

The key to those victories? San Jose State, Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara and Nevada Las Vegas were a combined 36 of 107 from three-point range.

* Then opponents began to prepare for the zone and, since that Feb. 2 victory over Las Vegas, everybody but San Jose State has been able to defeat it.

Saturday night in the Bren Center, Pacific made nine of 19 first-half three-pointers against the 2-3 and led by 14. Irvine switched to a man-to-man at halftime and the Tigers made only two of seven threes in the second half. The Anteaters outscored Pacific by 13 but fell a point short and now they’re 5-10 in conference.

“The zone is the problem,” Miglinieks said. “Some teams, who don’t shoot good outside, it is good against them. But you can’t use it against everybody.

“And we seem to play more intense in the man-to-man.”

Thursday night, Irvine plays Santa Barbara, a team known more for its inside play than its outside shooting, so the 2-3 will probably get at least one more chance.

*

Brown out? Chris Brown obviously isn’t the shooter he was at this time last year, but the senior guard who was No. 1 in the nation in three-point shooting last season still has a pretty jumper and sometimes it still goes in.

However, when Irvine was trailing by eight with slightly more than a minute to play Saturday night, Brown remained on the end of the bench where he had been all night.

Why didn’t Baker insert Brown into the lineup and hope for a flurry of threes?

“I don’t have a reason,” Baker said.

Brown says he has “no comment,” and then comments: “I have no idea what’s going on.”

*

In their wake: Guess who’s favored to win the Big West men’s and women’s swim championships to be hosted by Irvine Thursday through Saturday at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach?

“The UC Santa Barbara men have won 16 years in a row, I think,” Irvine Coach Charlie Schober said. “I’ve lost count, it’s so obnoxious. And they’re favored to win again.”

Santa Barbara has three of the top 17 collegiate breaststrokers in the country, including Mark Anderson, who has the fastest time in the 100-yard breaststroke (54:01).

“The UCSB women are favored as well, but it will be a pretty good team battle with Nevada and UNLV.”

Irvine’s women have a chance of finishing as high as fourth, according to Schober. “OK, that’s dreaming a little bit, and it could go all the way down to seventh or last.”

The men are shooting for third, but they too, could fall to the bottom of the six-team competition. The Anteaters are counting on two redshirts, freestyler Pat Keenan and backstroker Erik Walton.

“Keenan is looking very strong and he should have a pretty good shot in the 500 free,” Schober said. “There are a couple of other guys who will challenge, but he’ll be right there.

“And Walton has won the conference championship in the 100 back twice before, so he’s got a legitimate shot.”

On the women’s side, freshman Amerie Nordberg, sophomore Gwen Yoshizumi and the medley relay team are Irvine’s best shots for victory. Nordberg’s time in the 100 breaststroke is third in the Big West, Yoshizumi has the fifth-best time in 100 backstroke, and the medley relay team recently set a school record.

*

Taking a dive: Senior John Houston, a fullback on the Irvine soccer team, figures to be one of the top point-earners for the Anteaters this weekend.

Houston, who was a diver at Ventura High, is back on the boards after four years of slide tackles.

“He’s obviously a good athlete and he has some talent as a diver, but he’s been away a long time,” Schober said. “Had he been out since the beginning of the year, I bet he would have done pretty well. But it takes a while to polish things.”

Houston probably won’t finish higher than sixth . . . and there’s only six men competing. “But they score down through sixteen so he’s going to give us some big points,” Schober said.

*

Anteater notes

Passing almost unnoticed in the last-minute flurry of Irvine’s 84-83 loss to Pacific Saturday night was Raimonds Miglinieks’ school record for assists in a season. Miglinieks penetrated and then flung a pass out to Brian Keefe, who hit a three-pointer with 10:53 remaining in the first half to pick up his 172nd assist, surpassing the mark set last year by Lloyd Mumford. Miglinieks, who is fifth in the nation with an assist average of eight, has 176 with three regular-season games remaining. . . . Senior opposite hitter Leland Quinn set a school single-match record with 37 kills and senior setter Jason Hinchman set an Irvine match record with 103 set assists against Pepperdine Saturday. The Anteaters (4-3) are ranked No. 10 in the nation and play top-ranked UCLA Wednesday night in Westwood. . . . Freshman Borya Orloff won the pole vault Saturday at the Long Beach Relays with a mark of 16-7 3/4 and just missed breaking the school record of 17-1 1/2, set in 1977 by Mike Sabatino, who now stars on the soap “The Bold and the Beautiful.”