Simmons’ Second Half Ends Titans’ Upset Bid

UC Irvine Coach Rod Baker could tell that his prize freshman, Kevin Simmons, was a little down at the end of the first half of Thursday’s Big West Conference men’s basketball tournament game against Cal State Fullerton.

Simmons had made only two of seven shots and Fullerton had a 39-33 halftime lead.

“Coach told me that I needed to step it up in the second half,” Simmons said. “And that’s what I tried to do. We all knew we didn’t want to go home early.”

Simmons went into high gear as soon as the second half began. He scored 10 of Irvine’s first 17 points of the second half, and the Anteaters defeated the Titans, 76-69, ending five consecutive losses to Fullerton in postseason play.

“I just told Kevin at halftime that he was much too quiet,” Baker said. “He had missed some easy shots in the first half. Kevin’s a sensitive kid and when it’s not going well, it bothers him. He’s just learning how to deal with those kinds of things.”

It was almost as if Irvine’s superb point guard Raimonds Miglinieks, who had 11 assists, had made up his mind to get Simmons rolling after intermission. He fired the ball inside to him twice for layups, and Simmons scored another quick field goal on a fast break.

Miglinieks, however, gave the credit to Simmons. “Kevin did a good job of getting in the open for shots,” he said.

Simmons finished with 21 points, hitting eight of 17 from the field, and had a season-high 15 rebounds, 12 on the defensive board. It was the 19th time he has scored more than 18 points this season. But Simmons said this game was different from the others.

“It was my first year in the tournament, and I was a little nervous in the first half,” he said. “I knew I needed to do better in the second half. Then when I got some shots down, I started feeling comfortable.”

Simmons said it turned out to be one of his better performances of the year, although his season scoring high was 26 against Pacific.

“It was a physical game, a lot of banging around, but you’ve got to expect it in a rivalry like this,” he said.

Fullerton Coach Bob Hawking gave considerable credit to Simmons and Irvine’s inside attack.

“Simmons hurt us early in the second half, and we had some severe problems with their inside game,” Hawking said. “They were very effective at getting the ball in deep.”

Titan guard Danny Robinson agreed. “They really got a lot of points inside in the second half,” Robinson said. “In the first half we were able to shut everything down. We controlled their guards the whole game, but they killed us inside in the second half.”