UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Improvement Measured in Small Increments, but It’s a Start

The Anteaters ended their season against Big West competition much the way they began: getting run over by a steamroller. Six minutes into their semifinal battle with Nevada, the teams were tied, 12-12. Seven minutes later, the Wolf Pack was devouring the Anteaters, 30-16, and Irvine’s season was all but over.

It was one more disappointment in a season fraught with discontent, but there were highlights, too. Saturday was a bummer, but Irvine was flying high only a day earlier after upsetting top-seeded Utah State in the quarterfinals.

The Anteaters had an encouraging 4-3 nonconference record--which included losses to two top-15 teams--when they opened Big West play with six losses in a row. They rebounded to win four consecutive games, but then lost six of the next seven.

Irvine won its final two regular-season games and beat Cal State Fullerton and then the Aggies before coming up empty against Nevada.

The Anteaters finished the season 13-16, not bad by recent Irvine standards but not what they hoped to accomplish after a super recruiting class added three top players to the starting lineup. But even Raimonds Miglinieks, the league’s top point guard, Kevin Simmons, a bona fide inside offensive threat, and Michael Tate, a tenacious defender and rebounder, couldn’t avert the prolonged slumps.

“We’ve got a few guys coming back who are good players,” said Simmons, Big West freshman of the year. “We wanted to get it this year for the seniors, but I think we’ll be a really good team next year.”

Given the talent level, one would think so. But the Anteaters’ struggle for consistency seemed to center on a lack of defensive identity. They had success with a 2-3 zone midway through the season, but didn’t play it with much emotion and had trouble rebounding out of it. They played with more intensity when they played man-to-man, but suffered from match-up problems and opponents got more easy baskets.

Irvine was fourth in the conference in scoring, averaging almost 77 points, but the Anteaters were last in scoring defense, giving up more than 79 points per game. Coach Rod Baker, however, isn’t certain defense was their biggest problem.

“I disagree about what it is that kept us in abeyance,” he said. “Our inability to execute our offense in crucial situations caused us to have some droughts. We need to work on execution.”

Second-half execution, to be specific. Irvine outscored opponents by 11 points in the first half this season, but were outscored by 82 after the intermission. They blew six halftime leads--four of them of eight or more points--and came back from halftime deficits only three times.

“We have four or five very good players coming back,” said Miglinieks, Irvine’s first all-conference first-team selection since Wayne Engelstad in 1988, “but the lesson we must learn from this year is that you have to play the whole 40 minutes.”

The Anteaters were playing their best basketball at season’s end and the rout by Nevada can be attributed partially to the fact Irvine--which had to play in Thursday’s qualifying round because of its eighth-place finish in the regular season--was playing its third game in as many days. Fatigue clearly was a factor.

They may have expected more, but the Anteaters won as many games this season as they won in Baker’s first two at Irvine. And he thinks the late-season surge was a foundation they can build on next season.

“We learned some valuable lessons about this team in the last couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s not all X’s and O’s. We have to play with a high level of intensity and we have to be caring for each other.

“We didn’t always have those two things this year, but we came together in the last two weeks and I don’t think it’s coincidence. It was the product of a lot of soul searching by all of us.”

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Comment/No comment: Baker, asked why his teams have played so well during the last two Big West tournaments: “This is a special situation and we have guys who react well to challenges.”

OK, but isn’t there a motivational problem if they can’t also get up for regular-season games?

“I’m not going to answer that because I don’t have to,” he said. “But you have my permission to go wherever you want to with it.”

We didn’t know we needed permission, but here goes.

The tournament scenario provides all the motivation any athlete needs. A chance at playing in the NCAA tournament--every college player’s dream--and salvaging the season is a very large carrot.

During the regular season, part of a coach’s job is cajoling his players into playing with passion a couple of times a week, even though it’s not a win-or-the-season-is-over situation.

The Anteaters are 5-2 in the conference tournament over the last two years, with victories over a top-seeded team and a second-seeded team.

During the last two regular seasons, they are 10-26.

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A new boss: Same as the old boss, really, but Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening announced last week that Athletic Director Dan Guerrero will now report directly to her as part of a structural reorganization of the university’s Office of Student Affairs and Campus Life.

Intercollegiate Athletics will no longer be a part of Student Affairs and Campus Life, so Guerrero will no longer have to deal with a vice chancellor.

“I see this as a very positive move,” Guerrero said, “and it’s in line with the way most schools who emphasize both academics and athletics are set up. It gives me the opportunity to articulate first-hand about NCAA matters, Big West matters, anything that will affect our department.

“Her goal is to make UCI one of the top 50 research institutions in the country and clearly she sees that we are one of the avenues to help affect that.”

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Notes

The women’s basketball team will play Stanford at 8:30 p.m. Thursday in Palo Alto. The times for the first-round NCAA games were announced Monday. Southern Mississippi and Southern Methodist meet at 6 p.m. in the other sub-regional game at Maples Pavilion. The winners meet Saturday night at 7:30. . . . Coach Rod Baker has been named an assistant coach for the U.S. team in this summer’s World University Games in Japan. The head coach will be Florida’s Lon Kruger. Baker also was an assistant for the U.S. team that won the gold medal in 1993. . . . The Anteater summer basketball camps will be available in two sessions this year, July 30-Aug. 3, and Aug. 7-11. An offensive skill improvement after-school camp will be offered from 3:30 to 7 p.m. June 12-16. Baker, his staff, local high school coaches and college players will concentrate on fundamentals and developing skills. Both programs are open to boys and girls ages 8 to 17. Fee for the day camp is $210. Fee for the after-school program is $120. For more information, call (714) 824-8536. . . . Point guard Raimonds Miglinieks, who scored 35 points and had 32 assists in three games, was named to the All-Big West tournament team.