Anteaters Again Go Only Halfway to Winning Game : College basketball: UC Irvine leads at half, but allows Washington State to pull out 88-81 victory.

The two faces of UC Irvine were grinning and scowling for all to see again Friday night. The Anteaters, who have led at halftime in each of their last three games and ended up losers, continue to make an art of going from protagonist to anti-hero after the intermission.

Performing on their home stage for only the second time this season, the Anteaters brought their good guy-bad guy act to the Bren Center, where 2,659 cheered them to a halftime lead and then quietly left disappointed after Washington State won, 88-81.

Both teams were missing a top player. Washington State (7-1) was without Mark Hendrickson, who broke his hand Wednesday, and Irvine (3-4) was missing Kevin Simmons, who was suspended for one game for breaking an undisclosed team rule.

Both players were team leaders in one category and second in another--Hendrickson led the Cougars in rebounding and was No. 2 in scoring and Simmons was first in scoring and second in rebounding--but the Anteaters figured to feel the loss more. Washington State returned 85% of its scoring production from last season’s team that went to the final eight of the postseason NIT.

But the Anteaters responded with one of their most inspired halves of the season and, thanks primarily to Raimonds Miglinieks’ 10 first-half assists, Irvine held a 40-38 advantage at halftime.

Washington State, which led the nation in field-goal percentage last season (.517), made 14 of its 20 second-half shots, however, and 15 of 16 free throws in the last 10 minutes 50 seconds to come out on top. The Cougars shot a season-high 60% from the field for the game.

“Yeah, we played pretty well without Kevin, but they played very well without Hendrickson, too,” Coach Rod Baker said. “I just don’t know that we defended very well in the second half.”

At least this time they didn’t let a 16-point lead slip away, as was the case Dec. 21 in San Diego. But another fine offensive effort went by the wayside in the wake of Irvine’s inability to come up with the kind of big defensive play that can turn a game around.

“That’s been our problem, last year and now again the same thing,” Miglinieks said. “I don’t understand it. We played a good game against a very good team. We knew we had to step up with Kevin out and everyone played really hard. But again we couldn’t keep it up in the second half. Again we couldn’t hold our lead.”

Miglinieks, sophomore guard Brian Keefe and senior forward Shaun Battle, who tied his career high with 15 points, combined to make 22 of 37 shots and score 52 points for Irvine. But the Cougars’ advantage in quickness was telling the factor in the final minutes as both teams scrambled against each other’s full-court pressure.

“We weren’t under the impression that we could hold their guards down forever,” Baker said. “We probably did as good a job as possible on [Shamon] Antrum, but we couldn’t stop [Isaac] Fontaine [who had a season-high 26 points].”

Washington State had the ball and led, 82-80, with 47 seconds to play when Baker pulled Miglinieks in favor of freshman Lamarr Parker, a sort of offensive-defensive platoon system he often uses in the closing seconds of close games. But Parker made a freshman mistake and fouled Donminic Ellison near halfcourt.

Baker raised his arms in disgust and screamed, “Why?” Ellison made both free throws. And the Anteaters’ fate was all but sealed.

“We didn’t want to foul there,” Baker said. “We were going to get the ball back no matter what they did. I thought I made it clear to him, but somebody did a study that showed that very little of what is said in the huddle is heard.”

Parker proved the study right and the Anteaters came up short for the fourth time in the last five games.

“This was not a smooth game,” Cougar Coach Kevin Eastman said. “Beautiful basketball did not come into play. But sometimes you have to know how to win ugly.”

It’s a lesson the Anteaters are dying to learn.