UC Irvine Victory Is ‘Historical’

Raimonds Miglinieks called it “the biggest victory in UCI history,” which is understandable on at least four counts and disputable on, oh, dozens of others.

Understandable because:

1) Miglinieks played in this one, an 84-81 victory over Long Beach State at the Pyramid--UC Irvine’s first victory at Long Beach in 10 years.

2) The victory left Irvine 9-3 in the Big West and alone in first place for the first time this late in a season.

3) Miglinieks failed to consult Kevin Magee and Bill Mulligan.

4) While Irvine was upsetting UCLA twice in the mid-1980s, Miglinieks was off practicing no-look over-the-shoulder passes in Latvia.

Disputable because . . . where do you want to start?

Game’s first 10 minutes and 10 seconds: Irvine is outscored, 26-14.

Game’s next 7 1/2 minutes: Long Beach is outscored, 24-1.

Second half’s first 14 minutes 14 seconds: Long Beach is outscored, 32-23; Irvine leads by 17 points with 5:46 to go.

Second half’s next 4 minutes 41 seconds: Irvine is outscored, 21-8, and its lead cut to four.

Seconds later, that lead is three. Long Beach misses a free throw, Irvine fails to snare the rebound, the loose ball skids into the lane, a dogpile ensues and a jump ball is whistled--possession going to Long Beach with seven seconds on the clock.

Time enough for a decent look at a three-point shot to tie.

But, consistent with the ebb and flow of this jittery evening at the Pyramid, 49er guard Rasul Salahuddin spends the first precious six seconds yo-yoing from about 30 feet out before flinging up a 25-footer that catches the front of the rim and bangs away.

Irvine wins.

The polite thing to do would be to leave it at that, but newspaper space must be filled, unlike the basket at either end of the gym whenever a foul shot was required.

Long Beach, The Team That Does Not Practice Free Throws, was even worse than its season’s 63.7% success rate from the line. On Big Brick Monday, the 49ers missed 14 of 31 free throws, clanking them at an abominable rate of 54.8%.

Irvine was scarcely better--19 of 32, 59.4%--but five more free throws than the other guys in a three-point game can mean the difference between first place and Seth Greenberg’s red face.

“We would make our lives a lot easier if we just made free throws,” Irvine Coach Rod Baker said with a sigh, figuring that isn’t too much to ask.

“We probably shot better threes than free throws.”

Baker hadn’t yet seen the final stat sheet, but he was deadly accurate on this. Irvine shot 68.2% (15 of 22) from three-point range, nearly nine percentage points better than from the foul line.

Possible explanation?

Irvine players need to be emotionally and psychologically challenged by something more than a 15-foot gimme?

Irvine players are smarter than most and have figured out that three points are better than one?

Miglinieks proposed a third option.

“Maybe pressure,” he suggested. “Obviously, this is one of our biggest games of the year. This one is even bigger than St. John’s. Lots of pressure. I think our guys felt it.”

It did not help Irvine’s cause that Miglinieks, the Anteaters’ most proficient foul shooter, spent the game’s last 2:04 on the bench after receiving his fifth foul.

“Raimonds probably could have helped us a lot there at the end,” Baker noted. “The bottom line is, if we make free throws, we could have kept [Long Beach at] a good enough distance.”

Miglinieks, on the same topic: “It is always better to be on the court than on the bench.”

Especially when the seconds are dragging, the free throws are wandering all over the building and there’s not one thing you can do about it.

The final minute--”That was a week, that wasn’t a minute,” Baker contended. It was excruciating to watch.

Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

Brick . . . brick . . . brick.

If this was a preview of the Big West Tournament final, at least the city of Reno has fair warning. If it’s too late to call off the event, there’s still enough time to erect some formidable barriers around the Lawler Center, block as many entrances as they can.

From Irvine’s perspective, however, Monday night was classic basketball. As Miglinieks put it, “This is great. UCI is in first place, and I don’t know if UCI has ever been 9-3 after 12 [conference] games. [UCI hasn’t.] Just because of that, I say this was the biggest victory in UCI history.”

Easy for him to say.

Miglinieks only played in the game. He didn’t have to watch it.