Pacific Spoils Anteaters’ Bid for First Title

The clock struck midnight. OK, it was 4:07 p.m., but UC Irvine’s season turned into a pumpkin anyway.

Sometime a couple of weeks ago, the Anteaters must have looked down at their jerseys, saw the “Irvine” on the front and accepted their fate. They lost four of their last six regular-season games--including Sunday’s 80-74 season-ending humiliation against University of the Pacific--and fell flat in their bid for a first conference championship in school history.

Long Beach State (17-10 and 12-6 in conference) wins the Big West title with an assist from the Anteaters. Irvine and Pacific, both 15-11 and 11-7, are tied for second, but the Anteaters will get a first-round bye in the conference tournament, which begins Friday in Reno. They’ll play in the second semifinal at 9 p.m. Saturday.

Irvine and Pacific each won once in direct competition and both split with No. 1-seeded Long Beach. The Anteaters will be seeded second because they swept fourth-place Utah State and the Tigers were 1-1 against the Aggies.

Irvine trailed by as many as 23 points in the second half Sunday and the 3,465 in the Spanos Center were cheering and jeering. The Anteaters were behind by 12 with three minutes to play, but Pacific made 10 of 16 free throws down the stretch and the Anteaters missed only two shots in the last two minutes 39 seconds to make the final score respectable.

“At least we showed some heart and some pride and let it be known that we weren’t just going to allow this to happen,” Coach Rod Baker said. “We were just a couple of missed shots away from pulling the regulars and going to the bench.

“We didn’t win, but we extended a message that we’re not done.”

Unfortunately for the Anteaters, they waited too long Sunday before sending any messages except calls of distress. Seven-foot sophomore Michael Olowokandi scored 15 of his 17 points in the first half, Pacific dominated the boards and the Tigers pretty much had their way with Irvine en route to an 11-point advantage at the intermission.

Guard Adam Jacobsen took over the offensive burden in the second half and finished with 21 points. He also made six of eight free throws in the final two minutes.

“We’re 8-1 in the second half [of conference play],” Pacific Coach Bob Thomason said. “We’re the hottest team in the conference right now. We have depth. We have two or three ways to beat you.

“People talk about our three-point shooting, but we were oh for seven on threes in the first half and still had an 11-point lead.”

The Tigers, who were four for 17 from beyond the three-point stripe for the game, did as much damage with their defense of Irvine point guard Raimonds Miglinieks as they did when they had the ball in their hands.

They held Miglinieks, the nation’s assist leader who averages 8.6, to six points and seven assists.

“[Guard Monty] Owen did an absolutely great job,” Thomason said. “Miglinieks is as good a passer as there is and I think we did as good a job as you possibly can against him. If we meet them again, I don’t think we could hope to do any better.”

It was the second time in four days Miglinieks was stymied. He had nine points and four assists in Thursday’s loss to San Jose State.

“I don’t think he’s doing anything different, they just did a good job of closing up the passing lanes,” Baker said. “Just because he didn’t play well in two games, I don’t think it overshadows the other 24. I don’t think it’s time to start saying, ‘What’s wrong with Raimonds?’ ”

It could, however, be time to wonder about the Anteaters going into the tournament. This is a team that left on this trip with two chances to go down in school history as the first to capture a conference title, and looked feeble during two consecutive losses. Only forward Paul Foster, who made nine of 11 shots and scored a game-high 22 points, and guard Brian Keefe, who was six of nine from the floor and scored 21, were in sync Sunday.

But when someone asked Baker if he thought the streaking Tigers should be a favorite to win the tournament, he bristled.

“We’re my favorite in the tournament,” he said.

The Anteaters will take today off, shoot and lift weights on Tuesday and then go back to basics on Wednesday.

“We’re going to go back two or three months in the practice plans,” Baker said, “and refresh ourselves about what we did that made us so successful this year.”