It’s Close Call, but It’s Still a Defeat

It was just another loss, and they have piled up in the last year or so. Yet, there was some upbeat chatter from UC Irvine players and their coach Saturday.

Amazing what five minutes of good basketball will do.

The Anteaters, who seemed spiraling to another double-digit defeat, made San Diego State work for a 69-66 victory in front of 1,043 in the Bren Center.

Irvine’s Jason Flowers, a walk-on, flung up a three-pointer with four seconds left that hit the rim and came off. After a scramble for the loose ball, the Aztecs could finally relax.

The Anteaters (1-5) trailed, 59-47, with 4 minutes 56 second left, then found some offensive consistency. They went on an 11-1 run. Fear, it seems, was a great motivator.

“Desperate, that’s what it was,” guard Junior Bond said. “We were desperate. We got desperate to win one finally.”

The Anteaters’ victory over Chico State--a Division II team--aside, Bond was speaking from a perspective that is a distant memory to the few remaining Irvine players who suffered through a 1-25 season a year ago.

“I won 60 games in two seasons in junior college,” said Bond, who played at Illinois Central College the last two seasons. “This is getting hard to take.

“We were started to feel like, ‘Oh, we lost another one.’ If we can just win one of these close ones, I think we would knock that off. Coach had to get us fired up. He told us we could win and to get intense.”

It was Bond who put the Anteaters on the road to recovery. He hit back-to-back three-pointers to start the 11-1 run. After that burst, the game came down to breaks.

Malachi Edmond’s two free throws cut the Aztec lead to 60-58. San Diego State’s Kevin Betts banked in a three-pointer with one second left on the shot clock.

“We had two or three shots that went in and came out and their guy banks in a three-pointer,” Irvine Coach Pat Douglass said.

Irvine’s Adam Stetson sank a three-pointer and was fouled with 33 seconds left. His free throw cut the Aztec lead to 66-64. It was, 67-66, after Edmond’s layup with 21 seconds left.

It was left in the hands of walk-ons.

San Diego State’s David Kaplansky made two free throws with 13 seconds left for a 69-66 lead. Kaplansky was found in a late October tryout, after attrition cut the Aztec roster to nine.

On the other side, Flowers had played one minute Saturday and was only in the game because four Irvine players fouled out. But he picked up a deflected pass in the corner and fired up a line-drive three-pointer that hit the front of the rim.

“It was on line, it just came up short,” Flowers said.

Said Stetson: “We have to learn to play with that intensity for 40 minutes, not five or six.”

The Anteaters plodded through most of the game. They seemed more active on offense, and didn’t rely on Stetson and Ben Jones as in past games. Yet, they shot only 34%

For the most part, the Aztecs (3-4) matched Irvine’s lack of intensity. They survived on the foul line, making 29 of 48. Irvine committed 32 fouls.

But the Aztecs held the Anteaters scoreless the first five minutes of the second half and built a 52-39 lead.

Still, Douglass was almost smiling afterward.

“We didn’t get beat by 25 points,” Douglass said. “The kids responded with some clutch shots. They just made a a few more than we did.

“I can’t be disconsolate with the effort. We just need to win one of these to get some confidence.”