Season Bounces Back With ‘Midnight Madness’ Drills

A look at the region’s college basketball teams heading into the start of official practices:

UC Irvine, under first-year Coach Pat Douglass, opens practice Saturday at 11 a.m. Douglass won three NCAA Division II titles at Cal State Bakersfield and has never had a losing record in 24 seasons. His time has come.

The Anteaters were 1-25 last season and had Nevada not missed two last-second shots--in regulation and overtime--they would have been 0-26. So this year has to be better. After all, not many first-year coaches can double their team’s victory total in one week.

Douglass wasn’t hired until March, which made recruiting difficult. He still signed six players, including four from junior colleges. That group, plus three sophomores who started, gives the Anteaters more experience than a year ago. Rebounding was a concern. It may now be a full-fledged problem, as Wendell Robinson, a 6-8 senior, is academically ineligible for the first quarter.

Top returners are Robinson, guards Lamarr Parker and Juma Jackson and center Andrew Carlson.