Anteaters Experience Another Second-Half Stumble

UC Irvine forward Marek Ondera, with all the power of understatement, tossed the words out immediately.

“This,” he said, sighing, “is not good.”

Summing up the Anteaters’ second consecutive big fade was that easy. Explaining how they blew an 11-point lead in a 64-55 loss to Pacific Thursday was not, especially when it came just days after a similar meltdown at Idaho.

That one, at least, was on the road, so Coach Pat Douglass could talk about how close the Anteaters were getting. This one was at home, in front of 1,678 in the Bren Center, and left him with a team that is 1-4 in Big West Conference play.

Not good? It was downright depressing for the Anteaters.

Irvine was outscored, 23-3, in the last 7 minutes 53 seconds. The Tigers (8-7, 3-2), scored the game’s last 16 points.

“We’ve come back before this season, but we’ve never come back to win,” said Pacific’s Clay McKnight, who had a game-high 16 points. “We needed this one. This one gets us over the hump.”

The Anteaters were left muttering I-think-I-cans, having stalled once again.

“I’ve never been through this before,” Douglas said.

Ben Jones made only two of seven shots and is three of 20 in the last three games. The Tigers were 21 of 25 from the foul line. Irvine was four of eight.

The Anteaters were also out-rebounded (33-26) for the ninth time this season, all losses. That situation might not get better. Center Stan Divranos, out the last nine games because of a bad back, will miss the rest of the season. An examination Thursday discovered a stress fracture in his back.

All that was working against the Anteaters (5-10 overall), and they still had the game in hand with eight minutes left. Then they handed it over.

Irvine was one of 10 and had four turnovers on its last 14 possessions. “It’s discouraging,” Douglass said. “We had the ball game. It’s my responsibility to teach these kids how to play down the stretch. We didn’t do it.

“We didn’t play smart on defense. We didn’t run the offense. We didn’t make our shots. We couldn’t get to the foul line.”

Other than that . . .

“It’s not the coaches, it’s us,” point guard Jerry Green said. “They prepared us and we didn’t finish it off.”

Green strutted, daring Pacific players to stop him much of the game. He was five of six from the field in the first half and led a 16-6 run that gave Irvine a 32-28 halftime lead.

His last basket was one of perpetual motion--driving, faking and spinning for an eight-foot jumper. It gave him 18 points and gave the Anteaters a 52-41 lead with 7:53 left.

“I was feeling it, I was in the zone a little,” Green said. “Then it just stopped.”

The Anteaters, who seemed so confident and focused, looked stressed and bewildered from that point on.

Jason Flowers and Adam Stetson didn’t communicate on one play. Flowers went one way, Stetson’s pass went the other. Flowers fired a wild jumper on the next possession.

Ondera, who made four of five shots in the first half, hardly touched the ball. Green’s only shots down the stretch were two desperate three-pointers in the last minute.

“They did a good job of taking the ball out of our hands,” Ondera said. “I was scrambling, trying to make something happen.

“We showed some flashes tonight. We just stopped running our stuff when it counted the most.”