UC Irvine Crawls to Rare Victory at Pacific

UC Irvine and Pacific played vintage basketball Thursday night . . . the type from another time. All that was missing were peach baskets and set shots.

When the Anteaters were done with their part of turning back the clock, they had a 62-55 victory, their first in the Spanos Center since 1989. Getting there was grueling, to say the least.

This was pass-and-pick basketball, countered on both sides by clutch-and-grab defense. Strangely, it seemed to suit the Anteaters (12-12, 5-8), who are tied with Pacific (10-15, 5-8) for third in the Big West Conference’s Western Division.

“That was hard,” said Irvine guard Malachi Edmond, who had 12 points. “It was one of those games you just had to tough out.”

He meant the teams, but it applied to the 3,014 fans as well.

Irvine held the Tigers to one field goal during the first 15 minutes of the second half and extended a 24-21 halftime lead to 48-34. Pacific shot 35% for the game, and needed to make six of its last nine shots to boost it that high.

“That was probably our best defensive effort of the season,” Coach Pat Douglass said. “We played good defense, moved the ball well and got good shots. It was nice to see all those things come together at this point of the season.”

But fun to watch?

“We wanted to pick up the tempo, but coach wanted us to take our time and get high-percentage shots,” said guard Jerry Green, who had a game-high 21 points.

If it wasn’t for that pesky shot clock, the Anteaters could have slowed down the tempo even more. They had one clock violation in the second half. Three other times they didn’t take a shot until one second was left.

This was part strategy, part necessity.

The Anteaters continued to hobble along. Guard Sean Jackson is likely out for the season with a severely sprained left ankle. Ben Jones, his replacement, didn’t start Thursday because of back spasms.

Adam Stetson, Jones’ replacement, suffered a sprained right ankle with nine minutes left in the first half. So Jones had to gut out 28 minutes on the court.

“We were running out of players, so we took some time off the clock in the second half,” Douglass said.

The way Pacific played on offense, the Anteaters could take all the time they needed on possessions, even if they didn’t score.

Irvine’s defense had a lot to do with that. Of course, the Tigers’ offensive limitations certainly aided the Anteaters.

Three-point specialist Clay McKnight, the only Tiger to average in double figures, was smothered by Edmond. McKnight finished with four points, eight below his average. All came from the free-throw line. He missed six shots, all three-pointers.

Not that his teammates did much better.

Pacific had more airballs (two) than field goals (one) in the second half until Peter Heizer sank a three-pointer with 4 minutes 54 seconds left. His basket sparked little momentum, as Irvine still led, 48-37.

Stetson, before he was injured, and Greg Ethington took away Pacific’s inside game. Both drew two offensive fouls with flops that left the Tiger big men tentative.

The game became a rout, although it took the Anteaters a while to get there. Pacific went without a field goal for 12 minutes in the second half, but the Tigers hung around by making 11 of 16 free throws during that stretch.

The Anteaters finally pulled away and led by as many as 17 points, before the Tigers made the final score respectable.

“The second half just seemed to linger,” said Irvine forward Marek Ondera, who had 18 points. “I wanted the clock to move because we had a commanding lead.”