UC Irvine Goes to Wrong Shooter in Loss to Fresno

The game, once seemingly out of hand, suddenly became close and UC Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan stalked the sideline looking for a sharp-shooting guard who could upset Fresno State with that wondrous weapon of modern basketball, the three-point shot.

But by the time he realized his best shooting guard was his center, 6-foot 10-inch Johnny Rogers, it was too late.

Fresno State had won another, defeating the Anteaters, 72-66, before a sellout crowd of 1,496 in Crawford Hall.

It was the third straight Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. win for the Bulldogs, who are 8-4 overall. UCI fell to 1-2 and 6-8.

Fresno State took control of the game early and stayed there until late in the second half, when UCI made its only run of the night.

The Anteaters cut the lead to 61-56 with 2:20 left on a basket by forward Tod Murphy. It was then that Mulligan started looking for the three-point shot, which is being used in the PCAA this season.

And, naturally, he turned to his guards for help. Everyone knows that guards shoot three-pointers and centers dunk.

That’s the way it’s supposed to be. But that’s not the way it is at Irvine. Rogers, though he’s the center, is the team’s best pure shooter--from any distance.

But sometimes Mulligan forgets.

“We do forget that fact,” he said, “we do.”

So it was guard Rodney Scott (0 for 3) who took the long shot with 1:02 left that could have cut the lead to three.

But he missed, and Fresno turned it into an easy basket at the other end.

With 33 seconds left, it was UCI guard Jerome Lee (a 40% shooter on the year) who missed a three-point try that could have trimmed the lead to three at 64-61.

But Lee also missed.

And what about Rogers? In the final 13 seconds, with the game out of reach, he drilled two three-pointers to prove his point.

But it was a little late.

The guards again let Mulligan down.

This was supposed to be Mulligan’s best shooting team. No way would teams be able to sit back in a zone and let UCI shoot itself out of a game.

But that’s become the game plan against UCI lately.

“They play a zone, pack it in and say go ahead and shoot,” Mulligan said. “All day long I heard how they were going to pack it in.”

And that’s what happened. Fresno, which plays good defense anyway, took away UCI’s inside game, holding Murphy to just 12 points (he was 5 for 13 from the field).

Most of Rogers’ team-high 21 points came from outside, which was no surprise.

But the rest of the guys were supposed to be out there shooting with him.

“Shooting was supposed to be our forte this season,” Rogers said. “But everyone has been inconsistent, myself included.”

Rogers was just being kind. He came into the game hitting 54% from the field.

But those other guys . . .

UCI’s off (that’s supposed to mean shooting) guards, Lee and Scott, combined to make just 2 of 10 shots against the Bulldogs.

“I think we realized we could play with Fresno tonight,” Mulligan said. “But the next time we play them it will be in Fresno.”

Maybe the Bulldogs aren’t the team they were in past years, but as long as there is Coach Boyd Grant, there will be defense.

Grant is the coach who doesn’t throw out the first ball at practice until the second month of the season.

He’s the coach who puts his players through two-a-day workouts during the season, an old-fashioned puritan who believes basketball games should be won with your feet.

So there he was in the final minutes, coaching his defense and daring the Anteaters to beat him with this new-fangled three-point shot.

His defense prevailed once again.

“It was a great win for us,” Grant said. “We shut them down inside. Murphy was the guy we wanted to stop inside and we did.”

Senior Mitch Arnold led the Bulldogs with 22 points with forward Jos Kuipers added 18.

There was more bad news for the Anteaters, too. Freshman forward Anthony Burgess has been temporarily declared academically ineligible because of poor grades, but he says he might be able to resolve the problem this week and be ready to play Saturday night against the University of the Pacific.