Anteaters Skid, but They Aren’t Down : UC Irvine: Despite a nine-game losing streak, Coach Baker’s team hasn’t lost its optimism.

IRVINE —  Coach Rod Baker sat watching UC Irvine’s basketball practice this week, checking for the signs of a team imploding. He didn’t find any.

“You’d never know that’s a 3-14 team,” he said, listening to the players shouting encouragement to each other.

The Anteaters haven’t won since Dec. 28. Their losing streak has grown to nine, and tonight’s game against Pacific in Stockton is Irvine’s last chance to avoid its second winless January in three years.

If the Anteaters don’t break through for a victory against the Big West Conference’s other struggling teams, Pacific and San Jose State (Saturday’s opponent), they could challenge the school record for futility: the 15-game streak of two seasons ago.

Gerald McDonald, the starting point guard, keeps an eye out for bickering or malingering. Like Baker, he doesn’t see any.

“We’re holding up pretty good,” McDonald said. “We had a pretty good practice, and no one on the team has been talking about quitting or anything. We’re staying together. The intensity’s picking up. I think we’ll start winning this week.”

Irvine could have started winning last week, but blew late leads to Cal State Long Beach and UC Santa Barbara.

Those were leads built on a markedly improved offense--one that has shot 55% over the last two games, compared to 40% before that.

It starts with McDonald, who was once shooting 28% but has made at least 50% of his shots in three of the last four games. He has been penetrating more, running the offense better, distributing the ball so that he isn’t forced to heave a 22-footer as the shot clock winds down.

“I think Gerald has had two great weeks. He’s playing a whole lot better,” Baker said. “I think he’s getting himself more makable shots.”

Irvine’s reserves have been injecting offense off the bench:

--Khari Johnson, a supremely athletic forward who was averaging around four points and shooting a distressing 25% from the line, got a surge of confidence against Long Beach and scored a career-high 21 points, many on powerful dunks. Against Santa Barbara, he had a career-high 10 rebounds. He has also made nine of his last 12 free throws, all with an air of assurance.

“The day before the Long Beach game, he genuinely was considering shooting with his left hand,” Baker said. But Johnson made an adjustment, pulling his unsteady guide hand off the ball, that transformed his shot.

--Keith Stewart, the transfer from Marquette, scored 19 points against Long Beach, making seven of eight shots and not missing from three-point range. He’s the closest thing Irvine has to a go-to player. But he’s also the most likely to commit a blunder at just the wrong time. Turnovers by Stewart in the final minute of both losses last week helped turn the tide against Irvine.

--David Hollaway, a senior guard who is a streak shooter, has been in double figures in the last two games. He had back-to-back games of 19 and 23 points in December, but before last week had reached double figures only once since then.

One of Irvine’s problems recently is that while the bench has been strong, some of the starters have faded. Don May, the starting center, hasn’t taken a shot--not even a free throw--in the last two games. He stays in the lineup for defense and rebounds. Craig Marshall, the starting shooting guard, has two points, no rebounds and one assist in the last two games, but Baker says he turns to Marshall when he assigns the toughest defensive task.

The latest difficulty for the Anteaters is their inability to hold a lead. They were up by seven with two minutes left in regulation before an overtime loss to Long Beach, and led by 10 with seven minutes left in the loss to Santa Barbara.

“When you go through uncharted waters, you’re not sure where you’re going,” Baker said. “The guys aren’t used to being up 10, so they forget what they did to get up 10.”

Irvine gets ahead by running its offense well; it loses leads by turning tentative.

“I think everybody is waiting on the next person to make that basket,” McDonald said.

It’s like the old saying: A team starts playing not to lose.

“You get up 10, and it seems like an insurmountable cushion,” Baker said. “But now the team that’s down has nothing to lose.”

Irvine, of course, has had its games to lose.

The Anteaters have to reverse that losing trend in at least one game this week--two would be better--to avoid becoming a long shot to make the eight-team Big West tournament. With UNLV banned because of NCAA sanctions, only one conference team will play its way out of the tournament, by finishing last in the regular season.

Also at stake is Baker’s appearance. Early this month, he vowed not to shave until Irvine wins again. He now has a 2 1/2-week-old beard.

Baker thinks his team will be a factor in the tournament, but it has to get there first.

“I’m fine. I’m not going anywhere,” said Baker, who is in the first year of a four-year contract. “But I hate to think that Gerald and David and Elgin (Rogers) and Don May have to go through this knowing this is their last time around.”