UCI Is Short in Everything but Winning

(Public address announcer, Floyd Gerbles). . . Ladies and gentlemen, now introducing the starting lineup for the Cal-Irvine, uh, UC Irving, (what?), oh, make that the Cal Poly Anteaters.

At one forward, a 6-1, 178-pound junior from Corona del Mar, Mike Hess!!

( Opposing coach, to himself: You have got to be kidding. Where’s the rest of him? Is this Division I or did I just walk into the Boys Club pickup game of the week? Next year they recruit Barney Rubble to play power forward, right? I think I’ll loosen my tie. )

. . . At the other forward, a 6-8, 215-pound sophomore from San Pedro, Mike Doktorczyk!

( Geez, we’d better turn off those air-conditioner ducts or we might just lose this one in the rafters, yuk, yuk. . . . My goodness, a thermometer in sneakers. Let’s see, after tonight’s win we’ll be 3-0 before that big road trip . . )

. . . At center, a 6-8, 250-pound junior from Rosemead, Wayne Engelstad!

( Oh, stop, please, my sides . . . . Son, you have got to mix in a salad every now and then. My word, I’ve never seen a fat surfer before. Look at that blond hair, on that body! This is great, I’ll just slip a dozen jelly doughnuts under the Irving bench and have him sleeping like a baby by halftime. )

. . . At guard, a 5-11, 165-pound senior from Lathrop, Ca., Scott Brooks!

( Now why didn’t we ever think of recruiting box boys with straight teeth, yuk, yuk . . . . I’m dreaming, right? Don’t tell me, the point guard’s Annette Funicello . . . ) . . . At point guard, a 6-1, 185-pound senior from Seattle, Joe Buchanan!

( Whew! At last, a basketball player. I thought for a minute we’d scheduled the Hardy Boys . . . . OK, we’ll triple - team this guy. This is great. I can clear the bench tonight and get all those parents off my back . . . ) . . . And the coach of the Polywogs, uh, Anteaters . . . Bill Mulligan!

( Poor old guy. I don’t see a win on his schedule, unless he finds a traveling team of pygmies to play him in a Christmas tournament. Oh God, I’m terrible . . . . Yuk, yuk . . . . Oh, well, better put on that game face. ) Really, it’s difficult not to laugh when you look at Mulligan’s basketball team this season. It’s difficult for him not to laugh.

Mulligan, in his seventh season at Irvine, is trying to prove that blonds really do have more fun on the basketball court.

Mulligan didn’t plan it this way. Given the choice, he’d take a team of 6-9 zombies who could jump through the roof and bring rain.

But that just doesn’t happen at Cal State Irving, as UC Irvine is known throughout various parts of the universe.

“We just take the best players we can get,” Mulligan said. “We recruit. North Carolina selects.”

You think getting people to come to UC Irvine is easy? With that screwy name? With those screwy (difficult) academic standards? In this screwy town, where the Irvines must compete with UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, Cal State Fullerton and a slew of others for players?

You want problems? Irvine knows it can’t get the great players, so Mulligan decided a while back to recruit on his home turf.

Wrong.

In the last two years, not one Orange County native has found his way down the 405 Freeway to the Irvine campus.

Oh, he had Mater Dei’s standout, Tom (Boo hoo) Lewis, for about five minutes until he took his ball over to Pepperdine.

“We take a kid to the Rusty Pelican in Newport Beach,” Mulligan was saying about recruiting the other day. “We’re looking out over the ocean, it’s beautiful. We tell him how great it is. He lives in Brea.”

In other words, he already knows.

So Mulligan, instead, ends up with a team like this season’s, filled with want-to-be’s and transfers and overacheivers and overeaters.

The kicker, though, is Mulligan’s record of success.

While you’re laughing, his team is usually beating yours downcourt on the fast break.

This year’s goofy-looking team, filled with some guys you wouldn’t choose first in a city park game, is 3-1.

The Anteaters opened the season by beating Nebraska, 109-101. They followed that with an upset over Bradley. The Anteaters only scored 121 points in that one. Bradley, by the way, was 32-3 last season.

They were leading Tulsa, a Top 20 team in some polls, at halftime last Thursday before losing.

UC Irvine wins because Mulligan has long been a master of unrelenting fast-break basketball.

But, as Mulligan says, with three 6-foot-and-unders in his lineup, “I’ve got no other way to play it.”

With a three-point shot, his team always has a chance.

In fact, in the last five years, Mulligan has sent more players to the NBA than Nevada Las Vegas and Fresno State.

If you’re into lists, Bob Thornton is with the New York Knicks, Johnny Rogers plays for the Sacramento Kings and Ben McDonald starts for Golden State.

In the last five years, Irvine has finished second in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. three times.

“And who would know it?” Mulligan said.

The shame of it all is that in an already overcrowded California basketball world, Irvine is destined to remain Cal-Irving and Mulligan forever is sentenced to a life of recruiting off the Santa Monica Pier.

Gnarly-looking team, though.