UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK : Chang, Basketball Team Improving

When Chrissy Chang arrived at UC Irvine last fall, she didn’t expect to play right away, even for a basketball team that had lost 27 games the previous season.

“I knew I wasn’t going to start,” said Chang, a freshman from Santa Clara. “Jenny Lee was the point guard and Kathy Lizarraga is the other guard. That didn’t bother me.”

Fast forward to the middle of the season.

Lee has gone from senior point guard to senior forward.

Chang is starting at the point.

And Irvine (3-11) broke a 25-game conference losing streak Monday by beating San Jose State.

Chang’s debut has coincided with the team’s recent improvement, and Coach Dean Andrea says she gives the Anteaters a true point guard for the first time in four years.

Chang is deftly handling the position, which demands more experience and leadership than any other. Andrea calls her ego-less and admires how she takes responsibility for every play.

“If Yvonne Catala misses a layup, Chrissy says she shouldn’t have made the pass,” Andrea said.

Chang, the picture of intensity on the court, has taken charge, bringing her own leadership style to the team. She is non-threatening and will thank a teammate for passing her the ball in practice. At the same time she is demanding, expressing her disappointment when plays go awry.

In particular, she is a student of the on-court personalities of her teammates.

“I’m trying to learn what they’re thinking and to get more awareness of the players,” Chang said. “I watch basketball a lot. I like to watch college basketball especially. Watching the NBA, you don’t learn much about defense. I especially watch how other players get their teams together.”

It is not a simple task for a freshman to persuade sophomores, juniors and seniors to listen to her, but Chang is managing.

“You try to find a spark in ‘em,” Chang said. “Being a freshman, you don’t think, as an individual, that you can. But when you’re on the court, you have to get them going. It takes time. I’m slowly trying to figure out how each player plays in a game situation, so I’ll know how each player reacts.”

Chang always reacts the same way, with an intensity that stands out.

“I get like that,” she said. “That’s how I am. I’m very competitive. I try to get us going by getting myself into the game and then maybe they’ll pick up off of me.”

The reforms adopted at last week’s NCAA convention will call for increases in the number of scholarships for most of Irvine’s teams, except basketball. Every sport at Irvine except men’s tennis and water polo and women’s volleyball will gain scholarships and UCI will be forced to comply with new minimum standards for Division I membership.

By one estimate, Irvine will need an additional $80,000 per year to reach the scholarship levels that go into effect in 1994.

Athletic Director Tom Ford said the money probably will have to come from outside fund raising, but that the school’s Division I status is not threatened.

“The institution is committed to being a Division I member of the NCAA and a member of the Big West,” Ford said.

At the direction of Chancellor Jack Peltason, Ford said he voted in accordance with the recommendations of the NCAA Presidents’ Commission on most issues. But Ford said he abstained on the scholarship issue.

The men’s and women’s basketball teams will be affected by slight number of reductions in scholarships.

Approximately 500 tickets for the UC Irvine men’s basketball game against top-ranked Nevada Las Vegas will go on sale today, and are available through Ticketron, said Bob Olson, sports information director.

The game, which is at 9 p.m. Thursday in the Bren Center, had been a sellout before additional tickets became available.

The UNLV game almost certainly will be Irvine’s only sellout of the season, and that irks Coach Bill Mulligan, whose team is drawing 2,229 fans a game.

“Here comes UNLV, now we’re going to get all these people coming to the game,” Mulligan said. “We’ve never seen them before and we’re never going to see them again.”

He criticized the students in particular.

“It would be nice to have a student body that gave a damn,” he said. “I don’t know what they do. They can’t possibly be studying all the time.”

Mulligan calls top-ranked UNLV “the best Vegas team I’ve ever seen,” and gives his team no chance of upsetting the Rebels, even though Mulligan has six victories over UNLV.

“I’ve almost thought about not even preparing for UNLV and just preparing for Santa Barbara,” said Mulligan, whose team plays UC Santa Barbara on Saturday.

“It’s really hard to practice for Vegas. What are you going to do, have subs act like Vegas? Imagine Elgin Rogers trying to act like Vegas. If they could, they’d be playing for us.”

Anteater Notes

The men’s tennis team opens its season with a match against University of the Pacific at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the UC Irvine tennis stadium. Brett Hansen-Dent, a freshman from Newport Harbor High, is ranked 32nd in the nation in preseason rankings. . . . The women’s basketball team has tripled its victory total of last season’s 1-27 record, but must face 25th-ranked Cal State Long Beach on Thursday in the Bren Center in the first game of a doubleheader with the men’s game against UNLV. . . . UNLV leads the men’s series, 19-7, dating to 1966. . . . Senior center Ricky Butler needs 17 points to reach 1,000 in his career, and senior forward Jeff Herdman needs 48.