UCI Wilts in Second Half, Long Beach Rolls

Cal State Long Beach made it hard for UC Irvine’s Ricky Butler to touch the ball inside during the 49ers’ 72-60 victory Thursday night.

Butler was ready to make the moves that riddled the 49ers the last time he saw them, but instead, they limited him to only seven shots. He needed to catch the ball before he could shoot it.

Outside, the 49ers’ Troy Joseph hounded Jeff Herdman, determined not to let the three-pointers fly unchallenged.

“He followed me everywhere,” Herdman said. “When the other players on the team shot, he didn’t even look.”

That kind of defense kept Irvine’s top two scorers in check. With no one else willing or able to take over, the Anteaters were limited to seven second-half field goals and tied their season-low of 60 points in Long Beach’s Big West Conference victory in front of 1,412 in the Bren Center.

“This gets old,” said Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan, whose team has lost seven of its past eight games to fall from 7-9 to 8-16, and in sole possession of last in the Big West with a 3-9 record.

“We made seven baskets in the second half,” said Mulligan, who looked in vain for another player to fill the void. “We were 19 of 50. We didn’t put the shots down. . . . I can’t fault our guys, they played hard.”

Long Beach (8-11, 4-6 in the Big West) trailed by seven points at halftime, 35-28, but turned on the defense in the second half.

“I’m really pleased with the way we responded in the second half,” Long Beach Coach Seth Greenberg said.

Long Beach used a 15-2 run at the outset of the second half to pull ahead. When Irvine threatened to come back, Long Beach squelched that with a 6-0 run, forcing repeated turnovers off its pressure defense, a defense that made Irvine look bad at times.

“Their press gave us a few problems,” Irvine’s Craig Marshall said. “I think we got a little down, especially after that 6-0 run where they steal the ball and go in for two layups.

Lucious Harris scored 22 for the 49ers, and Kevin Cutler added 14.

Butler, who averages 18 points a game, was held to three in the second half, largely because of Kevin Cutler’s defense, and finished with 12. He was able to try only seven shots, making five of them.

“Ricky, if he catches the ball, is really good,” Greenberg said. “He shot-fakes, and gets the basket. He is so much quicker. He’s a little like Charles Barkley. He doesn’t look quick, then the next thing you know he’s around you.”

Herdman faced the same kind of attention.

“There’s a guy who’s in range when he walks in the gym,” Greenberg said.

The 49ers tried to force Irvine to pass back to Herdman against the Long Beach press, making it tougher for him to get downcourt for an open shot. Once across halfcourt, they tried to force him behind the defense to get the ball, and switched to avoid losing him on picks.

Herdman scored 17 points, making six of 14 shots, but was held to two of nine from three-point range. He averages four three-pointers a game, second-best among Division I players.

“We need to set more picks, I think,” Herdman said. “We work on it every day.”

With Butler and Herdman under wraps and third-leading scorer Dylan Rigdon on the bench with an ankle injury, Irvine needed someone else to take over.

In the first half, it was Marshall, who scored 12 points in the game and was four for four in the first half. But mostly there was no one. Gerald McDonald went one for seven, Cornelius Banks went two for seven and Jeff Von Lutzow went two for seven.

Irvine, looking for a way to jump-start its flagging offense, even reinstated a press.

“We figured by pressing we’d get an open-court game,” Mulligan said. “I’d prefer not to play a halfcourt game.”

For good reason, clearly.

“It’s kind of hard, if we don’t get the ball into Ricky and they’re playing Herdman tight,” Marshall said. “We have our heads up. We’re playing hard. Our goal is to win some games and make the Big West Tournament. We’re going to have to get the ball in to Ricky.”

Anteater Notes

UC Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan has dismissed two reserve players from the team: Elgin Rogers, a junior forward who had played 20 minutes this season, and Todd Knight, a junior walk-on guard who had not played in any games. “It was just a question of not getting anything done in practice, slowing things down in practice,” Mulligan said. . . . The Anteaters’ demolition of two school three-point records continues. Irvine has attempted 614 three-pointers this season, 146 more than the previous record, and made 223, which is 34 more than the previous record. . . . Next: No. 16 New Mexico State at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Bren Center.