BIG WEST MEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Anteaters’ Story Returns to Present Tense

LONG BEACH —  Rod Baker saw the future of UC Irvine basketball Saturday.

This is what it looked like:

--Screaming front-page newspaper headlines that announced the Anteaters had won, in a blowout, to advance deeper into the postseason.

--UC Irvine running neck-and-neck with UCLA and Phil Simms-to-the-Raiders as the hot topics of radio talk-show conversation.

--Irvine students who not only made their way to the Irvine game but also brought a homemade banner with them: We Want Duke!

--A 13-point lead over the University of the Pacific in the semifinals of the Big West tournament.

Baker looked it all over and considered it good.

“I think this is the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “This is the way it’s going to be.”

It’s not there yet, because Baker also saw the present of UC Irvine basketball Saturday. And what he saw were the same old snapshots--a team stricken by what-are-we-doing-here fever whenever it builds a big lead over a favored opponent; a toy-pistol offense that becomes tipsy when trying to trade three-pointers with the big guns; a narcoleptic backcourt that nods off on-court for five- and six-minute spells, and, of course, a defeat, No. 22 in an ongoing saga.

Within a span of 24 hours alongside the Queen Mary, Baker and his Anteaters took in all the sights. They saw what could be . . . and they saw what needed to be done in order to get there.

One day, they’re raising their level of play above the Long Beach Arena roof and stunning top-seeded UC Santa Barbara by 21 points.

The next, they’re falling all over themselves to get out the way of an onrushing UOP team, backpedaling into an 81-69 loss and the end of their season.

“This weekend ended a phase,” Baker observed. “This is what we talked about all year. Thank God we did it--we made the Big West tournament, and we won a big game there.

“Now, on the existential ladder, making the Big West tournament is not a big deal. Eight of nine teams made it. But it’s a big deal for us. We made the tournament, and that was one goal. Now the goal is to win the thing.”

Where the Anteaters reside on that ladder borders on illusion. Irvine went 7-22 in 1991-92, and if it weren’t for San Jose State, its official address would be Last Place. Moreover, if it wasn’t for Nevada Las Vegas--on probation, on vacation--Irvine would have be reclassified as Out Of The Tournament.

But the jump could be closer than what’s apparent at first inspection. Heading into 1992-93, the Anteaters have two things going for them: They’re young . . . and they’re impressionable. Four starters and two top reserves return, including leading scorer Jeff Von Lutzow, off-and-on guard Keith Stewart and bundle-of-freshman-potential Elzie Love.

Each of them do one thing particularly well.

They listen to Baker.

“We asked them to do a million things this year,” Baker said, “and they did them all. When we were losing and pushing them in practice, I could have got, ‘Uh, yeah, coach, but my ankle hurts, my knee hurts.’ But that never happened . . .

“Over the last eight years, I have not had a lot of experience with losing a lot of games. To lose 22 in a season is a different experience for me. The thing I learned about it is that when you achieve a certain level of effort every day, it helps to soothe the pain. At least I felt I was guaranteed that level of effort. It was there every day.”

Some days, that meant amazing things. Friday’s victory over Santa Barbara was one fruit of that labor.

The Anteaters enjoyed the taste.

“For one day,” Von Lutzow said, “we felt like a championship team. Everywhere we went, we were noticed. It was a great day. I wish it could have been that way for the rest of our lives.”

Most days, however, went like Saturday. A lot of sweat, expended for nothing but tears.

Spiked on leftover adrenaline, the Anteaters could do no wrong for the first six minutes. Before they committed their first turnover, they led, 19-6. March madness swept through the Irvine lineup. “We jumped out so quickly,” Von Lutzow said, “we were already looking forward to tomorrow’s game.”

The giddiness, however, stopped at Baker’s seat on the bench.

“There was too much time, against a good team,” Baker said, shaking his head. “Up by 13 points against a bunch of stumblebums, that’s one thing. But against UOP, the way they shoot threes? All they had to do was look at the clock. ‘We’ve still got 35 minutes left.’ ”

The Tigers came back, and sure enough, brought their vaunted three-pointers with them. “They fell like rain,” Baker lamented. Tony Amundsen hit the first three he attempted, in a matter of seconds. Dell Demps added three more, almost as quickly. If this was a cartoon, the Anteaters would be the ones with heads a-spinning.

“They’d come down, hit a three, we’d try to compensate and shoot a three, we’d miss and they’d turn that into a two-pointer,” center Khari Johnson said. “All of a sudden, it’s a 5-0 run.”

Soon, all those 5-0 runs began to add up. “They broke us down, piece by piece,” Johnson said. Soon, all that was left in blue uniforms was a pile of pieces.

Thus, the Big West championship will have to proceed without the tournament’s best story, Cinderella-for-a-day Irvine. Instead, Pacific and New Mexico State vie today at 12:30, but the Anteaters will be in attendance, at Baker’s behest, watching.

“I want them to get a look at it,” Baker said, “so next year, they won’t be surprised when they’re playing in it.”