COLLEGE BASKETBALL ‘92-93 : UC Irvine Hoping for a Transfer of Power : College basketball: Adding several players from other schools, Anteaters could move up.

This UC Irvine basketball team has players good enough to play at Villanova, Marquette, Purdue and California.

In fact, some of them did.

Irvine has never reached the NCAA Division I tournament, but its point guard has. Lloyd Mumford was a Villanova reserve who led an unsuccessful upset bid against North Carolina in the second round of the 1991 NCAA tournament.

One way to rebuild a program that won only 23 games over the last three seasons is with transfers, and Irvine has them.

Coach Rod Baker’s first team at the school went 7-22, breaking through at the end of last season with an 88-67 upset of top-seeded UC Santa Barbara in the first round of the Big West tournament.

That team won seven games with heart and hard work. This season, there will be more ability.

“If we can get this group, with the skills they have, to play as hard as last year’s team and have that consideration for each other, we’ll be better than last year,” said Baker, whose team is picked to jump from ninth to fifth in the Big West.

Mumford, a quick, creative point guard, should be able to drive the sluggishness out of an offense prone to long scoreless stretches last season.

Keith Stewart, who began his career at Purdue and transferred to Irvine from Marquette when Bill Mulligan was still Irvine’s coach, is a shooting guard with the ability to score from three-point range or drive the lane. After becoming eligible last season, he averaged 11.6 points and started Irvine’s final 10 games.

A community college transfer, Dee Boyer, 6 feet 10 and 255 pounds, will start at center.

There are two transfers from Cal--forwards Keith Walker and LaDay Smith--who are expected to play a lot. Walker was the fifth-leading scorer in the state as a senior at Brea-Olinda High, averaging 32.9 points.

Then there is Irvine’s leading scorer and rebounder last season, forward Jeff Von Lutzow, to whom another T-word applies.

“Transformation,” said a smiling Stewart, one of many teammates and coaches who have been frustrated by Von Lutzow’s mix of outstanding play and mental lapses. “He plays harder and he’s part of every play. But off the court, too. He’s a totally different person, as opposed to being sort of antisocial in the past.”

Von Lutzow, a slender 6-9 senior with three-point range who has started since he was a freshman, averaged 12.5 points and 5.7 rebounds last season. He exasperated Baker and Mulligan, but he says he has changed.

“I went in to Coach Baker and told him I’m his. I’ll do anything he wants me to do,” Von Lutzow said.

Although he has some, Baker isn’t going for broke with transfers. Zuri Williams, the first player Baker recruited, is developing into a strong point guard. And Elzie Love, an athletic forward who was Mulligan’s last recruit, might start. Baker also has added two freshmen, guard Todd Whitehead from Fremont and forward Shaun Battle from San Bernardino Cajon.

Such players as Craig Marshall, a three-year starter, and Khari Johnson, a part-time starter last season, give the team depth and could break into the lineup.

But the transfers will probably determine how Irvine fares.

“A lot of people don’t accept transfers like Coach Baker has,” Stewart said. “He makes players out of transfers. They might be players before they come here, but he turns them into people and makes them feel like they’re part of the family.”

Said Mumford: “It’s not a sense of me showing anybody, it’s all of us together. If we show what we can do, people will know where UCI is because we will be winning. We want to win, and if we win, people will know about UCI.”