How to lose the Big West lead

Amara Aguilar

UC Irvine junior guard Mike Hood is usually a pretty reserved guy.

Doesn’t talk much. He’s usually not the leading scorer for the Anteaters’

men’s basketball team. Definitely not the star player.

That role belongs to senior guard Jerry Green, the Anteaters’ all-time

leading scorer. But Saturday night against visiting Utah State, it was

Green who wasn’t making a statement on the court.

Green scored two points in the first half for the Anteaters, who

trailed 35-19 at halftime.

The Anteaters rallied to come within one, 62-61, with only seconds

remaining. Green was the hero the first time the two rivals faced off in

Utah.

In a nationally televised game on Jan. 10, he hit a jumper as time

expired to help the Anteaters defeat the Aggies, 67-66. The win in Utah

snapped the Aggies’ school record 31-game winning streak at home.The

Aggies weren’t about to get burned by Green again.

Utah State players were all over Green on the Anteaters’ final

possession. He passed it to Hood, who was open on the left side. Hood

took the three-point shot that would not fall the Anteaters’ way.

Hood probably wasn’t in the mood to talk after the game, but he did.

He spoke of the play that 5,150 people in the Bren Events Center had

their eyes glued on.

“The (Utah State) guys sagged on Jerry Green and he passed it to me

and I took a shot,” Hood said. “I saw it good. It was a little long.”

Hood was surprised that he even got the ball, but he did what the

Anteaters aimed to do. He took a shot. Many were surprised it didn’t go

in.

“We got a good shot,” UCI Coach Pat Douglass said. “(Hood) had a good

look. I thought it was going in.”

Green also thought the shot was going in.”(Hood) usually makes it, but

he missed it,” Green said. “It looked good. It looked real good.”

It wasn’t the last shot that lost this game, it was an old UCI habit

that came back to burn the Anteaters.

The squad has fallen behind several times at home, usually rallying to

come back, but never against a team as solid as Utah State.

“I thought Utah State really had us,” Douglass said. “We lost the game

in the first five to eight minutes of the first half. We had a chance to

win it at the end, but we go down 16 at halftime and that’s a big margin

to make up against a good team. Our kids hung tough the last seven

minutes and we had a chance to win.”

The Anteaters dug themselves into a rut because their two top scorers

weren’t scoring. Sophomore center Adam Parada, who led UCI with a career

high 24 points in Thursday’s win against Idaho, was held scoreless in the

first half, but finished with 10 points in the game. Green also made up

for his lackluster performance in the first half, finishing with 16

points in the game.

But it was too little too late.

“We should have got the ball inside to Parada a little bit more and we

didn’t look at him,” Douglass said.

The Anteaters’ had plenty of things not falling their way throughout

the game. Parada wasn’t getting the ball, Green wasn’t scoring much and

Hood didn’t make the last shot. Plus, Utah State came up big with the

leadership of senior guard Tony Brown, who scored a game-high 25 points.

His performance spoke louder than anything in Saturday’s game.

“His ability to put up the numbers and our inability to guard him (was

a big factor),” Douglass said. “We didn’t take care of the ball at the

guard position.”