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.”
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.