Men’s basketball: Anteaters NIT bound

Barry Faulkner

Though it could not dodge what Coach Pat Douglass termed “a

mid-major monkey on our backs,” the UC Irvine men’s basketball team will

be back on the court after receiving a bid Sunday to the National

Invitation Tournament.

The Anteaters (21-10), whose bid for the program’s first NCAA

Tournament berth vanished in a 66-61 Big West semifinal upset by UC Santa

Barbara Friday night, will meet BYU (17-11) Thursday at the Marriott

Center in Provo, Utah. Tipoff is 6 p.m. (PST).

“We are excited to have the chance for postseason play,” Douglass said

Sunday, after learning he would face a Cougar squad guided by former UCI

player Steve Cleveland (1974-76), with whom Douglass is already

acquainted.

“Steve Cleveland is a friend of mine from when he was the coach at

Fresno City College and I was at Cal State Bakersfield,” Douglass said.

The Anteaters are no strangers to the NIT, where they were defeated in

last year’s first round at eventual champion Tulsa, 75-71.

That loss, which followed another semifinal setback in the Big West

Tournament, ended a 25-5 campaign that stands as the winningest in school

history.

This year, the Anteaters earned a share of their second straight Big

West regular-season crown, en route to the program’s first back-to-back

20-win seasons.

Douglass wondered aloud after a 72-65 first-round tournament win over

Long Beach State Thursday, whether being forced to win three games in a

week to earn the mid-major conference’s lone ticket to the Big Dance,

didn’t wrongly minimize four months of work that included so much

success.

UCI, which went 1-1 in NIT appearances in 1982 and ‘86, the latter

including a first-round win at UCLA, will now try to maximize its second

chance against a BYU squad coming off a disappointing Mountain West

Conference tournament showing.

The Cougers, who won the Mountain West Tournament title last year,

were felled, 62-51, by surprising tournament champion San Diego State in

Thursday’s first round at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas.

It was BYU’s first first-round exit since 1998 and extended their

losing streak to three games. Cleveland’s Cougers, however, are 15-0 at

home this season, including wins over Big West foes Idaho, Cal State

Northridge, as well as NCAA-bound Creighton, San Diego State, Wyoming and

Utah.

The Cougers, who defeated then No. 13-ranked Stanford, 81-76, in a

Dec. 22 game in Las Vegas, are led by 6-foot-6 junior guard Travis

Hansen, a second-team All-Mountain West selection averaging 15.4 points

and 6.4 rebounds.

Matt Montague, a 6-0 point guard, finished the regular season ranked

sixth nationally in assists, averaging 7.3 per contest.

Sophomore Mark Bigelow (14.8 ppg), 6-9 senior forward Eric Nielsen

(10.4 ppg) and 6-9 center Jared Jensen (9.3 ppg), who shared Mountain

West Freshman of the Year honors, are also starters.

The Anteaters are led by senior guard Jerry Green, a two-time Big West

Conference Player of the Year, who is the program’s all-time leading

scorer with 1,981 points.

Green has hit 12 game-winning shots during his brilliant four-year

career, including a buzzer-beating 12-footer on his last trip to Utah to

key a 67-66 conference win at Utah State to end the Aggies 19-game home

winning streak Jan. 10 in Logan.

Green made the All-Big West Tournament team after scoring 40 points

and collecting 12 assists in two games.

Other Anteater standouts include 6-5 junior forward Jordan Harris, who

is averaging 12.4 points and 6.9 rebounds, and 7-foot sophomore center

Adam Parada.

Parada, averaging 12.4 points and a team-leading 7.0 rebounds, had an

outstanding Big West Tournament. After amassing 17 points and 12 rebounds

against Long Beach State, he produced 18 points and seven rebounds

against UCSB at the Anaheim Convention Center.

The Anteaters enter the postseason after an inconsistent finish. They

were 4-4 in their last eight games.

“Obviously we wanted to win our league tournament, but that didn’t

happen, so we are just happy to continue playing.”