Colleges:

Pat Douglass openly savored the joy of his UC Irvine men’s basketball team’s improbable comeback victory in overtime at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Saturday. Douglass, who in his 13th season has the longest tenure and the most victories in program history, hugged assistant Doug Oliver in the postgame locker room and told his players he had never seen anything like their fortuitous rally to claim a berth in the Big West Conference Tournament.

But the celebration just may be his last at UCI, as all indications are that his contract will not be renewed.

The ’Eaters (14-17, 6-10 in conference) tied for seventh in the conference this season. The team needed a regular-season-ending win to avoid being the only one of nine Big West squads to miss the conference tournament, in which it opens tonight against Cal Poly at approximately 8:15 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

The Anteaters were swept by ninth-place UC Riverside, which has already turned in its uniforms.

Further ignominy this season was incurred by a one-point home exhibition loss to NAIA power Concordia, a pair of setbacks to a San Jose State team that finished the regular season 14-16, and a one-point win against a Marist unit that closed out its campaign at 1-29.

The hard-fought 81-73 December home win over Vanguard, another NAIA school that finished 5-21, also failed to impress.

UCI had two winning streaks of more than one game this season, the longest being three (including Vanguard and a Fairleigh Dickinson team that finished 11-21).

UCI attendance dipped this season to 1,599 per home game, an average of 500 fewer than the year before. And the 5,000-seat Bren Events Center has been more than half empty, on average, at least the last six seasons.

Four wins in four days in Anaheim, which would mean a Big West title and the conference’s lone berth in the NCAA Tournament — a first for UCI — would be considerably more miraculous than the four three-pointers by three players in the final 37 seconds that fueled Saturday’s victory.

But even an NCAA Tournament berth would likely not be enough to save Douglass’ job.

At this point, basically no argument for Douglass’ return holds logic.

For while Douglass’ strategic acumen is widely recognized and praised by his coaching peers, he has ultimately been unable to overcome the obstacles that some, including Douglass, believe will resign UCI to much more mediocrity than the coveted madness of March.

These obstacles — most notably relating to academics and a lack of less-difficult major programs than those that broaden the recruiting pool for rival schools — are as formidable as Peter the ’Eater’s snout.

But Douglass, thanks largely to the heroics of Jerry Green, managed to somehow find enough quality players to forge consecutive 20-win seasons from 2000-01 to 2002-03, including a 25-5 mark in 2000-01, two Big West regular-season titles and a pair of NIT appearances.

But with the departure of assistants Len Stevens, Todd Lee and, last year, Tod Murphy, among others, Douglass’ staffs have been increasingly unable to stock the program with talent.

This season, Douglass, whose recruiting presence has gradually diminished, has openly lamented the lack of Division I-caliber players.

At one point during conference play, a walk-on was not only starting, but being labeled as one of the team’s primary leaders.

It is, ultimately, the aforementioned lack of horses that figures to send Douglass, who enters tonight 197-190 at UCI and 573-309 in 29 seasons as head coach at four-year collegiate programs (including Cal State Bakersfield, which he led to an NCAA Division II national championship in 1992-93), riding off into the sunset.

 Speculation has already begun as to who might guide the Anteaters next season.

Among those in the early rumor mill have some history at Stanford, where UCI Athletic Director Mike Izzi spent 16 seasons as an administrator, before being hired at UCI in December of 2007.

Russel Turner, a former Stanford assistant in his sixth season as an assistant with the Golden State Warriors, is one name that has surfaced.

Eric Raveno, a former player and Stanford assistant who is in his fourth season as head coach at Portland (a school-record-tying 21 wins as a Division I program this season), is another potential candidate.

Izzi has also expressed admiration for Concordia Coach Ken Ammann, a former Stanford standout.

Ammann has averaged more than 27 wins in nine seasons at Concordia, which has reached the NAIA title game three of the last six seasons.

And, of course, Oliver, who as an assistant helped Stanford make eight trips to the NCAA Tournament, including the Final Four in 1998, and spent eight seasons as head coach at Idaho State, could be an option.

 With Fred Litzenberger having resigned after four seasons as Vanguard men’s basketball coach, the vacancy is expected to generate interest from Tod Murphy, a former star player and assistant at UCI.

Murphy spent the 2009-10 season as head coach at Gordon College, a Division III school in Wenham, Mass. He guided the Fighting Scots to a 24-5 record, the program’s first Commonwealth Coast Conference Tournament title and a berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament.