No Style Points, but a Championship for Irvine

It wasn’t what could be classified as a championship performance to remember, but UC Irvine will take its sloppy 58-55 Big West Conference victory over Cal State Fullerton Thursday night at the Bren Center.

The victory secured Irvine’s first conference basketball championship in the school’s 36-year history.

Irvine, 23-3 overall and 14-1 in the Big West, will be the top-seeded team in next week’s conference tournament at the Anaheim Convention Center. Fullerton (4-22, 3-13) is competing with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Idaho for the final two spots in the eight-team field. Irvine closes the regular season at Idaho Saturday.

Guard Jerry Green led Irvine to its sixth consecutive victory with 19 points, six rebounds and five assists. He made only five of 14 shots, but was nine for 11 on free throws. Irvine made only 35.4% of its shots.

Fullerton, which has lost nine of its last 10, wasn’t much better in shooting 37.1%.

Said Irvine Coach Pat Douglass: “We took our usual shots and we couldn’t get them to go. But [winning the regular-season conference championship] is ecstasy.�

A shot that did go down for Irvine was an NBA-range three-point basket by forward Sean Jackson with three seconds left on the shot clock that gave the Anteaters a 58-53 lead with 18 seconds to play. Jackson finished with 11 points.

Irvine missed its first nine shots of the game and Fullerton--after taking a 6-2 lead--went nearly 10 minutes without a basket. The Titans attempted only six shots in that span.

Irvine got its first basket with nine minutes 27 seconds left in the half on a tip-in by Green.

The teams were tied, 26-26, at halftime.