UCI locks a top-two seed

Lopsided triumph assures ‘Eaters at least second, and berth in Big West tournament semis.IRVINE -- Just four days after the completion of the darkest week of its Big West Conference season, the UC Irvine men’s basketball team found much to celebrate Wednesday night.

There was the 63-37 thumping of UC Riverside, which locked up no worse than second place and the valuable postseason conference tournament seeding that goes with it.

There was also a parade of walk-ons into the game in the final minutes, including freshman Chad McDaniel, who had not played all season. Not only did McDaniel play, he scored a transition layup with an assist by fellow walk-on Brandon Sievers to finalize the scoring with 24 seconds left.

McDaniel’s basket sparked a roar from the crowd, as well as laughter and high-fives among the UC Irvine players and coaches on the bench.

“[Assistant coach Tod Murphy came to us with about seven minutes left and told us we needed to keep playing hard, so we could get [the walk-ons] in the game,” UCI senior starter Ross Schraeder said. “It was fun to see them out there. They played hard for the time they were out there and they were getting their stats up, so that was nice.”

Confidence more than stats were boosted for the rest of the Anteaters, who fell from first place with back-to-back home losses to UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly last week.

“We wanted to come back and regain our stride,” said UCI Coach Pat Douglass, whose team improved to 14-11, 10-3 in conference.

It took a little more than 12 minutes for the Anteaters to reach full speed. The Highlanders (3-19, 3-8) took an 8-6 lead and tied it, 12-12, with 8:13 left before halftime.

But the visitors, who had lost seven of their last eight games coming in and lost second-leading scorer and leading rebounder Dedrick Bates to a season-ending knee injury Feb. 9, went scoreless the rest of the first half.

Meanwhile, UCI reeled off 23 straight points to take a 35-12 intermission lead and render the remaining 20 minutes moot.

The Highlanders missed their final 14 first-half field-goal tries and finished 5 of 27 from the field (17.9%) in the first 20 minutes. They finished 14 of 53 from the field (26.4%), and matched UCI’s 19 turnovers.

UCR senior Rickey Porter, who came in averaging 14.4 points, went scoreless. The Mater Dei High product was 0 for 8 from the field, including four three-point tries.

“We talked about trying to get on ‘em right away,” Schraeder said. “It took a while. The first 12 minutes, it was back and forth. But then we got some easy buckets, we tightened up on defense and we just built the lead.”

Riverside outscored UCI, 14-8, the first eight minutes of the second half. But a 12-0 Anteater run put the game away and allowed Douglass to answer chants from the student rooting section for McDaniel’s season debut.

“It felt good,” McDaniel said of his final-minute stint. “I was happy that coach let me go out there and do what I can do.”

McDaniel said he was gratified to see his teammates enjoying his performance.

“That was fun to see the team get that much joy out of it,” McDaniel said.

Douglass said he took joy in his team’s defense, as well as the play of senior point guard Aaron Fitzgerald.

“I thought [Fitzgerald’s] playmaking, with the game on the line, was what you want to see,” Douglass said. “I thought he really distributed the ball and ran the show.”

Fitzgerald, the conference leader in assists, added eight assists to his career total, which now at 308, puts him within reach of Lloyd Mumford (322) and Kevin Davis (321) who rank fourth and fifth on the school’s career assist list.

Sophomore center Darren Fells had a game-high 11 points and added eight rebounds, while Schraeder scored 10 points, on 4-of-6 shooting. He was 2 of 4 from three-point range.

Sophomore Patrick Sanders added nine points and nine rebounds to the UCI cause, which will now take aim at staying polished enough to win two Big West Tournament games and the conference’s automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.

“It’s huge,” Schraeder said of clinching a top-two tournament seed, which will give the Anteaters byes into the semifinals. “We’re going to play on Friday night and that brings us that much closer to winning the [conference] tournament, which is our ultimate goal.”

Big West Conference

UC Irvine 63, UC Riverside 37

Score by Halves