DeCasas quits at UCI

Chad DeCasas, who many believe never fulfilled the promise foreseen for him, has quit the men’s basketball team at UC Irvine.

DeCasas, who was named to the Big West Conference All-Freshman team in 2007 and started 37 games in his three seasons as an Anteater, will forego his final year of eligibility to focus on his family and academics, stated a preseason prospectus released by the school Monday.

DeCasas and his wife, Rebecca, have two daughters.

DeCasas, a 6-foot-5 guard, started eight games and played in all 31 last season, when he averaged 3.9 points and 1.4 rebounds. He started his final two games and averaged 10 points and nearly 25 minutes per contest in the final five games of last season.

The former three-time All-CIF Southern Section performer at Capistrano Valley High, where he left as the school’s all-time leading scorer after the 2005-06 season, averaged 4.9 points as a sophomore and 4.0 points as a freshman. He started 17 games as a sophomore after starting 12 in his first collegiate campaign.

DeCasas finished with 410 points in 96 games at UCI (4.3 per contest) and 62 of his 151 career field goals were three-pointers.

His junior season began with a breakout performance in an exhibition victory over Cal Poly Pomona. He scored 18 points and spoke about trading the lack of confidence Coach Pat Douglass had said he displayed his first two seasons for an aggressiveness that would help him become a featured contributor.

He started five of the ’Eaters first six games and six of the first nine, then came off the bench the next 20 games. During a midseason stretch of 11 games from Dec. 21 through Jan. 29, he scored only eight combined points, averaged just less than seven minutes, and failed to score in eight contests.

DeCasas scored in double figures only three times last season, including a career-high 19 points in a Feb. 20 win at Hawaii. He had 16 points, which matched his second-best single-game output, in a Feb. 28 overtime win over UC Riverside, the second-to-last game of the regular season.

He scored a combined seven points in his final two games, including a quarterfinal loss to UC Davis in the Big West Tournament. In those final two games, he was three of 10 from the field.

For his career, he shot 41.6% from the field and 37.5% from three-point range.

— Barry Faulkner