Men’s Basketball: ‘Eaters stunned at home

It didn’t take any sophisticated analytics to figure the UC Irvine odds of winning Thursday’s Big West Conference men’s basketball game against visiting Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The last-place Mustangs entered on a 10-game losing streak and had been trounced, 70-48, at home by the first-place Anteaters just eight days prior.

UCI entered on an eight-game winning streak and was coming off of its most impressive performance of the season in a 105-73 thumping of host Cal State Northridge on Saturday.

But one needed to look back only a few days to be reminded that members of the college basketball hierarchy are only one performance away from humility.

So it was that the inspired Mustangs looked as good as they made the Anteaters look bad on their way to a 79-66 upset that was more about the Mustangs’ stellar play than any Anteaters’ complacency.

“Give credit to Cal Poly,” UCI Coach Russell Turner said. “It played at a high level tonight. [The Mustangs] out-performed us both on the offensive end and on the defensive end. They were more physical than we were, they were quicker to loose balls, and they just made more plays than we did, so they deserved to win. As frustrating as that is for me, I congratulate them. They deserve with their performance to beat us. They came in here and didn’t just beat us, but pulled away from us and did it decisively.”

The Mustangs (6-14, 1-5 in conference) made eight of their first nine field-goal attempts and continued to execute with precision on offense the rest of the way. Cal Poly was 14 for 27 from the field in the opening half (51.9%) and drained 16 of 30 after halftime (53.3%) to finish 52.6% from the field against a UCI squad that came in leading the conference in field-goal-percentage defense (.351).

“I didn’t think we played very well in defending the perimeter, and I know we didn’t play very well at all defending the basket,” Turner said. “We’ve had a shot-blocking presence at the rim that tonight was absent and that’s disappointing.”

Cal Poly led the first 16-plus minutes and held a 36-35 halftime edge.

But UCI senior guard Jaron Martin scored 12 straight points for the hosts to enable them to surge ahead, 49-45, with 13:30 left.

Cal Poly, which had surrendered a lead to fall in overtime to visiting Long Beach State, 98-92, on Saturday, countered with a 9-0 run that included seven points by junior Victor Joseph, and the ‘Eaters never got closer than two points the rest of the way.

Joseph had a game-high 22 points, one shy of his career high. He was eight for 12 from the field.

After Brandon Smith’s three-pointer pulled UCI (13-10, 6-1) within 58-56, Joseph sank a 17-foot jumper with the shot clock winding down to spark a 15-2 run that put the Anteaters away.

“I almost felt like when we got ahead for that short period in the second half, it was almost like we thought [the Mustangs] were going to go away and we weren’t really going to have to compete and make the plays to win,” Turner said. “That’s disappointing, and that means that we as a coaching staff didn’t do a good enough job of getting our players ready to compete and perform this week.

“It’s clear that anybody in our conference can beat anybody else. We had the best start, but that doesn’t mean we are going to be the best on a given night. The team that was best tonight won and won handily, and that was Cal Poly.”

Martin finished with 20 points to lead UCI, which shot 43.8% from the field, including five for 20 from three-point range.

Ioannis Demakopoulos, a 7-foot-2 senior center who was named Big West Player of the Week on Monday, was six for 17 from the field and had 13 points.

Dimakopoulos and Martin combined to make just one of 10 three-point tries.

Junior Jonathan Galloway had 13 rebounds to lead UCI, which committed eight of the game’s 13 turnovers to surrender a 15-7 margin in points off turnovers.

Cal Poly also posted an edge in points in the paint (36-24), and bench scoring (21-16), the latter keyed by 15 points from sophomore Donovan Fields.

UCI, which remains in first place, visits UC Davis (12-8, 4-1) on Saturday at 5 p.m.

A UCI win Thursday would have given the Anteaters their longest winning streak since a 13-game spurt in 2000-01.

Big West Conference

Cal Poly SLO 79, UC Irvine 66

CP – Meikle 10, Abrams 8, Joseph 22, Shipley 12, Toth 6, Fields 15, Niziol 4, Gordon 2.

3-pt. goals – Shipley 2, Toth 2, Joseph 1, Fields 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

UCI – Galloway 4, Smith 6, Dimakopoulos 13, Martin 20, Hazzard 7, Leonard 9, Greene 5, Rutherford 2.

3-pt. goals – Smith 2, Hazzard 1, Dimakopoulos 1, Leonard 1.

Fouled out – None.

Technicals – None.

Halftime – 36-35, CPSLO.