Seattle adds a notch against UCI

IRVINE — The UC Irvine men’s basketball team had nine days to bask in the glow of its first victory, before returning to the abyss of a 1-7 season that may have hit bottom Tuesday night.

The Anteaters’ late comeback attempt against visiting Seattle came up short in a 55-52 nonconference loss, before 1,081 at the Bren Events Center, most of whom, like UCI Coach Pat Douglass, left scratching their heads about whether this UCI unit will ever amount to much.

“This one is kind of hard to swallow,” said Douglass, who was fighting a losing postgame battle to conceal his frustration. “It’s a tough loss. These are the games you’ve got to get. It’s not going to get any easier in [the Big West Conference].”

UCI’s one win in its first eight games (Dec. 7 at Pepperdine) is the second-worst start in the program’s 44-season history. Only the 1996-97 squad that opened 0-13 on its way to a 1-25 season has experienced more early futility.

What’s more, Seattle in the first year of a transition to Division I that will be complete when the Redhawks (7-4) are eligible for the NCAA Tournament in the 2012-2013 season, made a little recent history of its own Tuesday. The Redhawks, who won at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 60-59, on Sunday, had not won back-to-back road games against Division I schools since the 1978-79 campaign.

And while the hosts hit back-to-back three-pointers to shave a 51-44 deficit to a single point, then had a Derrick Strings steal to take possession with a chance at the lead with 40 seconds remaining, there was nothing fluke about the Seattle triumph.

“They were able to execute what they wanted to execute and get the ball to players in positions that they wanted to,” Douglass said of the visitors, who made 11 of 19 second-half field-goal attempts (57.9%) and finished shooting 52.6% from the field. “We’re trying to take away some of the easy buckets, but still we give up 52% ... They’re a well-coached team, they got the ball where they wanted to and they battled hard. They were the better team.”

Irvine continues to display a procession of personnel that, beyond freshman Eric Wise and senior Kevin Bland, has struggled with consistency.