Sports: UCI Homecoming, Anteaters vs. Mustangs

The fearsome anteater in front of the Bren Center!



Peter the Anteater was working the crowd and posing for pictures.

Aside from taking pictures of the passing scene, I did wind up watching the basketball game.

UCI lost a close one to Cal Poly SLO on Saturday 61-58.

It has been several years since I last made the trek down to the Bren to see a game. The last time I was down there was to see a game during Jerry Green's final season with the Eaters. The teams with the star guard had the best shot at the NCAAs in the history of the basketball program at Irvine. But the Big West is a usually a one-bid conference and the Eaters stumbled in the post-season tournament leaving them NIT bound.

With the homecoming crowd of students and alums, the attendance was 4500. As I watched the game, it started to remind me of the game I heard on Thursday via streaming audio. It was a close game and UCI had some turnovers on key possessions. They couldn't get rebounds on some late possessions which allowed the other team second and third shots and buckets. And in the case of Cal Poly, they weren't able to keep up with the speedy water bug of a guard in Trae Clark.



The students in the yellow shirts are part of the CIA = completely insane anteaters. They stood the whole game and made a racket! Probably not as much as the Cameron Crazies (the Duke Blue Devil fans).



With the loss, the Anteaters slip to 2nd place in the Big West. They have 2 games left in conference (against UC Riverside and "the Beach" a.k.a. Long Beach State) and 2 non-conference games (UC Davis and Drake as part of the ESPN Bracket Buster Saturday) before the Big West Tournament.