UC Irvine cruises to quarterfinal victory

The UC Irvine men’s basketball team got back to what they do best on Thursday afternoon.

The top-seeded Anteaters shot 57.9 percent from 3-point distance and didn’t let up on the defensive end of the floor, adding up to a 75-51 victory against eighth-seeded Cal State Bakersfield in a Big West Tournament quarterfinal game at Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nevada.

Irvine (23-10) will play Cal State Fullerton (18-12) at 6 p.m. today.

JC Butler went 3 for 3 from 3-point distance and scored 13 points off the bench to lead the Anteaters. Devin Tillis paced the UCI starters with 10 points.

“We’re not counting wins,” Irvine coach Russell Turner said. “We came here to play a tournament and we survived today and advanced. Every game we play from here on in is going to be a game of consequence.”

Bakersfield (11-22), which knocked off ninth-seeded Cal State Northridge in the first round on Tuesday, was held to 37.1% shooting from the floor and was 1 for 11 from 3-point distance.

The Anteaters also played Bakersfield on Saturday in the regular-season finale and limited the Roadrunners to 30.2 percent from the floor and 0-for10 from long distance in the 5244 win.

“Our level of play, which shows up most, is our commitment to defense and rebounding,” Turner said. “We were good, really good, at the start of the game with our game plan and our intensity and our focus. That’s one of the reasons we had the success that we had early in guarding them. When we’ve shown we can be like that, we can be a really good defensive team, but we’ve not always been a good defensive team this year, the guys like to play offense better.”

The Anteaters, who were ranked in the top 10 in the nation for 3-point shooting for most of the season, were on target from long distance right from the start.

Bent Leuchten and DJ Davis sank 3-pointers on the first two possessions for Irvine.

Butler and Justin Hohn followed with 3-pointers to extend the lead to 19-6, and Tillis became the fifth player for Irvine to hit a 3 in the first 11 1/2 minutes when he scored from beyond the arc for a 24-10 lead.

Tillis and Butler would hit two more 3s in the first half as the Anteaters extended their lead to as much as 18 before taking a 36-18 lead into the half.

Irvine shot 52% from the floor in the opening 20 minutes, including 7 for 12 from 3-point distance.

Bakersfield was held to 30.8% from the floor and missed all six of its 3-point tries in the first half.

“When we play that type of defense, I think we can compete with the best of them,” Tillis said. “It’s going to be hard to beat us if we come out with the same intensity that we do every night.”

Tillis scored the first basket of the second half to extend the lead to 20 points, and the advantage swelled to as much as 30 points midway through the second half.

“We can’t let up on teams like this,” Tillis said. “Up by 20 points or up by five, whatever it is, you have to come with the same intensity that we started the game with.”

Bakersfield focused its defense on the two leading scorers on the season for Irvine and the Roadrunners did their job.

Davis, who came in averaging 15.2 points, was held to four points on 1-for-10 shooting from the floor. Dawson Baker, who averages 15.4 points, was held to seven points on 3-for-8 shooting.

“I thought today DJ and Dawson really got a lot of attention from Bakersfield and those guys played very unselfishly,” Turner said. “That’s the reason other guys on the team played well.”