It’s In With the New for Douglass

The turnover on UC Irvine’s men’s basketball team has been swift and predictable. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Out: Lamarr Parker, Juma Jackson, Andrew Carlson, Junior Bond and Dave Ramirez.

It’s a pretty good bet that second-year Coach Pat Douglass bemoans only the loss of Ramirez, the team’s trainer who took a job at Cal Poly Pomona. So no one is left from the 1-25 disaster of two seasons ago, not even the guy who wrapped the ankles.

In: Jerry Green, Marek Ondera, Stan Divranos, Zamiro Bennem, Mark Gottschalk and Gabe Cagwin.

Douglass had his first losing record in 25 years of coaching last season. He has done much in an effort to make it his last.

His first real recruiting class--Douglass was hired in 1997 just weeks before the signing period--might not rank nationally, but it has made the Anteaters bigger, faster and certainly better.

With six new players, plus his best players back, things should continue upward after a 9-18 season that often tested Douglass’ patience.

“When we get better play, I’ll get a lot more relaxed,” Douglass said.

It might not be pipe-and-slippers time, but Douglass has better players to work with. Still, they’re young.

“I wanted a challenge, but last year was more than I realized it would be,” Douglass said. “We didn’t know who could score. Everything was hard work. The one thing we didn’t do is quit.”

Well, at least not until the end of the season, when Parker, Jackson, Carlson and Bond quit. All except Bond were on previous coach Rod Baker’s 1-25 team.

“It was difficult last season,” sophomore forward Ben Jones said. “The guys from the previous year had a taste of the other coach. He did things differently. It was hard on everybody. We did OK for what we had.”

With four of the six newcomers freshmen--and the probability that four first-year players will start--there is a lot of learning to be done.

“The drawback is a lack of maturity,” Douglass said. “We could be starting two freshmen in the backcourt. All the kids we have coming into the program can pass and shoot the ball better than the kids we had in the past.

“I wouldn’t want to go through what we went through last season. We looked for the type of player who, with experience, will take our play to another level.”

The centerpiece of the recruiting class is Green, a 6-foot-3 guard, who averaged 31 points, eight rebounds and five assists at Pomona High last season.

The 5-10 Cagwin has exceptional range and has shown the ability to get off shots. Bennem is quick to the basket and was an offensive threat just a notch below Green in high school.

That trio joins returners Malachi Edmond and Jason Flowers, giving the Anteaters depth in the backcourt. Douglass said he will use a three-guard lineup at times.

It should do wonders to improve Irvine’s shooting, which was a woeful 40% last season.

The inside game should be better--it would be difficult to be worse than nonexistent. Ondera, a lanky 6-6 junior college transfer, shoots well enough to draw bigger players outside and his exceptional leaping ability makes it difficult for smaller players to defend against him.

Gottschalk is Irvine’s tallest player at 6-10, but for true bulk the Anteaters have Divranos, a 6-8, 240-pounder, who had 10 rebounds--eight offensive--in the first exhibition game.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

UC IRVINE AT A GLANCE

SCHEDULE

Date: Opponent, Time

Nov. 17: Pepperdine 71, UC Irvine 58

Tuesday: Cal State Stanislaus, 7

Nov. 28: at Oregon State, 1

Nov. 30: at Portland, 7

Dec. 5: Northern Arizona, 7

Dec. 14: at Arizona, 7:30

Dec. 20: James Madison, 1

Dec. 22: BYU, 7

Dec. 28: Southern Oregon, 7:30

Jan. 2: at University of San Diego, 3

Jan. 2: at University of San Diego, 3

Jan. 7: North Texas, 7

Jan. 9: New Mexico State, 7

Jan. 14: at Boise State 6:30

Jan. 16: at Idaho, 6

Jan. 21: Pacific, 7

Jan. 23: Long Beach State, 7

Jan. 28: at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 7

Jan. 30: at UC Santa Barbara, 7

Feb. 4: Nevada, 7

Feb. 6: Cal State Fullerton, 7

Feb. 11: at Utah State, 9

Feb. 13: at Cal State Fullerton, 7

Feb. 18: at Long Beach State, 7:30

Feb. 20: at Pacific, 7

Feb. 25: UC Santa Barbara, 7

Feb. 27: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 7

March 4: Big West tournament, TBA

ROSTER

*--*

No. Player Pos. Ht. Wt. Yr. 3 Jason Flowers G 6-1 180 So. 4 Stan Divranos C 6-8 230 So. 5 Jerry Green G 6-3 170 Fr. 10 Gabe Cagwin G 5-10 155 Fr. 11 Malachi Edmond G 6-1 165 So. 14 Zamiro Bennem G 6-3 180 Fr. 21 Marek Ondera G 6-6 205 Jr. 22 Brian Scoggin G 6-2 190 Sr. 42 Adam Stetson F 6-7 210 Jr. 45 Ben Jones F 6-7 210 So. 52 Mark Gottschalk C 6-10 235 Fr. 54 Matt Willard C/F 6-9 225 Sr.

*--*

RETURNING LEADERS

Scoring: Adam Stetson 12.1

Rebounding: Stetson 4.0

Assists: Jason Flowers 1.7

Steals: Flowers 1.2

FG%: Matt Willard 49.5

FT%: Ben Jones 82.1.