NCAA Basketball: Long Beach State vs. UC Irvine
On late Saturday night in Anaheim - or early Sunday morning, if you were watching from the Central Timezone - UC Irvine took down Hawaii to win the Big West title.
It gave the Anteaters their first ever NCAA Tournament bid, which, when examining UC Irvine"s basketball history, is a bit surprising.
Back in 1986, Thunder coach and future NBA point guard Scott Brooks transferred to the school. Three other future NBA players were on the team that season.
"Wayne Englestad, played with the Nuggets," Brooks remembered. "Johnny Rogers, played with Cleveland and Sacramento. Tim Murphy played with Minnesota a bunch of years. And coach kicked off Tom Tolbert, who played about eight or nine years in the league. And he kicked off Ron Granderson, who played seven or eight years. So we would have had six (future NBA) players."
"Kentucky of the mid-majors," Brooks joked.
But that season, Irvine went 17-13 overall, 12-6 in league and were relegated to the NIT, where the Anteaters beat UCLA before losing to BYU in the second round.
"It wasn"t the coaching," Brooks said of the lack of a tourney bid. "It was the player"s fault."
These days, Brooks remains an avid follower of UC Irvine basketball. And though he never made it there himself, he was pumped up Sunday afternoon about the school"s first tourney berth.
"I"m not going to sit up here and boast, but I"m very proud of them," Brooks said.
Source: http://newsok.com/okc-thunder-proud-alum-scott-brooks-talks-about-uc-irvines-first-ncaa-tournament-bid/article/5401770
