Pierre Crockrell II is the engine that drives UC Irvine

IRVINE — Pierre Crockrell II has made the best – the very best – out of what at the time was a bad situation.

Crockrell, UC Irvine’s point guard, is a fifth-year player, one of those granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA after COVID-19 terminated the 2019-20 season a week before March Madness was to begin. He is the Anteaters’ soul, and his influence was on display Saturday night at the Bren Events Center when his team moved closer to the regular-season Big West title and sewed up the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament and a bye into the semifinals.

His stat line in the Anteaters’ 82-61 victory over Long Beach State probably seemed ho-hum just by looking at the box score: 12 points, 6-of-12 shooting, 11 assists in 30 minutes. But you had to be there (or at least watching on ESPN2). You had to see the pinpoint – and more than occasional no-look – passes to teammates for scoring opportunities, his control of the pace and especially the way he stepped up when his team was threatened.

Long Beach had chipped away at what once was an 18-point UCI lead, and it was 61-51 Anteaters just inside the 10-minute mark of the second half. In a 5½-minute span, Crockrell made a leaning jumper in the lane, whipped a pass to 7-foot-1 junior Bent Leuchten for a lay-in, knocked down a jumper from the corner of the key, scored on a drive, and two possessions later found fellow fifth-year guy Dean Keeler for a jump hook and his ninth assist of the game. UCI had a 74-58 lead with 5½ minutes left, and it was just a matter of time.

“That dude’s a special competitor, Pierre,” UCI coach Russell Turner said. “… He’s so great to play with because he creates tempo and pace, and he creates opportunities to score for every guy. And so that gives the group energy. That’s what a high-level point guard’s supposed to do, is dictate the tempo and the personality of the team.”

Crockrell’s scoring average (7.7 ppg) doesn’t jump out at you. But he’s a 48.2% shooter from the field, and his assist average (6.3) and assist-to-turnover ratio (2.82) should get your attention. He won’t have the numbers of other Big West Player of the Year candidates, but if you’re talking Most Valuable, now, that’s a different subject.

“I evaluate myself by the competitive level I bring into the game, into practice every day,” Crockrell said. “I’m the head of the snake, so the team kind of follows my lead. So just being a positive example, giving my teammates confidence they’re feeling good. I think that’s how I value myself. I don’t usually evaluate myself on whether I’m scoring the ball or getting assists. To me, the most important thing is to get my team to win.”

Being the veteran helps. Crockrell said asserting vocal leadership wasn’t exactly his strength for a while, but it has become an emphasis.

“Me being a fifth year and being my last year, guys are looking towards me for that,” he said. “And so I got to be able to, to express myself and give it right back to my teammates.”

Crockrell, in fact, was an MVP last August, at the William Jones Cup tournament in Taiwan. UCI used that as its summer overseas exhibition tour, allowed once every four years, and went 8-0 (in nine days) against national and professional teams from various countries to win the gold medal. That tournament was a bonding and learning experience for a group that had lost its top scorers and all-conference players to the transfer portal, Dawson Baker to BYU and DJ Davis to Butler.

“We kind of got a head start for our season,” Crockrell said. “We have some new freshmen that came in, so them kind of being thrown into the fire, and just traveling to a different country and playing, we went through some real things together as a team. And so I think it just bonded us, going into the season.”

Losing Baker and Davis “created new roles for virtually everybody on the team,” Turner said. “And there was a lot of belief within our team that we could be good like this. Even though those guys left, I don’t think many people evaluating us from the outside saw that like we did. We’ve got a lot of guys who are veterans. We’ve been in our program for a long time and really bought in, and believe in the level of competition that I consistently asked the guys to reach. So we’re getting better, I think even now.”