UC Irvine Basketball Assistants Orellana, Murphy Fired

IRVINE — Rob Orellana and Tim Murphy, assistant men’s basketball coaches at UC Irvine, have been fired.

Orellana was hired during Coach Rod Baker’s first season at the school (1991-92) and Murphy, the restricted-earnings assistant, had been with the program for a total of eight years.

“We’ve been hearing rumors about it recently, but it was finalized today,” Joe Hannon, a senior with the Anteaters last season, said Friday. “Coach Baker hasn’t confronted (the players) with it yet and I don’t really know if he’s going to, but Tim and Rob have talked to some of the guys.

“It’s a big shock.”

Orellana was out of town Friday and Murphy was unavailable for comment.

The Big West coaches had picked Irvine to finish sixth in the preseason poll, but the Anteaters were 4-14 during the regular season and ended up in last place. They rebounded to win three games in the conference tournament and missed a berth in the NCAA tournament when they lost the final game to New Mexico State.

Orellana was the most vocal of the Irvine coaching staff, both in practice and during games. He had been the head coach at Downey Pius X and the team manager at UNLV when the Runnin’ Rebels won the national championship in 1990.

Murphy, whose brother, Tod, was a standout for the Anteaters in the mid-1980s, was an assistant at Irvine from 1985 to 1988 before coaching at Pacific Lutheran in Tacoma, Wash., for one season. He returned to the Anteater staff for the 1989-90 season.

Assistant Greg Vetrone, whose main responsibility is recruiting, apparently escaped the shake-up.

Coach Rod Baker did not return a phone message Friday night.