Jan. 1—What happened to Cal State Bakersfield just before halftime could not be interpreted as anything other than a bad omen.

CSUB was in position for the final shot of the period, but Kaleb Higgins settled for an errant pull-up jumper with three seconds left. In the dying moments, UC Irvine’s Justin Hohn corralled the rebound and made it to halfcourt before launching a frantic shot that banked in, cutting the Anteaters’ halftime deficit to 39-33.

It wasn’t a good sign by any stretch, especially for a CSUB team that had just lost halftime leads in three straight games.

And sure enough, UCI scored seven straight out of the break, then countered a great individual showing by Antavion Collum down the stretch, using a 25-8 run to put the game out of reach and holding on to win 79-75.

A great defensive effort early — holding UCI’s star guards DJ Davis and Dawson Baker to one combined point at halftime — fell by the wayside Saturday afternoon, as the theme for CSUB continues to be an inability to put together 40 strong minutes, rather than, as head coach Rod Barnes put it, 28.

“We know that when we’re playing well, we can play with almost any team,” Barnes said, “but then all of a sudden we can’t play the second half, that’s where we’ve struggled a lot … maintaining our lead, or maintaining our focus on the things that we need to do.”

One key issue for the Roadrunners was their immediate foul trouble in the second half. By the time the game was over, CSUB had committed 33 fouls, with UCI shooting a whopping 30-of-51 from the line. Four of the Anteaters’ starters attempted at least eight free throws.

“I would assume probably the officials went in and thought the game was getting kind of chippy, and they were sending a message,” Barnes said, “and we didn’t make that adjustment to say ‘Hey listen, they’re going to call it a little bit more closely (in) the second half.'”

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Or as sophomore guard Marvin McGhee III put it: “We gotta lock in defensively. The ref wasn’t on our side today.”

Whatever the case, Baker finished with 17 points and eight rebounds, and Davis made it to 10 points with just one of his trademark 3-pointers.

However, CSUB also allowed unusually productive performances to forward Devin Tillis (16 points, eight rebounds) and center Bent Leuchten (15 points, nine rebounds), with Hohn adding 11 more points.

“We can’t just allow other guys to have really, really good nights,” Barnes said, “so we gotta put a little more balance in our defense.”

CSUB squandered one of its best offensive showings of the year, including a career-high 20 points from the Ole Miss transfer Collum.

“Me and Coach talked about it, just me doing a little bit more, getting a little bit more, just having to be more aggressive and take more shots, and shoot them more confident,” Collum said. “I just had that in the back of my mind.”

McGhee got back in the groove with 15 points, scoring in double digits for the first time in four weeks.

Coming off a career-high day of his own at UC Riverside on Thursday, Kaleb Higgins was blanketed by the UCI defense and frequently double-teamed, but still put up 13 points.

“We’re getting career highs, but they’re not together,” Barnes said. “And we’ve gotta try to get that together.”

Collum managed to mitigate his height disadvantage against the 7-foot Leuchten and 6-foot-11 Dean Keeler by playing a midrange game. He was already at 10 points, with eight coming on jumpers, by the time CSUB took a 22-13 lead midway through the first half.

UCI subbed out all five players and the Roadrunners went on a long drought, but thanks to some strong play off the bench by freshman forward Ugnius Jarusevicius, CSUB boosted its lead back to 35-24. Jarusevicius hit an unexpected corner 3-pointer to cap off the run.

The Roadrunners’ lead didn’t get any larger because Hohn connected on a 3 of his own late in the half, even before the buzzer-beater.

CSUB racked up three immediate fouls, two on Cameron Smith, after the halftime break, which helped UCI seize the momentum. A McGhee 3-pointer and a Collum drive through a foul helped the Roadrunners get back up 51-46, but they lost their lead and were never able to retake it, with Baker scoring 13 points from that moment on. His 3-pointer with less than two minutes left gave the Anteaters their largest lead at 74-61, before the late efforts of Collum and Higgins made the final margin a lot closer.

“I feel like our team has shown we’re an NCAA team, we just have to put two halves together,” McGhee said. “When we put two halves together we’ll be playing in March — late March.”

CSUB is back at home Thursday to face Cal Poly.

Reporter Henry Greenstein can be reached at 661-395-7374. Follow him on Twitter: @HenryGreenstein.