Pain and Pride : CSUN Women Keep Chins Up as Season Spins Down

For the Cal State Northridge women’s basketball team, the season has come down to a battle of perseverance.

Already eliminated from the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. playoffs with less than half of the schedule yet to be played, the Lady Matadors are clinging to pride as their common motivator.

“I really don’t know why they don’t give up, but they don’t,” second-year Coach Leslie Milke said of her team after a practice earlier this week. “What keeps me going is them, the players. I can’t throw in the towel.”

No one would have blamed the Lady Matadors for throwing just about everything after last Friday’s humiliating 66-36 loss to Cal Poly Pomona.

CSUN scored just four points in the first 11 minutes and a grand total of 15 in the first half.

“They were scared, they were so intimidated by Pomona,” Milke said. “Pomona has a mystique. They were in awe of them.”

In that game, the Lady Matadors were successful on just 19% of their field goal attempts, were out-rebounded, 53-36, and trailed by as many as 34 points midway through the second half.

“It was pathetic,” said freshman Regan O’Hara, who made 1 of 11 from the field and had four rebounds.

“They were embarrassed and we (coaches) were embarrassed,” Milke, 28, explained.

However embarrassing, the Lady Matadors’ total collapse was inevitable. In winning just two of its previous eight games, CSUN had been teetering on the brink of an all-out breakdown for some time. It was only a matter of when.

A lack of consistent outside shooting, inside muscle, steady ball handling and bench strength were Lady Matador constants.

“You get into a syndrome, a habit of winning and it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Judy Brame, CSUN women’s athletic director and former women’s basketball coach. “It’s the same way with losing. You get into a losing pattern, a losing behavior, and you think certain things will happen.”

Over the past two seasons, basketball losses have become a frequent, if unwelcome, guest in Milke’s gymnasium. Unless her Lady Matadors win four of their remaining five games, she will become the first women’s basketball coach in the team’s 11-year history to post consecutive losing seasons.

Last year, CSUN finished 8-19 and was sixth in the conference with a 2-10 record. And with conference games left against three teams that spent much of the season in the Division 2 Top 20, the prospects of a winning season don’t look good.

“Last year was awful and I said I wasn’t going to let it happen again,” said Tracey Davis, one of two seniors on the team. “But this makes me sick. I shake my head and say ‘What’s going on? What can we do to fix it?’ Obviously, we haven’t been able to fix it.”

CSUN may have been beyond repair before the season ever began.

Injuries immediately claimed All-CCAA honorable-mention selection Denise Sitton (14.1 points and 10.3 rebounds a game last year) as well as 6-2 transfer Tara Flanagan and 6-3 center Dana Pollock. Flanagan has returned to play the last nine games.

Three other players, including two junior college transfers, were declared academically ineligible.

“At the beginning of the year, the prospects were really exciting,” assistant coach Paula Moran said.

Added Milke: “But then we got hit with everything. We defeated ourselves at the beginning of the season before we ever got started.”

The Lady Matadors dropped five of their first six games but then came back to win four straight, including two in overtime. Still, there was no cohesion.

“I thought they overcame some adversity at the beginning of the season,” Brame said. “I think they had to regroup after the loss of those players. It took a while for them to adjust to playing without those individuals.”

While noting that injuries hurt in the beginning, Davis also said the bad news pulled the team together.

“Pound for pound, person for person, we’re as talented as most of the teams in the league,” Davis said. “It’s the little things that add up. Every little thing knocks you down a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And when you look up, all of a sudden you’re down by 10.”

Renee Loch, a junior playing her third position in as many seasons, was immediately thrust into the role of “team everything”--off guard, point guard, outside shooter, team leader and defensive dynamo--by virtue of the squad’s early problems. Her game has gone the way of the team--sometimes terrific, sometimes terminal.

“Sometimes we can look excellent and then come down the floor and look terrible,” said Loch, whose 10.3 points per game is third among the starters.

Brame, who coached CSUN to a 98-91 record in eight seasons, places much of the blame on a $5,000 budget that allows for just half of a basketball scholarship per year. It is the lowest scholarship amount in the CCAA.

To supplement the cost of operating the basketball program, the team engages in preseason fund-raising activities such as staffing a concession stand at the Rose Bowl during UCLA football games.

This season, the extra money allowed the school to add another one and a half scholarships, but Brame says that is just milk money to a program starving for something more substantial.

“It has had the greatest impact on the program in the last four years,” Brame insisted. “And it’s a real problem that Northridge faces. Football and basketball, because of the nature of the sports, are hurt the most.

“The depth of other teams is reflected in their talent and play,” Brame insisted. “We were counting on Diane (Sitton) and her injury was something we did not anticipate. I understand where the team is and why they are where they are.”

Interpreted, it means Milke is under no pressure to win--yet.

“I think it’s premature to give any grand assessment at this time,” Brame said, adding that she thinks a new coach should be given at least three years to introduce and execute her philosophy.

Despite CSUN’s season-long woes, Milke remains steadfast in her philosophy: To win the next game.

“We’re out of the playoff picture and they know that,” Milke said. “But I know they don’t want to give up. They want to win.”

Said Davis: “We’re playing for pride. And we’re going hard. It’s especially important to me to end on a happy note.”