49ers Find Growing Is Painful : Palmer Suffering Through a Long Year at Long Beach

Basketball shoes squeak in the Cal State Long Beach gym as freshmen try to grow into Division 1 college basketball players, a painful process when October’s lessons remain a mystery in February.

But their coach, a patient man familiar with the mistakes of youth, has time for their pain, despite another trying day late in a trying season.

Ron Palmer, whose first 49er team may finish with the worst record in the school’s history, is stern, however.

“The next person who doesn’t talk will be down there doing something extracurricular,” Palmer says, demanding communication during a defensive drill.

Moments later, freshman guard Morlon Wiley is alone in a corner at the end of the floor, doing pushups.

The penalty should have come as no surprise to Wiley. A year ago he was at Long Beach Poly High School, as was Palmer, who was finishing an 11-year career--based on strict adherence to the fundamentals of basketball--with a state championship.

At Poly, where basketball has long been dominated by swift, skilled young men with sculptured bodies, Palmer was a huge success. His record was 271-50. He won until he ran out of things to win.

Cal State Long Beach, where basketball has been in the depths--mediocre teams, sparse crowds--since the turn of the decade, turned almost desperately to Palmer. The 49ers had a 9-19 record last year and the coach, Dave Buss, resigned under pressure. One of the strikes against Buss, according to the boosters whom he alienated, was the fact that he was an outsider. He had come from the University of Wisconsin Green Bay.

Palmer made a popular move by naming Ed Ratleff and Glenn McDonald, 49er stars in the early 1970s, as assistant coaches.

There was little time for Palmer to recruit but he did entice several area players who probably have the potential to become decent Division 1 players but who lack the talent that thrives at places such as Nevada Las Vegas.

“I wish I had the players on their bench,” Palmer said after Las Vegas toyed with his team in January.

The 49ers, 3-18, were winless in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. and against Division 1 teams until they surprised San Jose State last Saturday night, 72-68.

“I wish the season was over,” Palmer said. “I’d like to get to the next one and the one after that, but I know we need to play every game on the schedule and take whatever lumps we’ve got coming to us because we need that experience.”

It is taken for granted that there will be no overnight miracles.

“The losses haven’t affected me because I have projected our team two years down the road,” Palmer said.

The 49ers have eight freshmen, and Palmer plays all of them--out of necessity.

“There are times when we just don’t know what’s going to happen out there,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of outstanding people who are a year or two away and probably should be watching some older guys play and play against them so they can develop their skills.”

But the 49ers don’t have much in the way of older guys. The only seniors, forward Darryl Adams and guard Cardell Taylor, have been suffering from freshmen mistakes themselves.

Palmer has learned quickly that there is no cure for inexperience.

“In order to be competitive, you have to have older, more mature kids,” he said. “They’ve got to have strength and that can only be acquired by spending several years lifting weights and playing 75 to 100 college basketball games. If you don’t have those things, you’re at a severe disadvantage.

“I have learned that running an offense or a certain defense well isn’t good enough to win. I guess there is that level in college basketball that’s so high that you can run one offense and one defense and be so much above the other teams, but what I’ve found, even watching the North Carolinas and the Georgetowns, is they’ve had to do a multiplicity of things to win. I think that’s an education in terms of my development.”

Palmer shuttles his young players in and out of games quickly.

Against Santa Barbara he turned to an assistant, and freshman center DeAnthony Langston, thinking he was being pointed to, headed for the scorer’s table.

“Where you going?” Palmer said.

Langston pointed to the court.

“No,” Palmer said.

Guard Jon Hansen, a freshman from Redlands who appeared bewildered when Palmer yanked him from a recent game, said, “He’s a perfectionist. If you make a mistake, you’ll come out.”

Mental mistakes, Palmer emphasizes.

“I feel our players are performing close to their maximum in physical output,” he said. “Mentally, no. We’ve got a ways to go.”