Chapman Toys With--but Can’t Reach--New Depths

The school record for the most lopsided conference loss narrowly eluded Chapman College Friday night, but the Panthers found other depths to explore during a 77-51 rout at UC Riverside.

Consider Chapman’s field-goal shooting. It’s apparent the Panthers didn’t.

Stepping into the Highlanders’ gym buoyed with the momentum from last week’s victory over Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chapman came out firing--and missing, hitting just 30% of its attempts in the first half.

Then, the Panthers followed that up with a 9-for-43 clank-o-rama in the second half. For those interested in trivia, that works out to 20.9% on the calculator.

Put those halves together and what do you get? Would you believe 24.7%?

Chapman Coach Kevin Wilson barely could.

Wilson shook his head as he looked at the numbers on the postgame stat sheet: Mike Kelly: 2-for-13.

Jerry Ross: 1-for-8.

Andy Marusich: 1-for-7.

Wali Jones: 0-for-7.

That was just a sample. Wilson was asked if he’d ever had a team with a worse shooting night.

“For a game, this is probably right there,” Wilson said. “Once, I had a team play a half where we shot 16%.”

But for an entire game, Friday might have been the topper. Shots attempted: 73. Shots made: 18.

Fifty-five bricks in the wall.

Watching but never taking off his warm-up was Johnny Williams, the Panthers’ best all-around player. Williams and guard Derrick Clark had missed two games last week by failing to register for spring classes and finally took care of financial problems to enroll Thursday. That gave them one session of practice--and in Wilson’s mind, that wasn’t enough to send either into the lineup against Riverside.

“This is a team game,” Wilson said. “I don’t know if they would have made a difference. If I knew that, I’d be Jimmy the Greek.”

Riverside (17-7 overall, 6-4 in conference) was also playing shorthanded, although it wasn’t apparent. The Highlanders’ No. 2 scorer, guard Dave Myers, quit the team Monday, leaving Coach John Masi with 10 players.

How badly did Riverside miss Myers? The way Chapman shot, no one could tell. The Highlanders shot a so-so 49.2% from the field and still won by 26 points.

For history buffs, Chapman’s worse conference defeat ever came four years ago, when the Panthers were blitzed by 29 points. Chapman (13-10, 4-6) toyed with that record, trailing by 30 with 2:31 left before Wayne Briggs hit two baskets to spare the Panthers any more ignominy.

CHAPMAN (51) Ross 2, Briggs 11, Cato 4, Kelly 5, Jones 3, Marusich 6, Brennan 6, Weninger 6, O’Hern 8.

UC RIVERSIDE (77) Greer 11, Niko 2, Jeffries 10, Wirtz 6, Mullinax 12, Anderson 10, Brumwell 8, Husen 14, Powers 2, Dowd 2.

Halftime--UCR 40-29.

A--500.