College Notebook : Cassidy Afraid of Going Into Life’s Overtime?

Under “age” on a 1984-85 preseason basketball fact sheet, Cal State Northridge basketball Coach Pete Cassidy reportedly wrote, “Not applicable.”

Asked by a reporter once for his age, Cassidy coyly replied, “Older than my wife.”

Conservative estimates place him at 42, but one thing is certain: He won’t get any younger coaching teams like the past season’s team, which came of age while winning the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship with a 11-3 league record.

On his way to losing the West Regional championship, 51-48, on Saturday to Cal State Hayward, Cassidy suffered through four overtime games (one went four overtimes). A number of other games were decided in the final minutes.

The Matadors had a roster of bit players but no established star; there was no one to take control with the game on the line. But during the last two minutes of almost every game, someone stepped forward to grab the spotlight.

“There’s no stars on this team,” senior forward Larry White said one night after a close victory. “We can’t win unless we have five guys playing as one team.”

The team consistently flirted with an array of shortcomings which ultimately led to its demise in the regional championship. Turnovers hurt the team the most. The Matadors averaged 16 per game.

“We were not the tallest team in the conference, certainly not the quickest--we may have been the slowest team--and our ball handling was always suspect,” Cassidy said.

But the Matadors, who finished 20-10 overall, won when they shouldn’t have and won, except once, when it counted.

Cassidy called his 14th season at CSUN one of the “most satisfying” of his career, but left little doubt that he thought the end came prematurely.

The Matadors had a chance to avoid a second straight loss this season to Hayward--the first was in overtime--but their 16th turnover of the game, by usually dependable Mike Almeido, was too much to overcome.

Said Cassidy: “That is one we could have won. Not necessarily should have, but could have won. But in both games they were just an edge, a splinter better than we were. We contributed a lot to our own demise in that game.”

Despite CSUN’s second straight loss in West Regional title games, Cassidy views the season with pride.

“One game does not sour me on what has been an outstanding season for CSUN,” said Cassidy, who was named CCAA Coach of the Year for the second time in his career.

Sour, though, could be the outlook for next season.

Cassidy will have to replace five seniors--four of whom were starters--from his 11-man roster. Gone from this year’s team will be starting center Tom Ruetten and backup Wayne Fluker, White and guard Mike Lopez. Almeido, the CCAA Player of the Year and a first-team NCAA Division II District 8 selection, will also graduate.

Those five combined to average almost 44 points a game this season. CSUN averaged 66.3 points per game as a team.

Expected to play major roles next year will be sometimes-starter, guard Rafael Meza, who averaged eight points coming off the bench, forward Dale Brandsberg, swingman Pat Bolden and guard Troy Dueker.

Also being counted on is junior redshirt Paul Drecksel, a 6-4, 185-pound transfer from Brigham Young University.

Drecksel, who is from Salt Lake City, averaged three points a game in his final season with BYU. He has recovered from a back injury that kept him immobile for eight months.

Sounds like Cassidy could be a prime candidate for early retirement by 1986.

Almeido is the second CSUN basketball player in as many years to gain all-District 8 honors. Last year, Cliff Higgins was named to the team and was later drafted by the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Assn.

The Matador women’s gymnastics team hopes to have a little better luck in its Division II West Regional, which will he held at the CSUN gym Saturday at 7 p.m.

Second-year coach Susan Rouse said that playing host to the championship eliminates much of the pressure.

“They’ll be more confident,” Rouse said of her second-seeded squad. “They know the lighting, the size of the gym, they won’t have to check the equipment and they’re used to the crowd noise.”

Other teams in the competition include top-seeded and defending regional champion Seattle-Pacific, UC Davis, Cal State Sacramento, UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Chico. The Division II National Championships will be held March 28-30 at Springfeld (Mass.) College.

The best hope for CSUN is expected to be sophomore All-American Janine Elliott. Elliott has a season average of 35.56 points out of a possible 40 points in four events. She finished third in the CCAA meet last week with a 35.20 average.

Rouse says Elliott excels in pressure situations.

“She performs very well at home. I’m expecting the top meet of the season from her. She performs for the crowd and that’s a big asset,” her coach said.

Other top CSUN performers include Monica Mayes, Laura Ross and Stacy Baker.

Mayes excels at the vault and floor exercises, while Baker is the team’s best uneven parallel bars performer. Ross is expected to do well on the balance beam.

While everyone has been singing the praises of CSUN golfer Jon McGihon, the junior from Indio has been singing the music of the big-band era.

McGihon, who earlier this year recorded holes-in-one four days apart, spends his non-golfing weekends at another type of club and in another kind of foursome.

McGihon is a member of a quartet that sings at various nightspots in the desert area.

Singing is nothing new to the 26-year-old music major, who spent the past five years as a principal member of Fred Waring’s legendary traveling glee club and orchestra. The troupe broke up when Waring died in August.

McGihon was a member of the glee club and assistant director of the orchestra.

Notes

Former Taft High and Riverside City College running back Lance Reed is within eight pounds of getting a long-awaited tryout with the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League.

Reed, whose two years at the University of Wyoming were dampened first by a broken arm and then a separated shoulder, met last week with Lions head Coach Roy Shiver in Las Vegas.

Reed said he was told that if he dropped 15 pounds from his 6-1, 215-pound frame, he would get a long look. Running three miles and living on one meal a day, Reed is down to 208. “And counting,” the 22-year-old Woodland Hills resident said. . . .

Larry Middleton’s basketball stock is still strong despite his poor performance last Friday against Glendale College in a regional playoff game.

At least that’s the word from Middleton’s biggest backer, Valley College basketball Coach Bob Castagna.

Middleton, courted by a number of Division I schools, was 5 of 14 from the field and scored 18 points in his team’s 87-82 overtime loss.

“He had a poor game for him,” Castagna said of Middleton, who averaged 27 points per game this season. “But (the Glendale game) in no way lowers his stock.”

Before that game, Glendale Coach Brian Beauchemin had indicated his team would shadow Middleton throughout. But Castagna suggested the 6-2 Middleton was the victim of a legal mugging, courtesy of Glendale.

“They were all over him as soon as he put it on the floor,” Castagna complained. “He’s still the best in the state. No one can stop him, but if they ride him and grab him they might be successful.”