SMOKEY’S SCRAMBLED AZTECS : With His Two Big Men Injured, Everything San Diego State’s Coach Cooks Up Has Missing Ingredients

In solitude, Steffond Johnson caught an imaginary pass at the free-throw line.

He faked right, then turned left. After one quick dribble, he took a shot.

Swish.

On an adjacent court, Johnson’s San Diego State teammates were playing a five-on-five game. When the ball went out of bounds, Johnson became involved--sort of.

“Here you go Stef,” guard Tracy Dildy said. “Throw me the ball.”

Johnson obliged. And then, it was back to more one-on-none practice.

The Aztecs have desperately needed Johnson, a 6-foot 8-inch center, but his lingering lower back injury has kept him from playing in the last 12 games. His absence has a lot to do with the Aztecs’ 3-11 record at mid-season.

Johnson, who began practicing again this week, is not the only player SDSU has missed. Gerald Murray, a 6-8 forward, has not played this season because of a broken kneecap and will redshirt.

There’s a chance Johnson may return this week, but it might also be a couple of weeks. And he may not play extensively for the remainder of the season.

The absence of Johnson and Murray has caused Coach Smokey Gaines to scramble his lineup like never before.

“All of our starters are playing out of position, to tell you the truth,” Gaines said. “Except for our point guard.”

The point guard is 5-10 Creon Dorsey. And the current situation has put Dorsey in a difficult position as far as executing his role.

Dorsey was used to feeding 6-10 Leonard Allen, 6-9 Michael Kennedy and 6-8 Andre Ross when the Aztecs advanced to the NCAA tournament last season. But all three are out of eligibility.

Without Johnson and Murray this season, the Aztecs have been left with a front line that is not much bigger than most guards.

John Martens, a 6-8 natural forward, is the center. Anthony Watson (6-3) and Johnny Scruggs (6-4), a pair of true off guards, are forwards.

What resulted is simple: the burden inside has fallen upon Martens, who would rather be shooting 12 to 15-foot jump shots than shoving around underneath with power players.

“I feel out of position,” Martens said. “I can play it, but it’s not my natural position. On the wing, I had more opportunity to do things. Now, all I do is take it to the basket.”

With so many players out of position, the Aztecs have been taken to the cleaners this season.

They have been outrebounded in 13 of 14 games, with the exception being the 69-50 win over Air Force when they had one more rebound. SDSU has been outrebounded by an average of 9.1 per game, worst in the Western Athletic Conference.

Now, the next question comes into play. Why weren’t the Aztecs more prepared in case they had injuries to their big men?

“Our season was based on having bodies,” Gaines said. “I never had this many injuries on a team before. It wasn’t something you could foresee. You never know when it will happen.”

In defense of Gaines, he thought the Aztecs were getting Wilbert Frazier, a 6-7 power forward from Connecticut. Frazier was unable to qualify for SDSU under the university’s academic standards. He now attends the University of Hartford, where he is academically ineligible this year.

According to Gaines, Frazier is not the only power player he has lost under the academic requirements. John Jimmerson, a 6-6 forward, inquired about transferring to SDSU after he quit Marquette’s team this year. Jimmerson did not qualify for SDSU because his high school ACT test score was too low, so he is now transferring to South Alabama.

Gaines has signed three recruits for next season--forward Juan Espinoza (6-7) from Grossmont College, high school guard Tony Ross (6-2) from Portland, Ore., and high school forward Gary Kline (6-6) from Lebanon, Pa. The Aztecs hope to bring in five more players, four big men and one guard.

“Just because you recruit people doesn’t mean you’ll get them,” Gaines said. “Right now, we’re recruiting 40 big people. With the academic standards we have, you know how that goes. Some of these kids, we can’t get them in school.”

The Aztecs got six freshmen into their program this season. Despite their need for big men, a majority of the freshman recruits were actually guards.

Exceptions were Kevin Brown, a 6-9 center from Grand Rapids, Mich.; and Jeff Bobin, a 6-7 forward from Seattle. Neither is ready to be the dominating big man that SDSU seeks.

Brown started the first nine games, but he has averaged just 2.8 points and 4.6 rebounds. Bobin has averaged 3 1/2 minutes per game, and Gaines has questioned “how much he really wants it.”

Among the other four freshmen, Scruggs has proven to be the only immediate success. He earned a starting role five games ago and has been in the lineup since, albeit he is out of position at forward.

Darryl Gaines and Josh Lowery are good shooters, but they are playing out of position as small forwards instead of off guards. Tracy Dildy, the reserve point guard, is playing where he belongs.

“We’ve had to rush the freshmen,” Smokey Gaines said. “We just don’t want them to lose their confidence. This year should help them.”

If anything, the season has taught the freshmen that a lot may go wrong on the major-college level.

Things were so bad one day in preseason practice that only seven players were able to participate. Besides Johnson and Murray being sidelined, Martens and Dorsey were slowed by bad knees and Watson cut the webbing between two fingers, requiring 12 stitches.

According to Dorsey, the early injuries resulted in lack of continuity.

“We never could get everyone in at once,” he said. “We couldn’t get the same concept together because some guys were hurt. Now, I think we’re finally getting in the same rhythm.”

At midseason, the Aztecs finally seem to be hitting stride. Despite losing last weekend at Utah (93-89 in overtime) and Brigham Young (82-70), they played better on the road than they had all season.

Before the season began, Gaines said he hoped his young team would mature by playing seven of its first eight games on the road. His theory may be paying off in effort lately, but it is still not paying off in wins.

At SDSU’s present pace, it would lose a school-record 22 games. The Aztecs lost 21 games in Gaines’ first season six years ago when he said the team was “below the bottom of the barrel.”

Gaines inherited a team that had lost three of five starters from the previous year. Not coincidentally, SDSU is having its second down year under Gaines after losing three starters from 1984-85.

“We knew we would be down from last year,” Gaines said. “We didn’t know we would be this down. This ain’t no UCLA, where you can get great players year in and year out. We get players that are a little above average, that’s it. This isn’t a basketball city, and we’re not a basketball school. We’re trying to make it into that.”