Chapman Moves a Step Closer to the End

Chapman College has had to endure more than its share of bad news this basketball season, the year of losing continually.

There was the leg injury that kept leading scorer Jon Samuelson out of action for the first third of the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. schedule. There were the season-ending injuries to team captain Mike Kelly and forward Paul Rollins. There was the loss of swingman John Bragg due to academic ineligibility.

And, of course, there are the records: 6-18 overall, 1-10 in the CCAA.

So this time, let’s start off with some good news for the Panthers:

Just two games remain in the 1985-86 season.

Chapman is simply playing to make this year a memory and Saturday night, the Panthers moved a step closer in a 78-63 loss to Cal State Bakersfield at the Hutton Sports Center.

The game itself was so utterly predictable, so dreadfully true-to-form for the Panthers, that it barely merits recounting. In-depth analysis of this latest defeat is somewhat akin to plucking wings off a fly.

How many ways can you describe a disaster?

You don’t have to be an avid Chapman follower--and judging from the small clusters that show up for home games, there aren’t many--to know how the Panthers lost this one.

They played well for 20 minutes.

They led at the half.

They self-destructed during one arid stretch during the second half.

They lost.

Play it again, Samuelson and Co.

It was the eighth time this season that Chapman blew a halftime lead--the sixth in 11 conference games. And it kept intact the possibility of a 20-loss season.

Already, Chapman has clinched its poorest finish since 1972-73. That year, the Panthers went 3-23.

Kevin Wilson, Chapman’s beleaguered coach, sounded tired as he recounted his team’s fourth straight defeat.

“Their good athletic ability showed in the second half,” Wilson said of the Roadrunners (8-3, 17-7). “I said before the season that Bakersfield had the best athletes in the league.

“It was a combination of us being tired and their being good athletes that did it. At that point in the game (the start of the second half), they were getting more quickness to the ball and got on a roll.”

Chapman started the second half ahead by a point, 31-30. In less than seven minutes, the Panthers fell behind by 13 (49-36), getting outscored, 19-5.

Nearly everyone on the Roadrunner roster had a hand in burying Chapman. Six of Coach Jim Parks’ nine players scored in double figures--Karl Finley (13 points), Leonard Brown (13), Randy Jackson (12), Ryan Shaw (12), Tony Brooks (10) and Paul Phifer (10).

Chapman had just two--Samuelson (20) and Karl Tompkins (11).

Parks considered the plight of the Panthers and said he could empathize with Wilson.

“I know what he’s going through,” he said. “In a lighter way, I’m going through the same thing. Right before the season, a big article came out saying that if we didn’t win the league, I was going to be fired.

“We have a demanding following and that hurt us terribly. We struggled and had a rough time for a while.

“But now we’re 17-7. It’s easier on me now.”

Wilson is 6-18. For him, nothing is getting easier.

“I’ve never gone through this before,” he said quietly. “At Minnesota (where Wilson was an assistant coach), we won the Big 10. At San Francisco State, we won the Western Regionals.

“But I’m not worried about me. I feel sorry for the kids. They keep trying and trying, but they’re missing their shot.

“I’m doing all right. I have friends calling from all over, patting me on the back. They say, ‘It’s OK, keep your chin up.’ ”

Wilson is trying.

At least the end is near. Just two more to go.