COLLEGE BASKETBALL PREVIEWS : Having 5 Starters Back Doesn’t Necessarily Mean CSUN Will Be Better

To truly understand the depths of ineptitude the Cal State Northridge basketball team reached last season, a statistical recap is necessary. Warning: It’s rated PG-13 on ugliness alone.

Let’s start with the team’s record, 11-15 overall, 4-10 in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. Inexperience was the most-often heard excuse for this record. Northridge had lost seven of its top eight players from the previous year. So why then did the team win 7 of its first 10 games, then go on to lose 12 of its last 16?

Maybe because the team’s shooting percentage was as bad as its winning percentage. The Northridge made an abysmal 44.6% of its shots last season. During the CCAA season, the number fell to 43.3%.

And when the Matadors weren’t shooting bricks, they were dribbling the ball off their tennies. How many teams win much when they average 15 turnovers a game? Northridge finished with a sub-.500 record for the first time since the 1976-77 season.

The team’s play was so pathetic at times last season that after games, Coach Pete Cassidy said things like, “The whole game was a mental lapse,” and, “We turned off our brains and turned on the stupidity.”

Before another game, Cassidy was asked if Northridge had a chance at upsetting a particularly good team. “No,” he said.

An honest man. And a very successful coach who has a 231-170 record and has won four conference championships in his 14 years as coach. That’s why what happened last season shouldn’t happen again in the near future.

All five starters and several top reserves from last season’s team are back. This could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.

The top two players are expected to be Pat Bolden and Paul Drecksel, Northridge’s leading scorers last season.

Bolden, a second-team all-conference selection, led the team in scoring (12.8), blocks (16), steals (29) and was second in assists (63). The 6-5 junior guard also shot 49.5%. He was 77.8% from the free-throw line.

Drecksel, a 6-4 senior, averaged 13.7 points a game. He was also second in rebounding (5.5) and shot 47.6%. From the free-throw line he shot 73.5%.

Jimmy Daniels, a 6-3 senior, gives Northridge a trio of good shooters, although you wouldn’t know it from his performance last season when he connected on only 36.9% of his shots during conference games. He was still third on the team in scoring (12.7), however, and Cassidy is hoping he will return to the form he had at Glendale College where he was Inland Valley Conference Player of the Year as a sophomore.

At point guard is Troy Dueker, a 6-foot junior. Dueker isn’t much of a shooter and he had problems staying with some of the CCAA’s quicker guards. But he had 122 assists last season, two short of the school record.

In the middle is 6-6 Paul Hobus, whose greatest claims are that he set a school record for personal fouls (106) last season and was disqualified from 10 games. He had three more fouls than rebounds. Enough said.

Todd Bowser and Ray Horwath are expected to lend Hobus a hand inside the key.

Bowser, 6-7, 272, turned down the chance to play college football when he decided that basketball was his game. But when he showed up at what Cassidy estimated at well over 300 pounds in September, one might’ve thought he’d changed his mind.

He was down to 272 earlier this month, however, and is expected to become a starter by the middle of the season. The freshman from Montclair Prep has a good shooting touch and, in Cassidy’s words, “He takes up a heckuva lotta room in the middle.”

Horwath, a 6-5, 212-pound junior transfer from Sierra College in Rocklin, Ca., has already earned a spot in the starting lineup.

Other top reserves are expected to be Clifford Barnes (6-5), Kennard Moulden (6-5), James Hecht (6-6), James Carr (6-6) and Ed Bowman (6-7).

Barnes, a freshman from North Hollywood High, was supposed to redshirt, but Cassidy said he has progressed more quickly than expected. He averaged 21.9 points a game during his senior season in high school.

Moulden, a 6-5 sophomore transfer from San Diego Mesa, could become Northridge’s best offensive weapon if he can adjust to Cassidy’s deliberate style on offense. He was the Pacific Coast Conference’s MVP last season and scored 45 points in one game.

“As Kennard learns our system better, he could be a factor,” Cassidy said. “He’s struggling some right now. He’s used to a running, pressing and gunning style of play and we just don’t do that.”

A bone chip in Moulden’s knee has hindered his practice time and therefore his progress. Injuries have also forced Daniels (knee), Drecksel (ankle), Horwath (ankle), Bowser (concussion) and Hobus (back) to miss a significant amount of practice time.

A bad omen?

“I prefer to think we’re just getting all the injuries out of our system,” Cassidy said.