Long Beach’s Cindy Brown Riding High : She Flies to New York the Day After Scoring a Record 60 Points

A day after scoring 60 points against San Jose State, breaking the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. single-game record for women’s basketball, Cal State Long Beach’s Cindy Brown boarded a plane for New York and a press conference to promote next month’s Final Four in Texas. The timing for such an event was only a coincidence, but it sure worked out well.

Brown’s accomplishment Monday night against San Jose State will surely be one of the main topics of conversation today as the coaches and one player each from Long Beach, Texas, Tennessee and Rutgers gather. It has already drawn considerable attention in Los Angeles-area newspapers, and San Jose State has received six requests for tapes of the game, three from television stations in Portland, Ore., Brown’s hometown.

Brown, a 6-foot 2-inch senior forward, scored 32 points in the first half, when the 49ers took a 80-29 lead. She finished with 28 while playing much of the final 20 minutes. The old mark was 58 by Lorri Bauman of Drake in 1984.

In 34 minutes, she made 20 of 32 shots and 20 of 22 free throws, had a game-high 7 steals and grabbed 13 rebounds. Meanwhile, Long Beach was setting an NCAA record for most points in the 149-69 Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. victory.

“Cindy has been capable of scoring a lot of points in a lot of games, but we’ve never let her loose” said Coach Joan Bonvicini, whose 49ers (23-2) will play Thursday against Nevada Las Vegas at the Long Beach Arena. “She played so well in the first half that I figured she had paid her dues, so I let her go. . . . It would have been more of a discredit to her, if anything, if we had taken her out.

“She shot so well from the free-throw line. That was amazing. And she had some steals, again. She just played an all-around great game.

“She could have scored a whole lot more than 60. Easily.”

Apparently, Brown, whose scoring average jumped from 26.7 to 28.1, didn’t even know she had the record until assistant Coach Michael Abraham told her afterward.

“Things were pretty quiet,” said Steve Janisch, the assistant director of media relations for the school. “We didn’t know what the record was because no one had an NCAA record manual. We really got lucky. Joan left her in to break LaTaunya’s (Pollard’s) Long Beach record of 48 points and just decided to let her go a little longer. (Bonvicini) pulled her out with 4:40 left in the game after making two free throws, which ended up breaking the record.”