Northridge’s Unwanted but Undaunted Man

If Jimmy Daniels hadn’t been so stubborn--if his pride hadn’t forced him to stay--he would have left the Cal State Northridge basketball team after last season.

He certainly was given the opportunity--told to hit the road, in fact, by Coach Pete Cassidy, who was frustrated by Daniels’ nonchalant way of doing things.

“Keep your scholarship,” Cassidy told him. “Just don’t come back.”

Where Northridge would be in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. standings had Daniels listened to his coach is anyone’s guess. Chances are, the Matadors would be considerably worse off than they are now.

Going into its final CCAA regular-season game tonight at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Northridge, which had been picked to finish near the bottom of the conference standings in a preseason coaches poll, is contending for a berth in the four-team CCAA postseason tournament.

A victory over San Luis Obispo would assure the Matadors of a fourth-place tie in the CCAA.

And Daniels has led the way. All because he chose to ignore Cassidy just one more time and show up to practice uninvited.

The 6-3 senior has scored in double figures in six straight games. Northridge has won five of those.

“There is no question that Jimmy has led the way the last few games,” Cassidy said. “He’s playing with a lot of confidence right now.”

And, perhaps just as important, with the confidence of his coach, which has not always been the case.

Daniels came to Northridge from Glendale College, where he was all-state and MVP of the Inland Valley Conference as a sophomore.

It wasn’t how many points Daniels scored as much as how he scored them that impressed people. He would drive through the key and dunk over taller opponents one time, then hit an outside jumper the next.

And he made it look so easy.

After coming to Northridge last season, though, things fell apart for Daniels. A 57% shooter at Glendale, he went into a seasonlong shooting slump. His percentage slipped to 36.9 and he slid right into Cassidy’s doghouse.

Again, he was making it look a little too easy.

“Jimmy is a glider,” Cassidy said. “His movements are flowing and easy. Sometimes last year it seemed like he was dogging it.”

So Cassidy, the father of three teen-agers, reacted the way a typical parent might. He yelled loudly and at length, perhaps believing that the ear was so close to the brain that some of what he said might actually sink in.

It did. And Daniels rebelled.

“I had never had anyone holler and scream at me the way he did,” Daniels said in an interview this week. “I resented it.”

Daniels said he was trying but was disappointed, confused and insecure about his role on the team. He was unhappy that he had not earned the Division I scholarship he coveted, and he was baffled because the things that had worked for him in junior college were being thwarted by bigger, more aggressive players in the CCAA. Even worse, he was scared that one errant pass, one errant shot would result in banishment to the bench.

“I was always looking over my shoulder,” he said.

At Glendale, Daniels was the main man in an offensive scheme that allowed him to find creative ways to score. Northridge was asking him to simply fill a role in a structured offense and he was struggling to make that adjustment. He also had trouble learning to play in a matchup zone defense.

Or maybe Daniels didn’t want to learn. Cassidy wasn’t sure, which is why, when the season was over, he told his prize recruit of the year before not to come back.

“I told him I was tired of his laziness and tired of watching him roll his eyes back in his head when I talked to him,” Cassidy said. “I told him I didn’t want him out again unless he wasn’t going to cause me any trouble.

“I didn’t think he could do it.”

Daniels didn’t have much of a choice. A transfer was out of the question since he had already used his redshirt year.

If he wanted to play basketball, he was going to have to start from the bottom of Cassidy’s totem pole and survive the silent treatment from members of the coaching staff.

“I knew I had a miserable year and I knew I wasn’t in the best situation,” Daniels said, “but I also knew I could do a lot better. Just talking about it wasn’t going to get it done, though.”

Daniels worked hard in the off-season without a word of encouragement from the coaching staff. He lifted weights with the team and ran and shot on his own.

But when practice started, Daniels wasn’t even issued a locker. After a month of practice, he recalls confronting Rusty Smith, an assistant coach, and asking him about the locker and why Cassidy wouldn’t talk to him.

“He’s not going to give you anything,” Smith said. “You’re going to have to earn it.”

To say Daniels has earned Cassidy’s respect--as well as a locker and a spot in the lineup--would be an understatement.

“It took a lot on his part to do that knowing he wasn’t wanted,” Cassidy said. “I’m sure he fully expected to be cut, but everyone deserves a second chance and he gave me no reason to cut him. I have a special place in my heart for Jimmy. If you’re going to be wrong about a person, it’s nice when it turns out like this.”

Daniels started slow again this season, shooting 36.1% in nonconference games, but he has made 46.4% in the CCAA, including 47.4% (27 of 57) from three-point range.

No longer is he afraid that each shot might be his last.

After watching Northridge get beat by the three-point shot in several early season games, Cassidy gave Daniels and Paul Drecksel the green light to turn loose the bombs.

“I have learned,” Cassidy said, “that sometimes it’s best to let shooters shoot.”

In the last four games Daniels has averaged 17.5 points. “It’s easier to shoot,” he said, “when you know the coach wants you to.”

Daniels has not changed his court mannerisms, but his style has become more acceptable with the improved results.

“Jimmy is like one of those wide receivers who don’t look like they’re running hard, then all of a sudden blow right by you,” Cassidy said. “Looks can be deceiving. I know he’s trying and I know he cares.”

And Daniels, in turn, has given his coach a chance.

“The things (Cassidy) has taught me have made me a smarter player,” he said. “I know I can still drive, but now I can also pull up for the open 10- or 15-footer instead of forcing it inside all the time.

“I just had to learn how to take criticism and not always talk back.”

Daniels said the death of his older brother, Chris, a former running back at Boston College who died of a heart attack in September, has helped him mature.

“I was used to always having things go my way and when they didn’t I might have taken it out on Coach Cassidy,” Daniels said.

“When you lose someone close you learn not to take things for granted. It made me think of all the things I have to be grateful for--simple things like being able to see and hear.

“I try to concentrate on what I have now, instead of what I’m missing out on. I used to think of how great it would be to be like Magic Johnson. Now I’m just happy to be Jimmy Daniels.”