NCAA WOMEN’S FINAL FOUR : AT TACOMA, WASH. : CS Long Beach Wants West Fans : 49ers, Lowest-Ranked Team Left, Hope for Regional Edge

So here’s the thing about the Cal State Long Beach women’s basketball team, which is pushing its collective luck here at the Women’s Final Four.

After humiliating Washington in the semifinal of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. West Regional in Long Beach last week, these zany Southern Californians are asking to be adopted by the fans here.

“I’m begging,” Long Beach Coach Joan Bonvicini said. “I’ve said that I’ll stand on my head and tell jokes just to get them to support us.”

This is the college basketball championship, not the Gong Show, but No. 7-ranked Long Beach is accustomed to fan support and, seemingly, will do much to get it. The other teams here--No. 1 Tennessee, No. 3 Auburn and No. 5 Louisiana Tech--are hoping that the fans here will not adopt a regional bias.

Tonight’s semifinal game is not sold out and will be blacked out in this area. The games will be televised on ESPN, with Tennessee-Louisiana Tech starting at 6:10, and the Long Beach-Auburn game at 8:10.

Sunday’s 1 p.m. final will be televised by CBS-TV.

Long Beach (28-5) plowed through the West Regional using an astounding advantage. The 49ers played all their postseason games in their teeny, steamy Campus Gym, which seats only 2,200.

This is a team that can’t get enough of a home-court advantage. The 49ers came to Tacoma, saw the sun was shining, looked out at the harbor and figured it must be home.

Some people here think the 49ers have nerve asking for support. After losing to Long Beach last week, some Washington players approached the Iowa players and urged them to crush the 49ers. As it happened, it was the 49ers who crushed the Hawkeyes.

“You’re kind of seen as the rebels in this tournament, aren’t you?” a reporter asked Bonvicini Thursday.

Bonvicini shook her head, and managed a smile. “We’re not rebels,” she said. “We just like to have fun. This team reflects me. We are not cocky, we are confident. We play hard. We want people to enjoy watching us.”

It is not likely that fans here enjoyed watching Long Beach crush the Washington Huskies, 104-78, in last week’s regional semifinal.

This is the same audience that Bonvicini wants to take into the fold. This is the team that waved towels and broke out Final Four T-shirts before winning the regional.

Bonvicini was told her team seems loose.

“People say that,” Bonvicini said. “I don’t know where it comes from.”

Perhaps the 49ers will have to live down the “We came here to party” image that USC’s two national championship teams engendered. When USC’s players showed up to the first practice in the 1986 Final Four wearing their colorful Jams--low-slung beach shorts--eyebrows went north and the general tone was “Uh huh, there goes those teams from L.A., styling on us. Cheryl-Miller-the-hotdog. So cocky.”

The Long Beach equivalent is flashy guard Penny Toler. Toler, a junior, is averaging 22.6 points a game and is the key to the Long Beach fast break.

Some of the reporters here had wanted to speak to her, but Toler was shielded from the media’s glare.

However, it was revealed that Penny is not her real name. Her real name is . . . (gasp) Virginia.

This is a very embarrassing item for Toler, who at all times is concerned about maintaining her icy street-cool. The nickname was given to her as a child and it stuck. It seems that when Toler was a toddler, she liked to eat money, especially pennies.

Toler did answer to Virginia, in a weak moment Thursday, but she wasn’t keen on the story getting out.

Aside from that, there are few surprises. The nation’s top four offenses are here, led by Tennessee’s. The Vols (31-2) are averaging 89.8 points.

Auburn (31-2) will be an interesting matchup for Long Beach. The Tigers prefer a half-court offense, which will sharply contrast the 49ers’ running style.

“After beating Maryland in the (Mideast) Regional, I said I didn’t care if we played the Lakers as long as we were there,” Auburn Coach Joe Ciampi said. “After seeing them (Long Beach) on television, I think we’ve found their (Lakers’) counter with the transition game Long Beach possesses.”

The Tigers have two injured starters. All-American Vickie Orr has tendinitis in both knees, and Ciampi said she would play 6 to 8 minutes and sit for 4 to 5 minutes.

“If anybody has a seat belt, let me know, because Vickie always wants to get back in the game,” he said.

The other injury is to guard Diann McNeil, who suffered a bruise on her right knee. Ciampi termed her status as 80%.

Final Four Notes

Auburn beat Long Beach the only time the teams met this season, in the final of Long Beach’s tournament. Auburn won, 87-76, to break Long Beach’s 28-game home-court win streak. . . . The 49ershave been forced into carrying the banner for West Coast basketball. The other teams are from the Southeast. “I don’t think of it that way, but we’d like to see the championship come back to the West,” said 49er Coach Joan Bonvicini. The great distance from their schools has placed burden on fans from Auburn, Louisiana Tech and Tennessee. “Our band is coming tomorrow, our cheerleaders, our school president is here,” Louisiana Tech Coach Leon Barmore said. “We’ve got some fans reaching down in their pockets to get here, that’s tough on some of our people. I think our players know that. They know it’s a big sacrifice and they are going to play hard.” The Tennessee publicist said that every school official is here for tonight’s game. Asked who was running the school, she said, “Why, the students, of course.” . . . Shannon Smith, Long Beach’s 6-foot 3-inch center, was named to the Academic All-American team. She is carrying a 3.91 grade-point average in mechanical engineering. Teammate Cheryl Dowell, a 6-1 forward, was named the Scholar-Athlete of the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn.