COLLEGE BASKETBALL ‘88-89 : Cal State Fullerton : Sneed Replaces McQuarn Again, but This Time He’s in Tough Spot With Titans

This is not the first time John Sneed has followed George McQuarn as coach. The first time was in 1974, when McQuarn resigned at Verbum Dei High School. Sneed, his 26-year-old assistant, took over.

The team went 30-2 and won the Southern Section 4-A championship. Sneed was named coach of the year.

McQuarn has left a team to Sneed again, this time resigning suddenly and without comment 4 weeks before Cal State Fullerton’s season opener.

This time, it’s different.

“George left me a bundle of talent last time,” Sneed said.

Enough said.

This team was 12-17 last year, and lost its top 6 scorers. The top returning scorer is Benson Williams, a walk-on player who averaged 2.7 points a game.

Sneed had an 81-8 record as a high school coach, but he has negligible chance of success in his first season as a college coach. He’ll be trying to earn the Fullerton job permanently--it has been given to him only for the season.

It is an unenviable task--some would say impossible--but Sneed is taking it on with a touch of humor, at least outwardly.

“I think we’ve all heard that song, ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy,’ ” Sneed said. “I’ve played the (expletive) out of that record.”

This team has virtually no chance of avoiding the worst record at Fullerton since McQuarn went 4-23 in 1980-81, his first season. The Titans did not have another losing season until last year’s team finished 12-17.

A very good recruiting class has been watered down by the ineligibility of two freshmen under Proposition 48 and the resignation of 2 recruits--junior William Allen and freshman Michael Brown.

But the prize recruit, Cedric Ceballos, is still there to lead the Titans. He will have to.

Ceballos, a 6-7 forward, was one of the top community college players in the country last season at Ventura College, and the subject of a recruiting battle that went late into the school year. Fullerton finally won out, probably because Ceballos’ brother, Chris, played for the Titans and Ventura Coach Phil Mathews is a former Titan assistant.

The other bright spot is the return of senior Derek Jones, who has made a remarkable recovery from critical injuries sustained in a drive-by shooting last year. McQuarn worked to acquire an extra year of NCAA eligibility for Jones, who is a sixth-year senior. At first, the effort was simply to help Jones, with no expectation that he could help the Titans. But now, Jones joins Ceballos as the Titans’ most important players.

The McQuarn Era is over at Fullerton, as will be evident every time the Titans take the court for pregame warmups. The trademark step-slide drills and many of the elaborate defensive drills will be gone. Sneed will have this team shooting--layups, jumpers, everything.

He knows the Titans need every edge they can get.

AT THE POINT

If freshman Wayne Williams hasn’t already won the starting job, chances are he will before the season is out. Sneed likes him for his ability to make things happen in the open court, and he has scoring ability that junior Marlon Vaughn lacks.

Williams helped lead Manual Arts High School to the state championship last season, and scored 25 points in the final, including the game-winning basket.

But he is, after all, a freshman, and for that reason Sneed is cautious.

“Point guard is the hardest position for a player to learn when he comes into a program,” Sneed said.

Despite a clear difference in talent, Vaughn for now has the edge in experience. He averaged 9 minutes and 2 points a game last season as the backup to Eugune Jackson, starting 2 games when Jackson was injured. And he knows the system. But his career high is 14 points, and that is the only time he has scored 10 or more.

SHOOTING GUARD

Mark Hill, a 6-3 community college transfer, has a lock on this job.

For now, Sneed cautioned.

“Nobody wins a job for the entire season,” he said.

Hill would be a pretty good bet. He can shoot from 3-point range, and more important, has the ability to drive.

Randal Moos, a 3-point specialist last season, will back him up. Moos, a senior, isn’t able to drive much or shoot on the move, so his role could be limited. But as a pure 3-point shooter, he may remain the player Fullerton sends in to fire it up late in the game.

FORWARDS

Here, clearly, is Fullerton’s strength. Ceballos will be expected to carry the scoring load, and he’s well aware of what’s expected.

“All he’s read about is how he’ll have to do it all,” Sneed said.

In Fullerton’s 2 exhibition games, Ceballos--who might remind some people of former Titan Henry Turner--showed exceptional open-court play for a 6-7 player, plus an ability to hit the 3-pointer.

But he also showed a tendency to force shots out of the half-court offense, and made only 12 of 28 shots in a 29-point performance in the Titans’ exhibition loss to the Czechoslovakian National Team.

“Any time you have a big scorer like that, he’s going to take some shots you don’t like. But you have to let them do it,” Sneed said. “Henry Turner took a lot of shots, some of them bad. So did Leon Wood. If they’re your scorer, you have to let them shoot.”

The other forward is Jones, whose mere presence is laudable. He will be the other main cog in the offense, and has showed an outside shooting touch despite never having recovered feeling or full movement in the ring finger and pinkie of his shooting hand.

The backups will be senior Benson Williams and Rashone Lewis. Williams, a good shooter despite limited mobility, spurred the Titans with a couple of off-the-bench performances late last season. But the knee injury makes him a severe defensive liability, and he can only be used in certain situations. Still, he scored 27 points and had 12 rebounds in the intrasquad scrimmage.

Lewis, a 6-5 sophomore, was ineligible under Proposition 48 last season. He is still trying to catch up after the idle year, and has not shown much ability as a scoring threat.

Brent Calvin, a senior, is bothered by a recurring knee injury and has not been practicing.

CENTER

John Sykes, a junior who started the first game last season and then started only 1 more the entire season, will get a second chance. His relationship with McQuarn was sometimes strained after McQuarn was quoted as saying that Fullerton had made a recruiting “mistake” on Sykes.

But for now, Sykes appears to be the starting center, whose central task is to rebound, score off the boards and block shots.

“I don’t like to call people garbage players, but basically that’s going to be John’s role,” Sneed said.

Sykes had 13 rebounds against the Czechs, but only 2 points, a basket off an offensive rebound.

“We’d like him to learn to concentrate a little bit more on offense,” Sneed said.

David Moody, a junior who redshirted last year, is the likely backup.