The Colleges : Vacation Comes at Right Time for CSUN

Cal State Northridge gets 11 days off between its most recent basketball game--Dec. 17 at San Francisco State--and its next--at home against Cal State Sacramento on Dec. 28.

It is time to rest a little during the holidays and refine a lot at practice. But mostly it will be a time to heal for 2 key players.

Center Todd Bowser, who is averaging 16.3 points and 7.1 rebounds a game, is hobbling on an inflamed left ankle. Point guard Darren Matsubara has a sore left knee and a strained tendon in his right wrist. Both players missed practices this week.

Bowser says he cannot remember how his ankle was injured, only that it has been stiff since the team’s trip to the Bay Area a week ago. Matsubara, who is averaging 13.3 points and 6.1 assists, has been playing with knee pain all season. The wrist injury was sustained near the end of last Friday’s game at Cal State Hayward when he landed awkwardly trying to break his fall after taking a charge.

Matsubara scored 22 points and had 6 assists against Hayward in leading CSUN to an impressive 89-79 win. The following night, against San Francisco, he scored 8 points, committed 6 turnovers and had only 3 assists.

“You have to dribble, pass and shoot and tonight I felt like I was running on only 2 of those cylinders,” Matsubara said after the Matadors’ 72-70 loss to the Golden Gators. “I wasn’t the same player. I tried to be, but I wasn’t. My range of motion was really limited.

“I learned something tonight. If I’m hurt, I shouldn’t be out there.”

Mustangs riding high: Mel Hankinson, basketball coach at The Master’s College, is pleased with his young team’s performance this season despite the Mustangs’ 4-7 record.

“We think the program has come much faster than anticipated,” said Hankinson, who spent last season recruiting and is now courtside for Master’s. “Instead of three to five years, we’d like to have this program in high gear by the end of January.”

Master’s gets one of its toughest tests tonight when the Mustangs play host to Cal State Hayward, a team that has qualified for the Division II playoffs 4 years in a row.

Time bomb: Occidental will not soon forget its trip to Menlo for a basketball game last Monday.

The Tigers were leading, 77-70, with 31 seconds remaining when Menlo called a timeout.

When both teams returned, Tiger Coach Brian Newhall asked assistant Jim Kerman to keep an eye on the clock.

Menlo inbounded the ball at its baseline, the point guard dribbled across the half-court stripe, over the 3-point line, pulled up and buried an 18-foot jump shot. The clock didn’t budge.

Kerman, however, did. He leaped up, sprinted to the scorer’s table and screamed, “Start the clock! Hey, ref, this guy’s cheating us on the clock!”

The timekeeper calmly tapped the clock button and turned to Kerman.

“Relax, coach,” he said. “Just relax.” That left Kerman fuming. And even though Occidental won, 79-75, Kerman was still upset.

“I was feeling sick,” he said. “I don’t want to accuse him of cheating, but at a crucial moment in the game he’s got to know how to run the clock.”

Eight is great: Walt Ker, the Northridge women’s volleyball coach who has guided his teams to 10 consecutive NCAA tournaments, was pleased with the new playoff format that brought 8 teams rather than 4 to the Division II championship tournament in Fargo, N.D.

“I was one of the advocates who pushed for it,” said Ker, whose team finished second. “It allows for a lot better geographic representation.”

Ker said the format saves money for the NCAA, which pays teams’ air fare during the postseason.

“There’s less travel involved,” Ker said, “The NCAA flies more teams to nationals but it costs less than sending more teams all over to compete in regionals.”

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, Gary Klein and Sam Farmer contributed to this notebook.