HOLDING PATTERN : Ceballos’ Slam-Jam Act Runs Into Heavy Traffic

Cedric Ceballos arrived at Cal State Fullerton this season after a recruiting battle that began more than 3 years ago and finally ended May 12, 1988, at 7:55 p.m., when he signed a letter of intent just 3 days before the deadline.

By the time Ceballos began playing for the Titans, Sports Illustrated had called him one of the country’s top five players coming out of community college.

He left Ventura College for a Fullerton team that needed him badly, and in the first seven games, he played as well or better than Coach John Sneed could have hoped.

The junior forward scored 18 points against Utah in his first Division I game and had 29 against Pepperdine. Against San Diego, he scored 18. Then came 29 against Sonoma State, 26 against Portland, 23 against Northeastern and 32 against Weber State.

Then came the comedown.

Against New Orleans, he made just 1 of 12 shots, finishing with 2 points. The next day, Ceballos blamed his performance against New Orleans in part on dissension on the team about his shot selection, saying that talk among teammates had upset him so much that he was off his game.

But although Ceballos has said the dissent has dissipated, he has yet to get back on his game. In the past four games--with opponents keying more on him, using matchup zones, extended zones and generally keeping a wary eye on him--Ceballos has continued to struggle. So, too, have the Titans, who have lost five consecutive games and face UC Santa Barbara and Nevada Las Vegas next.

Sneed says unrealistic expectations were created by Ceballos’ performance in his first seven games and points to the zone defenses he has faced and the attention opponents have paid him recently. Ceballos, an earnest and quiet young man who turned 19 in August, points only to himself.

But there isn’t anyone, least of all Sneed or Ceballos, who expects him to score 10 points a game for long.

To watch Ceballos play when he is at his best is to be drawn into a contest in your mind.

Which drive, which dunk was the best, the most creative? Which touch off the glass was the finest and softest, which jam the most explosive?

There was the dunk against Pepperdine, just before the half, a 360-degree reverse off a feed from Wayne Williams.

“That’s the dunk I truly remember,” said Donny Daniels, the Cal State Fullerton assistant coach.

It was a move that set the crowd celebrating, but to Chris Ceballos, Cedric’s older brother, who was watching the game in Titan Gym, it was not so special.

“Typical,” said Chris, who played at Fullerton for 2 seasons before transferring to UC Riverside. “I’ve seen him do nicer ones than that.”

Such as the one against Sonoma State, early in the second half, when Ceballos made a steal and, with a defender hanging on him, dunked and drew the foul. That dunk now tops the personal list of Fullerton sports information director Mel Franks, who had previously accorded the No. 1 slot to former Titan slam master Henry Turner.

“The best one I had seen before was Henry Turner over (Nevada Las Vegas’) Armon Gilliam,” Franks said. “This one was from off to the side, several feet away, and it was faster. It was, ‘Yeah, I know you’re there, and I’m going to dunk it anyway.’ ”

And there were others, plenty of others, their dramatic effect magnified by Ceballos’s build--6 feet, 7 inches, 190 pounds, and two of the longer, thinner arms you’ll see.

Against Sonoma State, he had five dunks. Against Northeastern, he had five in the first half, six in the game.

“With dunking . . . I guess I try to catch people off guard and do something you wouldn’t normally see,” Ceballos said. “Like, say, if it calls for a layup, I dunk it, and if it calls for a dunk, I might lay it up. . . .

“I just try to make up something in a difficult position so that people will say, ‘Man, how did he dunk that one, when his body was so awkward?’ ”

For Fullerton, signing Ceballos was a coup. To recruit him, Fullerton had to go head-to-head against UCLA, Loyola Marymount, Seton Hall and Cal State Long Beach.

Seton Hall lost out because it was far from Los Angeles. UCLA fell out of the picture because of academics and the firing of Walt Hazzard. Ceballos said he put off Loyola Marymount because the school showed interest in him late in the process, making him think he was not a top priority.

At the very end, it was down to Long Beach and Fullerton. But after the Long Beach assistant who had been recruiting him left the school, Ceballos says he lost his trust in the program.

Finally, and mercifully for Daniels, the Fullerton assistant who recruited him most closely, Ceballos signed with the Titans, nearly a month after the spring signing period began.

“It went on and on,” Daniels said. “It was a situation where we thought we had a very good chance at signing him, but the fact that he prolonged it made it more agonizing. Was he looking for another school? Would someone else come in? Would we get tired and fall off him?

“That was the tough part. You don’t know what’s on his mind. You hear things, rumors. And you know you may lose him.”

Fullerton had several things in its favor.

When Ceballos was a senior at Dominguez High School, Fullerton showed more interest in him than any other school. He had been something of a late bloomer, standing only 5-8 in 10th grade, but spurting to 6-4 before his junior year.

Dominguez Coach Ernie Carr, who is coaching at Saddleback College this year, chose to keep Ceballos on the junior varsity in 11th grade, figuring he’d play more there than on a talented varsity team that included Rod Palmer, now at UC Irvine.

During his senior season, Ceballos was a sixth man on a team that included Marlon Vaughn, now a Fullerton teammate. He did not start until late in the season, when Ronnie Coleman, now of USC, broke his wrist.

Entering college, Ceballos would have been ineligible under Proposition 48 his freshman season and Fullerton advised him to go to a community college. When it came time to choose a school 2 years later, he remembered Fullerton’s interest.

“Cedric is a pretty loyal kid,” Carr said.

Also working to Fullerton’s advantage was the fact that Ceballos’ coach at Ventura College, Phil Mathews, was once a Fullerton assistant under former coach George McQuarn.

But potentially working against the Titans was Chris Ceballos’ experience as a player under McQuarn at Fullerton. Chris spent 2 seasons (1985-87) at Fullerton but grew unhappy with his playing time and transferred.

Chris discussed this unhappiness with his brother.

“I was biased,” Chris said. “When I was here, I wasn’t playing . . ., but I knew we were two different players. . . . (Cedric) could get drafted from here, maybe be better, be a star, not like at Seton Hall or Arizona.”

Ceballos committed to Fullerton the last week in April. But there were 2 more weeks of uneasiness before he signed, finally picking Fullerton over Long Beach.

“I hated to lose Cedric,” Long Beach Coach Joe Harrington said. “The first summer I was here (1987), I went out and watched him at the summer league at Morningside High, and he was just outstanding. I came back and said, ‘We’ve got to recruit this young man.’ . . . I keep thinking, if he were only on this year’s team.”

From his final list of five schools, Ceballos chose the one with perhaps the least impressive immediate prospects. But if there are those who will second-guess his decision, Ceballos has an answer.

“A school doesn’t make the player,” he said. “In that sense, I’ve put myself on a mission. You don’t have to be at a big-time school to be a big-time player. . . . Those polls and magazines that doubt (me), that don’t think I’m a player or I shouldn’t be here--I should be and that’s why I am here. I’m on a mission to prove something to them, too.”

His immediate mission, however, is to prove that his own--and the Titans’--fast start was legitimate.

In the face of defenses that concentrate on checking him, it won’t be easy.

“Right now, he’s one of the finer juniors on the West Coast,” Daniels said. “But he’s got a ways to go to be a truly great player.”

Ceballos said he knows that.

“I have ways to go. People say I’m there. But I still have a long ways.”