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USIU Wins Attention, Now It Needs to Win Games

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You saw the numbers screaming out from the headline.

181-150.

What was this? Gymnastics? Bowling? Area codes? What?

College basketball? Ah, yes.

United States International University was at it again. A misprint in the media guide says these guys are officially nicknamed the Soaring Gulls. In reality, they are the Scoring Gulls.

However, regardless of how prolific they be on offense, they are the Gullibles when it comes to defense.

No collegiate team in history has scored 150 points and lost by 31. In fact, no collegiate team in history has scored 150 points and lost, period.

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USIU basketball is a flailing boxer who had better KO his opponent in 15 seconds, because he’s going to be on the canvas in 20.

USIU basketball is a golfer who hits everything 300 yards, including putts.

USIU basketball is a football game in which neither team sets up a play from scrimmage because neither team can stop the other’s kickoff returns.

Put USIU and Loyola Marymount on the same court, and the guy operating the 45-second clock has to be capable of typing 100 words a minute. When they met Tuesday night at Loyola, these teams averaged a point for every 7.25 seconds.

This was basic 4-on-1 basketball. The only reason either team had to keep a guy back on defense was to take the ball out after a basket and fire it to the other end of the court. There was a field goal attempted every 10.9 seconds.

When these guys were youngsters, they never played H-O-R-S-E in the driveway. They played P-A-L-O-M-I-N-O or A-P-P-A-L-O-O-S-A.

This is Rambo basketball. Squeeze the trigger at the opening tip and release it a couple of hours later.

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It’s shoot it, baby. They should use CPAs as official scorers.

USIU’s emphasis on offense is so dominant I expect it barely notices the number under the other team’s name on the scoreboard.

Ask a Scoring Gull how he did Tuesday night and I suspect he’d answer: “One-fifty.”

Indeed, USIU is becoming synonymous with scoring. Others in the same category are Loyola, Oklahoma and UNLV. The difference is that the others are also synonymous with winning . . . and success.

At this point, USIU is settling for exposure far beyond that of an 8-14 team that is No. 3 in its own community.

Every newspaper in the country will run stories on a game in which 331 points were scored. The papers will relate how records were set for combined points, combined points in a half, most points, most points in a half and, USIU’s niche, most points by a losing team.

The coach, Gary Zarecky, has mixed emotions about this notoriety.

“The phones have been ringing since 6 a.m.,” he said Wednesday. “Magazines. Newspapers. Television. People in the community. Coaches. Recruits. You name it. But I’m a little baffled. I’m upset that we lost the game. We went in there to win.”

Zarecky is particularly nettled by those who would choose to criticize offensive basketball, because offensive basketball has been his baby for all of his years in the game.

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“I’m always having to defend myself against purist attacks,” he said, “but I don’t mind. I think they’re wrong, and I’m right. Basketball is developing into an up-tempo game. I’m tired of people saying defense wins games. You’ve still got to put the ball in the hoop. And a lot of so-called ‘defensive’ coaches have poor offenses, so they hold the ball.”

Zarecky remains insistent that his way of doing things will translate into success for USIU.

“I’ve had a number of recruits tell me we’ve jumped to the top of their lists because of the publicity we’ve been getting and the type of game we play,” he said. “That’s one area that’s stood out as an asset.”

But what of community support? What of those crowds of 400 and 500 at Golden Hall?

“Hey,” he said, “we were drawing an average of 25 people a game our first year. We’re getting it going. San Diego’s basketball fans aren’t purists. They want to be entertained.”

So that’s the game plan.

Who would be paying any attention if Tuesday night’s game had been an 81-50 Loyola victory? That’s right. No one.

And so it is that USIU forsakes the notion that you must walk before you can run. Take it from Zarecky. You’ve got to run before you can walk, at least before you can walk tall.

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And USIU is certainly adventurous in terms of where it dares tread. For example, it went to the Carrier Dome in Syracuse this year and lost, 135-93, before a crowd of 24,817. Its 1989-90 schedule includes a visit to Oklahoma that could well blow every fuse in the state.

Teams such as Syracuse and Oklahoma will schedule USIU because a) they can assume they will win and b) USIU has made itself a marketable if not competitive opponent. Try “selling” an obscure opponent noted for defensive prowess.

“We’ve been taking on the establishment and gaining respectability,” Zarecky said, “but we can’t keep on being the Washington Generals playing the Harlem Globetrotters.”

Obviously, winning is the next step.

Gary Zarecky is looking forward to the day when USIU scores 150 points and no one says: “Yeah, but did you win?”

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