Brandenburg Shuffles, SDSU Draws a Victory

Jim Brandenburg, still attempting to find a satisfactory lineup for his 1989-90 San Diego State men’s basketball team, wasted no time looking over his personnel Thursday night as the Aztecs opened their season with an exhibition game against DAS Delft, a national team from Holland.

By halftime of an eventual 52-42 victory at SDSU’s Peterson Gym, Brandenburg had played 11 of 12 players on his roster.

And the way DAS Delft performed most of the game, Brandenburg probably could have called a few students out of the bleachers and still come away with a victory. DAS Delft (1-7) went 9:50 without scoring in the second half after taking its only lead of the game, 31-30, with 14:30 remaining.

SDSU’s starting lineup consisted of Michael Best (6-feet-4) and Rodney Jones (6-1) at the guards, Neal Steinly (6-11) at center and Vern Thompson (6-6) and Shawn Jamison (6-8) at the forwards.

Best, Jones and Steinly are three of just five players returning from last year’s team.

But it will be a while, Brandenburg said, before he finds some combinations he likes.

“At least a couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s easy for me to say these guys are going to start, but there has to be some rationale from the coach’s standpoint and from the players’ standpoint.”

Three community college transfers led SDSU in scoring. Jamison (Pratt, Kan., Community College), Marty Dow (Northeastern Oklahoma A&M;) and guard Arthur Massey (Alvin, Tex., Community College) had nine points apiece. Jamison also had a team-high 11 rebounds.

Best, who averaged 12.5 points a game last season but is coming back from surgery to remove two screws from a knee, had nine rebounds but was zero for eight from the field and finished with just one point.

SDSU shot just 38% from the field. DAS Delft was even worse--35%.

“I could sit here and be negative or super positive, because I saw both ends of it,” Brandenburg said.

Brandenburg also said that Terrence Hamilton, a 6-foot-6 forward from Patrick Henry High School, will red-shirt this season.