COLLEGE NOTES : Gonzaga Knows How to Play Loyola but Isn’t Physical Enough to Do It

It’s not hard to get veteran Gonzaga basketball Coach Dan Fitzgerald to praise Loyola Marymount.

He came to bury them, but even before the game last weekend he doubted that his struggling team could stay with the highly ranked Lions. Loyola won handily, 144-100, thanks to an 85-point second half.

Last year, Fitzgerald’s team lost to Loyola three times, though the Bulldogs were more competitive then. “I think we know how to play Loyola Marymount. I think we have a concept, but I don’t know if we have enough physical strength.”

Gonzaga gets another shot at the Lions in Spokane on Saturday. The only other ranked team on the Gonzaga schedule, Oregon State, beat the Bulldogs there in December before falling to Loyola the next week.

Fitzgerald says the Lions may be the best team in the West Coast Conference in several years. “They’re pretty good,” he said. “With the right draw, they’re capable of winning a couple of games (in the NCAA Tournament), maybe making the final 16. Their leadership is good. They’re senior-oriented. Their chemistry is really good. You don’t like to see anybody get hurt, but I think Hank (Gathers) going down (he fainted in a game in early December) and them continuing to win helped their confidence.”

Fitzgerald, who doubles as Gonzaga’s athletic director and is in his eighth year as coach, feels Loyola is susceptible to a powerful front line--the Lions’ last loss was administered by Xavier and its 6-10 stars Tyrone Hills and Derek Strong--but Fitzgerald likes the look of the Lions and is a bit envious of their athletic ability. In Spokane, Fitzgerald rarely gets pro prospects--even John Stockton was a lightly regarded recruit--and generally has to build his team around one or two good players.

He especially likes the play of Bo Kimble, who is healthy for the first time in his three seasons at Loyola and is leading the nation in scoring. Coming off arthroscopic surgery last year, Kimble still had a 40-point game against Gonzaga in Los Angeles.

“Many people have felt all along Bo was their best player,” Fitzgerald said. “Now all of a sudden he is their best player. You’re seeing Bo at a stretch where he’s healthy. He’s playing harder. NBA contracts do amazing things for the soul.”

If any WCC team is going to make noise in the NCAAs, Fitzgerald cautions that it better be Loyola this year. There are no young players in the WCC who show the dominant form of Kimble and Hank Gathers and no blue-chip recruits in the wings.

“You just don’t get transfers like Gathers and Kimble. That’s once in a lifetime,” Fitzgerald said. “You don’t get two (NBA) first-round picks normally. (Loyola) will be decent again next year. But they’ll be back breathing the same air as the rest of us.”

The Ratings Game: When nearly every top-ranked basketball team in the nation got beaten over the weekend, Loyola Marymount figured to go up in the national ratings. But a six-game winning streak, a scoring average of 120.2 points and two victories last weekend by an average score of 137.5-103 apparently failed to sway voters, who dropped the Lions one or two spots in every major poll. They fell from 21st to 22nd in the Associated Press poll and to 23rd in USA Today-CNN--which are selected by the media--and dropped out of the United Press International Top 20, a poll of coaches.

Among the incongruities is that Oregon State and LaSalle rose several spots. Loyola has beaten both of them on their courts.

Among the perplexed is Gonzaga’s Fitzgerald, who said after losing by 44 points to the Lions last week: “The thing I don’t understand is how Loyola can beat Oregon State and LaSalle and still be ranked behind them. But that’s something for you guys in the press who vote on it to figure out.”

Apparently the coaches don’t quite have the handle, either. Oregon State is rated 16th and LaSalle 18th in the UPI poll.

Kathy Goggin, who played basketball at Cal State Dominguez Hills in 1985-89, this week was named the female recipient of the NCAA Division II Woody Hayes Scholar Athlete Award announced at Ohio State. Goggin was one of two unanimous choices for the awards, which are given to a male and female in each of the three NCAA divisions.

Goggin and her parents will be in Columbus for the awards presentation today. Goggin, a Long Beach native, played center for four seasons. Off the court she compiled a 3.88 grade-point average at Dominguez Hills, winning Academic All-American honors three times. She was a finalist for the Walter Byers NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship. “It’s nice to finally bring one home,” she said.

Goggin is doing doctoral work in psychology in a joint program at UC San Diego and San Diego State. She joins 1987 Dominguez Hills graduate John Nojima in winning the scholar-athlete award.

Toro Roster News: Sophomore basketball guard Michael Bell, who started seven games, quit the Dominguez Hills team before last weekend’s games, citing personal reasons. Senior swingman Kevin Shaw, who has missed several games with a bruised kidney, has received medical clearance to rejoin the team. And it appears that Vico Nomaaea will not rejoin the team. The one-time Toro shooting guard, who returned to the Southland last fall after a two-year Mormon mission in Samoa, has moved back to Samoa.

Stat of the Week: The Loyola Marymount men’s basketball team shot 59% in each victory last weekend, making a combined 109 of 185 shots against Gonzaga and Portland. In four games in the West Coast Conference, the Lions are shooting 56% and averaging 126.8 points.

College Notes:

The Cal State Dominguez Hills-Bakersfield men’s basketball game tonight will be televised live on Paragon Cable at 7:30 . . . Junior guard Robert Barksdale was named basketball Player of the Week in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. Barksdale is averaging 22.8 points in four CCAA games to lead the conference . . . Guards have led Dominguez Hills in scoring in 16 of its 17 games. Barksdale has been the leading scorer 12 times and freshman Raymond Bennett four times. The lone front-court leader was Brian Johnson, who scored 15 in the third game of the season against LaVerne . . . The Loyola women’s basketball team returns to Gersten Pavilion with a chance to get back in the West Coast Conference race. The Lions, 9-9 overall and 2-2 in conference, play Portland tonight and Gonzaga on Saturday. Both start at 7:30 . . . The Loyola volleyball team, 0-2, will play in the Collegiate Tournament at UC Santa Barbara today and Saturday . . . Freshman guard Kathy Adelman of the University of Portland was named West Coast Conference Co-Player of the Week in women’s basketball. She’s the daughter of Portland Trail Blazer Coach Rick Adelman, the former Loyola star . . . Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble and Miah Bradbury of Loyola Marymount taped anti-drug commercials over the weekend for the NCAA, which will televise them during tournament games. “I’m excited,” Gathers said. “I always wanted to do something like that.”