Toros Basketball Coach Says Team Will Challenge for Championship Next Year

Dave Yanai is slumped into his chair, a tie loosened around his neck.

“We just didn’t have enough time with this bunch,” the veteran basketball coach at Cal State Dominguez Hills said. “If we had another round, I think we would have come out fine.”

Yanai, speaking in his office last Saturday night following his team’s 68-62 loss to UC Riverside, was referring to his freshman-laden basketball team. A victory over Riverside would have advanced the Toros to postseason play in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament, which begins Friday at Cal State Bakersfield.

“Next year,” Yanai said, “I would think we will be the team challenging for the CCAA championship.”

A glance at the season’s statistics and an informal survey of CCAA coaches back Yanai’s claim.

Although Dominguez Hills finished 10-17, the second-worst record in the school’s history, the team was not an easy mark in defeat. In 19 of their games, the Toros either led or were tied at halftime. Eight losses were by seven points or less.

In CCAA play, the Toros finished 6-8 and in sixth place, but the team was just a game out of fourth. In only two games did the Toros trail by more than 10 points with five minutes remaining to be played.

Said Riverside Coach John Masi, a veteran of 12 CCAA seasons: “No doubt about it, next year Dominguez Hills will be one of the best teams in the conference.”

Bob Douglass, coach of CCAA champion Cal State Bakersfield, agreed with Masi.

“(Next year) I see the race belonging to Dominguez Hills and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.”

A pair of off-guard transfers to Dominguez Hills from Division I programs have conference coaches buzzing. Keith Billingslea, a 6-foot-2 senior who led Northern Arizona in scoring before he quit the team in January, is expected to bring instant credibility to the Toro program when he becomes eligible in December. He also played as a freshman at Fresno State and in community college at Harbor College.

The other transfer, 6-foot-4 former Cal State Long Beach starter Brian Jones, provides the Toros with “a lot of options,” Yanai said. Jones, who will be a junior, could play the swingman role along with returning starter Segaro Bozart, a 6-foot-4 sophomore who led the team in rebounding.

“Those two guys (Billingslea and Jones) will add a lot to their team,” said Masi. “In fact, I’ve got to get busy and find some guys like them for my program, or next year we’ll be in the situation they were in this season.”

Dominguez Hills will return six players who had at least nine starts, including the team’s leading scorer, guard Robert Barksdale (17.5 points per game). Barksdale, who scored a career-high 33 points in the conference opener at Cal Poly Pomona (two shy of the school record), had his season cut short by the flu in the third week of the CCAA season. He never fully recovered and started only two of his last eight games.

Also back will be four freshmen: the “Carson Kids” of guard Raymond Bennett (12.4 points per game) and post Vincent Washington (11.6), guard Shelton Hill (who had two starts) and forward Norman Francis (nine starts).

Before the transfers of Billingslea and Jones, it appeared that Yanai would take what he considered to be a rather distasteful quick fix by recruiting a point guard from a community college to shore up what was, early in the year, very poor leadership on the floor.

But the emergence of Bennett as the team’s leader when Barksdale became ill may have changed all that. It appears that what the Toros need most is a good post player to spell starting center Joseph Janney. A 6-foot-7 native of Ghana, Janney was an imposing figure in the middle defensively, but his offensive game was anemic and his hand-eye coordination needed a lot of work. He and Bozart led the team in the ratio of minutes played and highest number of turnovers committed. As a senior, Janney will be playing only his fourth year of organized basketball. The kind of off-season program he works into may tell whether he can hold his starting job.

Yanai, who is expected to win his 200th game next season in his 14th college season (he has 196 now), laughed about some of the predictions from his fellow coaches.

“It’s nice they all want to put the pressure on someone else,” he said.

A glint came to his eye.

“(This year) no one thought we’d be able to compete with these guys anyway.”

The Toros will be better next season, he assured.