‘I Did My Best, and I Had Fun’ : Basketball: San Diego State’s Julie Evans is about to finish a career that put her in the top 10 in all-time women’s scoring for both the Aztecs and the University of San Diego.

Julie Evans was sitting in an athletic department office at San Diego State when Chuck Clegg, the Aztec soccer coach, stuck his head in the door.

“You guys done?” Clegg asked.

“Two more,” Evans said.

Wait a minute.

Isn’t the SDSU women’s basketball team Evans plays for competing in the Big West tournament starting today at the Long Beach Arena? Don’t the Aztecs have to win three games just to reach the final?

Kind of a defeatist attitude, isn’t it?

Well, if anything, Evans is a realist.

She figures the Aztecs have a good chance against first-round opponent San Jose State today at 3 p.m. They have beaten the Spartans (4-23) twice this season. But if SDSU wins, it will then have to play conference champion Nevada Las Vegas, which defeated SDSU by an average of 35 points in two games.

But Evans, one of the smoothest shooting guards to play for SDSU and in the Big West, is anything but a defeatist. Not when it would have been so easy for her to quit after her junior year. There were a number of reasons to do so. Good ones, too.

She suffered a severe ankle injury midway through last season and subsequently had surgery in April. Academics weren’t a problem, so Evans could easily have completed her graduation requirements by the end of her junior year. Then there was the prospect of learning new ways from a new coach--her third in the last four years of a college career that began at the University of San Diego.

Maybe the biggest incentive to quit--though not many players would say it out loud--would have been leaving the game as part of a winning team. The Aztecs were 25-9 last season, the best record in school history, and finished second in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.

It didn’t take much to figure that this year would be the antithesis of the last. Only five players returned. And no coaches.

Besides Evans, only point guard Crystal Lee and backup guard Dee Dee Davis averaged more than 15 minutes of playing time in 1988-89. Beth Burns, who replaced fired Earnest Riggins as coach, had almost no time to recruit.

Sounds as if it would have been a good time to call it a career.

“And I thought about it,” Evans said. “I guess I figured I worked really hard to get where I am. I would have regretted it. I know that. Now, I can walk away and say, ‘I did my best, and I had fun.’ ”

Despite the Aztecs suffering through a 7-22 season--the worst since 1976-77--Evans has been a winner on and off the court. For example, nine of the 10 Big West coaches (one abstained) named Evans as the league’s “purest shooter.”

Her biggest achievement off the court also is her most important.

Evans is a paradox in a time when college basketball seems to do nothing by degrees. Through all the decisions and changes, she managed to keep pace with her studies and could have completed the requirements for her bachelors degree in education by the end of her junior year. As it was, Evans spread the classes out and finished in December.

But while the past five years might have been fun, they certainly weren’t easy.

Evans faced a wide range of choices when she graduated from Hilltop High School in Chula Vista. She was selected all-league eight times in three sports and had scholarship offers to play softball, volleyball and basketball.

Although she got the most attention from softball and volleyball coaches, Evans decided early on that it was going to be basketball at USD.

“Basketball was the most challenging athletically,” Evans said. “You always had to find another way to beat your opponent. I just saw it as the biggest challenge.”

It was perhaps a little too big to try to play at a top school. So, Evans chose USD.

“I liked the school, and it was close to home,” Evans said. “I wasn’t ready to step into a top 10 program. I figured along with my growing, the program would grow too.”

But Evans found her game growing faster than USD’s, at least in her mind.

And despite leading the team in scoring her first two seasons, being named first-team All-West Coast Conference twice and playing nearly 40 minutes a game, Evans decided that she needed a bigger challenge.

“I was miserable my sophomore year,” Evans said. “But I needed that experience. I didn’t see a choice but to leave.”

Evans contacted Riggins and decided to transfer to San Diego State. There, she faced the challenge of not playing. The toughest thing about red-shirting is running all the miles, suffering all the bruises and persevering through all the monotonous practices knowing that you will not get into games.

“It was hard because I practiced every day, and I felt I would have been starting,” Evans said. “It was a learning experience.”

Evans was finally able to get on the court when it counted last season. And she made the time count. Evans averaged 18.5 points a game for the Aztecs until she injured the ankle in December 1988. She missed a week and played the rest of the season hurt, finishing with a 14.5 average.

She had surgery on the ankle in April and did not practice again until September. Still, Evans is averaging 22.1 points per game, the only Aztec in double figures.

The “purest shooter” label has shown in her free throw shooting--she is sixth in the country at 88.2% (82 of 93). Her 654 points this season rank her fourth on the Aztec single-season list and ninth all-time in the Big West. She has scored 1,090 points in two years and is ninth on the Aztecs’ career list, only 18 points behind Dee Dee Duncan (1983-86) and 47 behind Marsha Overton (1980-83).

Evans will finish her career as one of the few players to finish among the top 10 career scoring leaders at two schools. Her 743 points at USD are 10th on the Toreras’ list.

A lot of points. A lot of decisions. And a lot of tears.

“Five years is a long time,” Evans said. “It’s time to move on.

“I’m glad I stuck it out. There were a lot of times I’d go home in tears. You know, everybody’s wrong but me. I look back, and I’m not sure how I made it. I think I learned a lot. And I grew up a lot.”