4 Basketball Players Quit CSUN Team

The score doesn’t add up for the Cal State Northridge basketball team.

Only two seniors on scholarship completed their eligibility last season, yet a recruiting class of 10--six junior college transfers and four incoming freshmen--have signed NCAA letters of intent to play basketball at CSUN next season.

If all underclassmen returned, that would leave Coach Pete Cassidy with 21 players from which to choose.

But that number is only 17. And, perhaps, dropping.

Kendell McDaniels and Bill Mazurie, two of CSUN’s top four scorers last season, have left the team along with reserves Shanan Rosenberg and Sandy Brown, Cassidy confirmed Wednesday.

Cassidy said that all four players were still attending classes at Northridge and were in good academic standing.

Asked why they were leaving, CSUN’s coach of 19 years said, “It was probably a mutual decision. The decision, I think, was in their best interests.”

Mazurie, Brown and Rosenberg could not be reached for comment. McDaniels did not return phone calls to his home.

Cassidy said that Northridge has released all four players from their scholarships, enabling them to transfer to an NCAA Division II or Division III school and retain athletic eligibility without having to sit out a season.

A sophomore last season, McDaniels was the only Matador starter to make more than half of his field-goal attempts. The 6-foot-4, 210-pound center-forward was second on the team with averages of 11 points and 6.4 rebounds a game.

Mazurie, a 6-2, 175-pound freshman guard, averaged 7.3 points and led all CSUN freshmen by playing an average of 17 minutes. He scored a season-high 17 points in the Matadors’ first California Collegiate Athletic Assn. game, a 90-78 upset of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Rosenberg, a 6-8, 235-pound freshman center, redshirted last season after being declared academically ineligible. Brown, a sophomore last season, averaged 5.3 points in 11 minutes of action. The 6-6 swingman averaged 5.1 points as a freshman.

McDaniels originally signed with St. Mary’s of the Division I West Coast Conference out of Chatsworth High. He transferred to CSUN when the Gaels made a coaching change.

Shortly after enrolling at Northridge, he sustained a career-threatening knee injury, but he returned in the 1988-89 season to average 5.1 points and 3.8 rebounds.

Mazurie was recruited out of Capistrano Valley High, where he averaged 18 points and six assists.

The maximum number of scholarship players on a Division 1 team is 15. Northridge had 13 players on its roster last season.

Cassidy hinted that there might be more players to drop from the team before next season, CSUN’s first at the Division I level.

Northridge’s recruiting class is its largest in history.

Of CSUN’s top five scorers last season, only starting guard Jemarl Baker is expected to return.

Baker, 6-2, 165 pounds, averaged 9.1 points as a junior last season and was third on the team with 60 assists.

Eugene Humphrey, a 6-0 point guard, is the only starter expected to return. He averaged 6.9 points and had a team-high 73 assists as a junior last season.