COLLEGE NOTES : Loyola’s Fast Break Could Be Even Faster This Season

This year’s Loyola Marymount basketball team could be even faster than last season’s, but that premise might depend on the health of the fast break’s linchpin, Tony Walker.

The Lions’ speedy point guard played his entire junior season with a damaged right wrist--his shooting hand--and had surgery in May. This week the pins were removed and Walker began rehabilitation, but he won’t be allowed to shoot for a while and has not played in several months.

Walker can scoot with the fastest guards in the country--Coach Paul Westhead couples him with Corey Gaines as possibly the swiftest guards he has ever coached--and led the West Coast Conference in assists with 7.1 per game.

Opposing coaches often say that the key to defending against Westhead’s offense is slowing the point guard. Few teams were successful last season, as the Lions set an NCAA scoring record by averaging 122.4 points per game.

If Walker is healthy, he will team with junior Terrell Lowery and swingman Tom Peabody in the backcourt. Westhead has also recruited five guards/swingmen.

Walker has spent an antsy summer going to classes and working out. “I’m running the (Manhattan Beach sand) dune and lifting weights with the left hand,” Walker said. “I should be ready for practice but it seems to be slow healing.”

Walker broke a navicular bone in his wrist as a sophomore at Ventura College and the injury never healed properly. The surgery after his junior season was performed by Dr. Norman Zemel of the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic. (Zemel declined to offer a prognosis.)

Walker had the wrist taped before games last season and played with discomfort that limited his shooting. Although he hit 54% from the field, he attempted less than four shots a game and most of those attempts came off drives to the basket. He rarely attempted jump shots, but the tip-off on his shooting problems was his 59.5% accuracy on free throws.

Walker said if his wrist heals, Loyola fans will see more offense from him.

“There was a lot (of pain) but I didn’t make no excuses,” Walker said. “It hurt plenty of times in practice, but once I got in games, you get the adrenaline going and it’s OK. Then it really hurt after. That’s why I didn’t shoot jumpers--it hurt so much to release, I basically didn’t shoot all year.

“I can shoot. People basically haven’t seen (my jump shot).”

One of the reasons Loyola will be a guard-oriented team is because Per Stumer has signed with a pro team in his native Sweden. Stumer, a husky 6-foot-7 veteran of international play, had a year of eligibility remaining at Loyola. He was among the team’s leading rebounders the past two seasons and often defended against the opponents’ toughest front court players. He also had a deft three-point shooting touch.

Stumer, who has a commitment to the Swedish National Team that is trying to qualify for the 1992 Olympics, felt he had been away from home long enough and was ready for the next step in his basketball career.

He played in the Summer Pro League at Loyola last month, but was getting so little playing time that he returned to Sweden, where he joined Team Albik in Stockholm. He had signed a conditional contract with Albik in May.

Reached by phone, Stumer said he signed a contract for about $50,000--”We have high taxes here but it’s enough to live on,” he said--and has joined the Swedish National Team for tournaments in Poland and Finland in recent weeks.

“I’ll play here this season, then hopefully play in the summer league (at Loyola),” he said. “I wouldn’t mind playing a couple years in the NBA--that would be a high goal.”

The Swedish National Team faces European Championship qualifying rounds in the fall, when the Swedes need to beat Greece and, most likely, Romania to get to next summer’s championship round, which will decide teams for the Olympics.

Stumer will also stay busy trying to help Albik, which he described as “one of the country’s top teams in the early ‘80s, now it’s an in-between team but trying to get big again.”

Stumer won’t forget his record-setting years at Loyola, which made an impression even in Sweden.

“All my friends and most of my coaches asked about Loyola,” he said. “They’ve heard about them.”

Cal State Dominguez Hills, which begins its fall athletic session Aug. 24, has added several assistant coaches to its staff. Soccer Coach Marine Cano, who will continue to coach both the men’s and women’s teams, will be assisted by Alberto Bru, a starting fullback for the California Emperors of the American Professional Soccer League. Bru will help out with the teams, replacing Paul Krumpe and John Gerrard, who have other commitments this season. Cano will also be assisted by former players Joe Flanagan (with the men’s team) and Connie Cowman (with the women’s team). Flanagan and Cowman will be graduate assistants. The men’s team plays its first scrimmage Aug. 24.

Baseball Coach George Wing will have a new No. 1 assistant in Tom Pokorski, who was an assistant at Mt. San Antonio College last season. His main responsibility will be the pitching staff, which was the Toros’ weak point last spring.

Basketball Coach Dave Yanai will be assisted by former Toro guard Tony Carter-Loza.

College Notes

Former Pepperdine point guard Lamar (Marty) Wilson has joined basketball Coach Tom Asbury’s staff as a part-time assistant. Wilson, 23, who graduated from Pepperdine in 1989, succeeds Bob Hawking, who accepted an assistant coaching spot at UC Davis last month. Wilson was an assistant coach at Simi Valley High last season. . . . Loyola Marymount is still looking for an athletic trainer to replace Chip Schaefer, who took a similar job with the Chicago Bulls after three years at Loyola. . . . Loyola baseball Coach Chris Smith is working to replace three assistants who accepted different jobs after the season. The staff may be set by next week. . . . Morningside High basketball star Martell Bland has signed with St. Mary’s College. He’s the second South Bay player to sign with Coach Paul Landreaux, joining Darrell Daniel of Bishop Montgomery. Bland, a 6-3 guard, averaged 18 points and was a member of the Times All-South Bay team.