USIU BASKETBALL : Perfect Score for Zarecky: 100-99, Gulls

How about these for a basketball team’s season objectives: Score 100 points a game; hold your opponents to under 100 points a game.

That’s it.

This is not an everyday approach to college basketball. But this is not an everyday college basketball team. It’s U.S. International, a team that once led the nation in scoring while compiling a losing record. The Gulls won’t have to improve much, because they averaged 97.8 points a game last year while allowing 102.

“We’d like to score more,” Coach Gary Zarecky said. “If we could break the 100-point barrier that would be an accomplishment I always dreamed of. The players have made that an objective. But the No. 1 goal this year is to win.”

Last year, USIU finished 12-16, its best record in five seasons under Zarecky and its best in Division I it was 13-12 under Freddie Goss in 1980-81. But Zarecky, who is 52-88 lifetime at USIU, said the 1990-91 season should represent the fruition of his “five-year” plan that, if nothing else, has brought national attention to the program.

“We’re through building now,” he said. “When you reach that plateau where you’ve established credibility and respect, it’s time to win. I told people it would take three to five years to build the program. Now it’s time to go over the hump.”

Six of the 11 players from last year’s team, including three starters, are returning. Back are Kevin Bradshaw, a 6-6 senior guard who was No. 2 in the nation in scoring last year with a 31.3 average, 6-11 senior center Mike Sterner, the Gulls’ all-time shot blocker with 102, and 6-4 guard/forward Isaac Brown, who started 15 games as a freshman.

But Zarecky thinks he may have all the pieces of the puzzle in place after his off-season recruiting produced 6-foot-5 freshman Steve Whitehead, the team’s first legitimate three-point shooter, and 6-7, 245-pound sophomore Uzoma Obiekea, the power forward Zarecky’s teams have lacked in the past. Obiekea is from Nigeria.

The Gulls also picked up Mark Tuite, a highly recruited, 6-5 guard who averaged 26 points at (San Francisco) St. Francis before an ankle fracture shortened his senior year, and Jeff Polinsky, a 6-3 freshman from Monte Vista who averaged 24.6 points and scored 45 in one game. Zarecky also landed junior forward O.J. Bonner, who helped Merced College knock off No. 1 Imperial Valley with 24 points and 17 rebounds in a state junior college tournament game last year.

For the first time, Zarecky said he has assembled an entire team composed of players who were recruited by Division I schools.