They’re Best of West, but Get No Respect : College notes: Loyola Marymount’s basketball team has to prove itself again despite an impressive list of accomplishments.

Has it been a mirage, a five-year hallucination?

It is there in print for anyone who wants to bother to check: the Loyola Marymount basketball team not only led the nation in scoring the past three seasons and shattered nearly every collegiate scoring record, but over the past five seasons had the best record among West Coast teams. Better than UCLA, Oregon State, UC Santa Barbara and Stanford.

In fact, the Lions had a better record in the past three seasons than any team in the West with the exception of Arizona and Nevada-Las Vegas.

And the Lions return several starters and eight lettermen from last season’s Final Eight team.

None of that seems to have mattered with the national pollsters, who seem to feel that with Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble and Jeff Fryer gone and Paul Westhead having moved on to the NBA, Loyola is again in a prove-it situation.

Nobody at Loyola is claiming there is another Gathers or Kimble on this season’s team, but it’s a bit disconcerting that so many of the players who helped dismantle defending champion Michigan--among other teams--in the NCAA tournament in March should get so little respect.

A backcourt of swift point guard Tony Walker, scorer Terrell Lowery and kamikaze defender Tom Peabody might be considered a fearsome trio in the Atlantic Coast Conference or Big East, but as Loyola’s representatives they couldn’t even manage to make the all-underrated listing in the Sporting News.

But the Lions seem to enjoy the underdog role. Maybe it gives them an edge.

“I like my team,” said Jay Hillock, who takes over the team after five seasons as Westhead’s assistant.

Hillock doesn’t have--or covet--Westhead’s aura of nutty professor, but at the West Coast Conference media day last week he said: “As a coach I’m very confident. We’ll play along the same lines (as Westhead). I have big shoes to fill, but I think it will be easier to replace the coach than Gathers and Kimble. Our system with less firepower, our margin of error is not that great. (But) things are good in Lion country. We have enough maturity to make some impact.”

Lowery, a junior who is expected to assume the bulk of the scoring responsibilities, said he’s not bothered by the apparent lack of respect.

“Hank and Bo were great players, but the system made them great players,” he said. “They didn’t score that much (as freshmen) at USC. Anything is possible in our system.

“Many people thought Hank and Bo were a flash in the pan. We might be capable of more flashes in the pan. We do have something to prove.”

The Lions play what the Sporting News rates as the toughest December schedule in the nation, with road games against preseason Top 10 teams UCLA, Oklahoma, Louisiana State and Georgia Tech. So they may start the new year with a mediocre record.

West Coast Conference Commissioner Michael Gilleran said if people fail to give the Lions the respect they have earned, “they’re not people who understand college basketball.”

“We feel you’re better off to show what you have against the best,” he said. “If it results in losses to Top 20 teams on the road, so be it. You like to be in a nice neighborhood.”

After Loyola bid farewell to basketball standouts Bo Kimble, Jeff Fryer and the late Hank Gathers last season, Hillock said there were qualities about them that the Lions would miss beyond their scoring.

Gathers and Kimble gained notoriety while leading the nation in scoring in consecutive seasons, and Fryer set NCAA records for his three-point shooting. What the public didn’t see, according to Hillock, was a toughness that came out in pressure situations.

“If we needed a big rebound or a big defensive play, Hank or Bo would get it,” Hillock said. “And Fryer and Per Stumer were tough kids”

Although his practices and scrimmages have been termed “brutal” by the players, Hillock isn’t sure how tough his team will be.

“We’re not a really physical team,” he said. “The Peabodys and O’Connells are going to have to be the enforcer types--and hopefully the Czech (Richard Petruska). He’s a wide-body type but I just haven’t seen enough of him to evaluate his game.”

Cal State Dominguez Hills placed three players on the 10-man All-California Collegiate Athletic Assn. soccer first team and had seven players honored overall.

Seniors Martin Mira, Mark Lincir and Mark Merino all earned first-team honors, and another senior, Kaveh Razaghi, was named to the second team. Three Toro underclassmen, junior goalie Steve Bame, freshman Clemente Gonzales and sophomore Tony Grilli, received honorable mention.

Cal State Bakersfield junior midfielder Leslie O’Connor was named CCAA most valuable player and Bakersfield’s Simon Tobin was the coach of the year.

The Dominguez Hills golf team, coached by John Johnson, is ranked in the Division II Top 20 for the seventh consecutive year. The Toros are 20th in the 1991 preseason poll.

Johnson, the senior member of the Dominguez Hills athletic department--his 1968 golf team marked the opening of the athletic department--said “this could be one of our best teams” and he has high hopes for adding to the school’s list of All-Americans.

The Toros’ best team, in 1985, produced two All-Americans--Patrick Burke and Mack Smith--on its way to a No. 7 ranking. Scott MacDonald earned All-America honors in 1983 and ‘84, and Burke also earned academic All-American honors in 1985. Johnson has also produced two pros: Burke is on the PGA Tour and Eugene Hardy, a 1977 graduate, is the teaching pro at Victoria Golf Course.

This year’s top player appears to be Enrico Montano, who has shot rounds of 69 twice in the past two weeks.

“He has a shot at the PGA Tour,” Johnson said. “He is a dedicated golfer. He really works at his game. He’s not only a good player physically, but mentally he’s very sharp.”

The Toros open the season in February, when Johnson embarks on his 43rd year of coaching. He started out in the profession as an assistant football coach at UCLA in 1949.

“I’m a six decade man,” he said.

Notes

Dominguez Hills sophomore Amy Rubin could become the soccer team’s career scoring leader midway through next season. With 19 goals this season, she has 25 in her career, nine short of breaking Kristi White’s school record. White also holds the record for career points with 97. Rubin has 57. . . . The Loyola Marymount soccer team finished the season with a 3-18 record. Tommy Stevenson and Eric Hill tied for the team scoring lead with 12 points. Stevenson, a senior, was the top goal-scorer with six. . . . Loyola basketball co-captain Tom Peabody, who suffered a detached retina over the summer, will wear goggles when playing this season. “They wouldn’t let me play without them,” he said.