They’ve Looked at Routs From Both Sides Now

You can throw a basketball from Pacific Christian College to Cal State Fullerton--from campus to campus, it’s a long outlet over Nutwood Avenue--but to schedule the schools on back-to-back nights is to fly coach on the space shuttle.

This week, Chapman College worked both sides of the street--playing host to PCC Friday, visiting Fullerton Saturday--and now the Panthers are experts on time travel.

The distance between PCC and Cal State Fullerton?

About 82 points.

If you were a betting person, you could have taken Chapman Friday night, given 60 points and still gone home with money. The Panthers nearly triple-doubled the NAIA Royals, scoring a 102-40 victory that was Chapman’s biggest since it shut the book on LIFE Bible (141-54) during the 1983-84 season.

Twenty-four hours later, the Panthers went up the down escalator, stepping up to Division I Titanland, and lost by 20, 86-66, only because Fullerton shot 43% in the second half.

The way it started, Chapman appeared headed for a complete role reversal. Beat PCC one night, become PCC the next.

In the first three minutes, the Panthers shot three air balls.

In the first four minutes, the Panthers committed three turnovers.

Chapman missed its first six shots, forward Frantz Reyes went zero for nine from the field overall, and after 18 turnovers and 41 misfires, the Panthers slinked out Titan Gym, thankful that their Division I run is over and that it’s back to Humboldt State next week.

“I don’t want to say we were intimidated,” said Chapman Coach Bob Boyd, “but we played much too . . . much too . . . what’s that word?

“Well, intimidated might be the right word.”

No other adjective fits better.

“Frantz Reyes took two shots and missed the basket by this much,” Boyd said, holding his hands about 12 inches apart. “Unmolested layups. I don’t know how that happens. I don’t know why we did that.

“I’m not saying we’re capable of beating Fullerton. But we’re capable of completing some plays against them.”

Chapman doesn’t have the inside bulk to trade bodies and baskets with Fullerton, but when the Panthers went outside, they went out to lunch. In the first half, Chapman scored all of three baskets outside 15 feet. In the second, Chapman shot 31% from the floor, any and all spots on the floor.

“Sometimes,” Boyd noted, “it makes a difference who you play. You make a free throw against Pacific Christian College and you miss the same free throw against Fullerton. I don’t know how to explain it. But it happens.”

Boyd, of course, is the one to blame for Chapman’s manic-depressive schedule. Already in December, the Panthers have soared to LSU and McNeese State, leveled out with Occidental and Stanislaus State, slummed with PCC and skied again with Fullerton.

No wonder they looked dizzy.

“It’s part of our scheduling,” Boyd said off-handedly. “We want to play a great range of teams.”

The result has been a great range of final scores. Not surprisingly, the Panthers will sit down to their Christmas dinners with a 6-5 record.

Fullerton, meanwhile, is already feasting. The Titans are 6-2, have won six in a row and have apparently found an heir to Cedric Ceballos’ jump shot in Joe Small.

Small took a 20-point average into Saturday’s game and hiked it even higher with a 10-for-15, 29-point performance. Small was five for seven from three-point range, contributing heavily to Fullerton’s team showing of 77.8% from beyond the arc.

Small has already won his own cheering section in the northern bleachers of Titan Gym--you can call them The Small Thinkers--and they have taken to serenading their hero with their own version of “It’s A Small World After All.”

Not small enough for Chapman, though. Not on this night.

“I guess you have to give Joe all the credit,” Chapman forward Zlatko Josic said. “He lit us up.”

And when one three-pointer after another keeps falling through the net, it can be, well, yes, intimidating.

“We were going from the bottom of the cellar to Division I,” Josic said. “We’re not accustomed to playing someone so strong inside. Fullerton has a lot of big, physical players, which we don’t usually see.”

Boyd, clearly, had seen enough. Talked enough, too. For him, the exit to Titan Gym wasn’t close enough.

“Our talk is over,” Boyd said as he turned away from a reporter. Then, with a grin, he looked over his shoulder and added, “If you don’t have enough to write, call a priest.”