THE COLLEGES / MIKE HISERMAN : Gazing Into a Slightly Flawed Crystal Ball

Forecasting the future is risky business. Just ask Iben Browning. Browning is the scientist who predicted that a great earthquake on or about Dec. 3 would turn a portion of Missouri into beachfront property.

About a year ago, a prediction was made in this space that the Cal State Northridge men’s basketball team would crash and burn, that the Matadors would lose all 10 of their Division I games in 1990.

It also was said that Russell White of California would not rush for 100 yards in a game.

Well, Northridge’s basketball team has won its only two home games and White averaged almost 100 yards a game, surpassing triple digits four times and finishing with 99 yards on another occasion. He was a first-team All-Pacific 10 Conference selection. So read Jeane Dixon.

Of course, it also was said that CSUN’s tailback, Albert Fann, would not win the Harlon Hill trophy but would help the Matadors win their first Western Football Conference championship.

Close enough. Fann came up empty and Northridge was a co-champion.

Therefore, since there seems to be at least a remote chance that a couple of these might be right, here are a few things that you will--and will not--see happen on the college scene in 1991:

* Northridge’s Scott Sharts will blossom as a top-notch Division I pitcher, but he won’t match his 1990 total of 30 home runs.

* The fourth-ranked Northridge men’s volleyball team finally will win a regular-season match against nemesis UCLA, but the Matadors won’t advance past the semifinal round of the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. tournament.

* Matt Unger will start at setter for the CSUN men’s volleyball team over incumbent Gary Reznick.

Fann will be taken in the National Football League draft, but he won’t go as early as the fourth round, despite what he has been told by some pro scouts.

* The Cal Lutheran football team will win more than two games, but the Kingsmen won’t resemble any of the teams from the school’s glorious past.

* Glendale tailback Bobby Webster will have another 1,000-yard season, but he won’t touch Freddie Bradley’s junior college scoring record, set while Bradley was at Moorpark.

* Moorpark’s Jamal Anderson and Johnel Turner will form the most potent rushing tandem in area junior college football. And the Raiders will lose to Glendale and Bakersfield. Again.

* Valley College will have another sub-.500 football season.

* Brian Beauchemin’s Glendale basketball team will be three times as good at the end of the season as it was at the start. It happens every season.

* Antelope Valley will breeze through the Foothill Conference basketball season, then be upset--again--in the early rounds of the state basketball playoffs.

* The Pierce women’s basketball team will go to the playoffs and Coach Rob DiMuro finally will be recognized for the job he has done rejuvenating the program.

* Valley’s Melanie Clarke will defend her state junior college heptathlon championship and accept a scholarship to UCLA.

* CSUN’s Darcy Arreola will finish second in the 1,500 in the NCAA meet.

* Glendale’s Hugo Allan Garcia will win either the 5,000 or 10,000--maybe both--in the junior college state meet.

* Even without four-time All-American Chris Palm, The Master’s soccer team will be NAIA playoff-bound. And this time the Mustangs won’t be laughed at.

* Marty Washington, a quarterback for Antelope Valley, will take his skills to Pierce.

* The Northridge softball team won’t have a dominant pitcher, but it will have a winning record.

* CSUN’s Alo Sila will be defensive player of the year in the Western Football Conference.

* Speakers in CSUN’s Academic Senate will blame athletics for the budget deficit. Not only their own, but the nation’s as well.

* A deLaveaga will average 30 points a game for Cal Lutheran’s basketball team. (Best bet).

* Northridge will win more men’s basketball games than it did in 1990 and Pete Cassidy will return as coach.

* Coach Mel Hankinson will predict great improvement for The Master’s basketball team once a transfer or two becomes eligible in December. And he’ll be right. But not to the extent he wished.

* J. R. Rider will not play basketball for Nevada Las Vegas.

* CSUN’s Kyle Kerlegan will pull up on a three-on-nobody fast break and launch a three-point shot.

* Don MacLean will be selected in the second round of the NBA draft.

* I’ll deny having made several of these predictions come next December.