These Four Freshmen Have the Coaches Singing Their Praises : Basketball: These 14-year-olds, who have been playing together since the fifth grade, are making their marks on high schoolvarsity teams now.

You can call them the Four Freshmen.

Or perhaps the Fabulous Four.

But whatever you call them, the freshmen foursome of Cameron Murray of Glendora High, Toby Bailey of Loyola, Alex Lopez of Campbell Hall and Jelani Gardner of Bishop Amat are already making a major impact at the varsity level.

Murray, Bailey and Gardner are leading their teams in scoring and Lopez is among the top scorers and rebounders for Campbell Hall. Murray averages 23 points, Bailey 20, Gardner 18 and Lopez 14 points and eight rebounds.

Not exactly typical figures for freshmen, especially when you consider that they are still only 14 years old.

But Rich Goldberg, president of the American Roundball Corp. youth basketball program, says they are anything but typical freshmen. All four have been starters on the same youth team in the ARC program.

“That’s a very special group,” Goldberg said. “They’ve been together since the fifth grade and now they’ve come into high school at the same time and have just made an immediate impact.

“Right now they’re the best freshmen in Southern California. By the time they’re juniors they’ll be the best players in Southern California.”

Murray and Lopez have played on the same youth team since the fifth grade and Bailey and Gardner have competed for the squad the past two seasons. As a group, they led their youth team to the national Amateur Athletic Union title in the 12-year-old division in Seattle two summers ago and a third-place finish in the National AAU Championships for 14-year-olds in New Orleans last summer.

So it is not a surprise to see the quartet having immediate success for their high school teams.

“It was not at all unexpected,” Goldberg said. “Last year as all-stars they were playing against high school varsity players and beating them. We’re not surprised about (their success) but it’s neat because we anticipated them doing this and they’ve been able to fulfill all of the expectations.”

The most experienced of the four is Murray, a 6-foot guard whose brother was the all-time CIF Southern Section single season and career scoring leader and stars as a sophomore forward at UCLA.

“Cameron has been with us the longest,” Goldberg said. “He’s been with us since the third grade.”

Glendora Coach Mike LeDuc said he is not surprised with the play of Murray, who also ranks among his team’s leaders in three-point baskets, assists, steals and rebounds.

“I expected him to get off to this good of a start because of the background he has,” LeDuc said.

In fact, LeDuc said Murray is as polished of a freshman as you could find.

“I think he’s just exceptional,” LeDuc said. “I think you’d have to look really hard to find anyone better at his age group.”

He said Murray excels in all aspects of the game.

“I think he just handles the ball so well and he sees the floor very well,” Murray said. “That is his strength. But when you look at Cameron, he doesn’t have a part of his game that is a weakness. He doesn’t have a weakness that jumps out at you other than a weakness that any freshman might have.”

LeDuc attributes Murray’s rapid success to his experience before arriving at Glendora and the fact that he has been close to his older brother.

“I think he’s benefited a lot from Tracy and anyone who’s had the opportunity to be around a player like Tracy--and he’s been around him as much as anyone could,” LeDuc said.

While there are high expectations for Cameron, the coach said they have not come from the coaches or school.

“I think the expectations are a lot of what others have placed on him,” he said. “For us, we just want him to improve and keep working to get better. As far as Glendora goes, we’re not putting any pressure on him at all.”

The expectations have also followed Lopez throughout his career, partly because he was always the tallest player on his youth squads and is 6-10 as a freshman.

Coach Joe Jackson of Campbell Hall said it is important to place the size and ability of Lopez in perspective.

“A lot of people look at Alex as being 6-10 and say he should just dominate at this level,” Jackson said. “But you have to remember he’s in high school now and it’s a new level and there’s a lot he has to learn. He has a (NCAA) Division I body but he’s a long way away from Division I skills.”

Lopez is one of the top all-around players for Campbell Hall, a Southern Section 1-A Division school with only 265 students. But Jackson said there are a lot of moments when he plays like a freshman.

“As far as his skills go, I’d say he’s about a freshman,” Jackson said. “He does make a lot of good plays but he also makes a lot of freshman mistakes. There are times when you can say, ‘I can’t wait until he’s a sophomore or a junior’ because he’s playing so well and then there are times when you can say, ‘Yeah, he’s a freshman.’ ”

But Jackson said he thinks Lopez will eventually develop into an outstanding player because of his desire to learn and improve.

“He makes his mistakes but he learns from them and he tries to improve upon them,” he said. “You can have a kid who is 5-10 or 6-10 but if he’s not coachable you can’t work with them. But he’s very willing to work with you.”

Jackson said Lopez is as talented as any player he has coached.

“I’ve had a lot of good athletes before and as far as raw talent and potential, he probably has the best potential I’ve ever had in a ninth grader,” he said.

Bill Thomason, longtime coach of Loyola, could probably say the same thing about Bailey if only because he has never had a ninth-grader on his varsity roster before.

“I never even considered it before,” Thomason said. “I really didn’t have to be talked into this one but I’ve been very leery (in the past) because our school is very hard academically--extremely hard--and socially it’s a difficult adjustment for a freshman.

“It was just a standard rule that a freshman didn’t play for me but physically he just broke the rule.”

Thomason said he knew that Bailey, a 6-4 swingman who lives in the West L.A. area, was a potential starter the first time he saw him on a basketball court.

“When I saw him in September I knew he was an athlete right away,” he said. “I’m always surprised when a freshman comes in and does as well as he has. I was surprised to see someone that young and talented but you never know what a person is going to do once he gets on the court.”

He is not surprised that Bailey has shown an ability to score consistently.

“He’s always been a pretty good scorer,” Thomason said. “That’s something that shows up in a player from the start.”

The challenge for Bailey has been in other aspects of his game.

“When I talk to my players I tell them it’s easy to be a scorer but it’s harder to do other things like rebound and pass off for assists.”

Thomason said that Bailey is working hard at improving, though.

“This is the first time I’ve had a freshman on the team but he’s very coachable and eager to learn,” he said. “So I think he’s going to be a very good all-around player in time.”

Goldberg said Gardner, a 6-3 guard with good shooting range and ball-handling skills, may have the best offensive skills of any of the four players.

Before the start of the season, Bishop Amat Coach Alex Acosta called him, “the best freshman I’ve ever had.”

Only in his first month of playing at Bishop Amat, Gardner has had his peaks and valleys. He has a high game of 31 points and a low of five.

“He is having a pretty good year for a freshman but he still hasn’t reached the potential that I thought he could have,” Acosta said. “I expect him to become an even better player as he learns and matures in our system.”

The same could probably be said about the others as well.

The coaches agree that with a year or two of high school basketball behind them, there is no telling how much better the four will become.

But as high school freshmen go, they are already ahead of their class.