Rider Apprenticeship Nearly Complete : College basketball: Bigger and better things likely await, but bringing a state title to Antelope Valley is forward’s final project.

The gripping question in state junior college basketball is not “Who shot J. R.?” but instead “Who can stop J. R.’s shot?”

J. R. Rider, Antelope Valley College’s 6-foot-5, 210-pound sophomore small forward, is averaging 34.7 points and 11.4 rebounds a game, and opponents have rarely slowed him, let alone stopped him.

“You know you’re going to have to stick two or three guys on him a night. You know you’re going to wear two or three guys out,” said Ty Thomas, College of the Desert coach. “Whoever is guarding him is not going to be able to help us offensively because he’ll be too tired.”

Whoever can solve the mystery of how to shut down J. R. also might stop an Antelope Valley team that Rider believes can win the state championship. “We just try to play the other guys and let him get what he’ll get,” Citrus Coach Mike Wells said.

Don’t try that tactic at home, kids. Rider juiced Citrus for 51 points in a 122-79 Antelope Valley victory three weeks ago. Cypress, which will play Antelope Valley (25-5) tonight in a second-round game of the state tournament’s Southern California regional, will not get any clues from Rider.

“If I was an opposing coach, I would put a box-and-one on me,” Rider said. However, he said, “It won’t work in junior college because if a guy is 6-5 he can’t guard me because I’m too quick for him, so I can step out and shoot a jump shot. If a guy is 6-1 all I do is take him inside and post him and then he won’t have a chance.”

Indeed, the only person who can stop Rider on and off the court is a young man named Isaiah. That is Rider’s given first name--J. R. is a derivation of Isaiah junior.

Rider, who did not graduate from Encinal High in Alameda, was academically ineligible his senior basketball season. He missed Antelope Valley’s first seven games this season because he was academically ineligible based on his grades as a freshman at Allen County (Kansas) Community Junior College and last summer at Antelope Valley. He successfully appealed the decision. Twice this season his playing time has been curtailed because of disciplinary reasons.

Little else has slowed Rider’s pursuit of an NCAA Division I scholarship, and it appears that scholarship will come from Nevada Las Vegas. Rider has committed to UNLV although he said he is keeping his options open pending the outcome of the NCAA’s investigation of the school’s basketball program. However, his presence at Antelope Valley is strong proof of his commitment to UNLV.

The Antelope Valley basketball team has such close ties to Las Vegas that it has been called “UNAV.” The Marauders play a style of up-tempo basketball similar to that of the Runnin’ Rebels, and their coach, Newton Chelette, is a former Jerry Tarkanian assistant who refers to Tarkanian simply as “Coach.” Furthermore, George Tarkanian, Jerry’s son, joined the Antelope Valley coaching staff after Rider’s arrival.

By all indications, Rider is a player who can contribute to powerful UNLV.

In a strong year for area junior college basketball, Rider is the most explosive player in the region. In Dick Vitale’s Basketball Magazine, Rider is called “the consensus top community college returner in the country.”

Last summer in the Olympic Festival, Rider played for the silver medal-winning North team alongside Indiana’s Damon Bailey and North Carolina’s Eric Montross. Another of his teammates was Jimmy Jackson, the 6-5 star of second-ranked Ohio State. Rider felt he measured up.

“I went down there and outplayed him,” he said of Jackson.

Chelette, who coached Joe Dumars at McNeese State, said, “At this point in their career J. R. is more physically talented than Joe was.”

Rider’s leaping makes him especially difficult to defend. His elevator goes a few floors higher than most: Even when closely guarded he can levitate into his jump shot.

Chelette estimates Rider’s vertical leap at 41 inches, but on occasion such ability has led him to ignore other skills. Rider has become so adept at driving to the basket--his favorite maneuver is a spin move into the lane--that he sometimes passes up open outside shots.

“He never caught it and shot it,” Chelette said. “That’s pretty much what we’ve had to really work with J. R. and get him to accept. Hey, you gotta catch it and shoot it if you’re open. He was wanting to catch it, let the defensive guy come to him and just beat him. And he’s good enough to do it.”

Rider, the second-leading scorer in the state--Steve Logan of Compton is averaging 37.8--has a high of 51 points and has not scored less than 17 in a game this season. Antelope Valley’s previous single-season record for 30-plus-point games was six; Rider has reached the mark 18 times and has six 40 -plus games in 23 games.

Rider must improve his ballhandling and defensive skills in order to move to off-guard at the Division I and NBA levels, but he already is considered a deft passer. “He’s just got a God-given knack of seeing the court,” Chelette said. “At this level he is the best passer I have ever seen.”

Putting Rider in a junior college game is like enrolling Picasso in the “You-too-can-draw!” correspondence school of art. Only a few of his teammates approach his skill level, and opponents usually are hopelessly overmatched.

“It’s been a problem all year,” Rider said. “I’m not saying I’m too good for junior college, but I’m saying I’m ready for the next level. Sometimes it’s frustrating just playing, it feels like high school.”

Rider’s frustrations have occasionally resulted in emotional outbursts. Once, Rider balked at being removed from a game against Victor Valley. “I was frustrated and it wasn’t like I refused to come out of the game, it was like I asked him, ‘Hold on, can I stay in?’ ” Rider said.

Chelette has suspended Rider from one game and held him out of the starting lineup for another although Chelette insists that Rider’s problems are nothing unusual. “He just wants to do it so perfectly that sometimes, as we all do, he may lose control,” Chelette said. “I don’t know how you change that in someone in a short period of time.”

Those close to Rider portray him as a nice person who has some maturing to do. His coaches say that Rider’s problems are blown out of proportion because of his stature as a player.

Rider is a big fish in a small junior college pond. When he jumps, he makes a big splash, but he also sends out ripples of controversy. His successful challenge to reinstate his eligibility, although done through legitimate channels, nonetheless rankled some coaches.

Chelette said Rider was the victim of bad advice based on a miscalculation of his grade-point average. The appeal went through the Foothill Conference and was granted by the Southern Appeals Board of the Commission on Athletics. Rider freely admits he is no scholar but says he has been unfairly branded in view of his high school academic performance.

“J. R. came in here and completed (the requirements of the General Equivalency Diploma) in a week. He blew the top off the English test,” Allen County Coach Neil Crane said. “He is not, underline not, dumb but (he is) lazy.”

Rider and his three siblings have all gone to college. He said his sister Michelle attended Stanford and San Jose State. His younger brother Lamont plays football for Bakersfield College and his older brother David played football for New Mexico State.

Rider said he earned a 2.6 grade-point average last semester and he currently is carrying a heavy class load this semester. He believes he is on track to receive his associate in arts degree with some summer-school work. At this stage in his academic career, though, he has a very small margin of error.

The associate in arts degree, which Rider needs to be eligible for Division I basketball, is more important to Rider’s career than anything he could do on the court right now. His athletic credentials are already well established.

As a high school sophomore, Rider sprouted to 6-5 and was the best player on an Encinal basketball team that had three seniors in the starting lineup. His junior year, “He wasn’t the best player in the Bay Area, but he was clearly the most spectacular player in the Bay Area,” according to Merv Harris, a sportswriter for the San Francisco Examiner.

“J. R. was a real leader verbally and a take-charge kind of guy,” said Dave Johns, who called Rider the best player he has coached in 17 seasons at Encinal. “Some players are game players, some are practice players. He was both.”

The Examiner chose Rider for its All-Bay Area team as a junior, and a strong performance the following summer in the Nike basketball camp bolstered Rider’s stock. He was drawing interest from the Big East to the Pacific 10 conferences before what promised to be a spectacular senior season. However, shortly before the season began he was declared academically ineligible. “I’m intelligent. I just went through a little senioritis thing,” Rider said.

Nonetheless, Kansas State continued to recruit him. Rider developed a friendship with former Wildcat Mitch Richmond, now of the Golden State Warriors, and he eventually signed a letter of intent with Kansas State.

Rider said he was ready to leave the Oakland area for Manhattan, Kan., but was ineligible and instead went to Allen County in Iola, Kan.

A year layoff from organized basketball did not keep Rider from ripping through the powerful Jayhawk Conference. Allen County Coach Crane said Rider is as good as any player ever in a conference that has produced Harvey Grant, Armon Gilliam and Keith Smart.

Allen County sent four players on to Division I schools last season, but Crane said: “We built everything around J. R. We just pulled the ball up and said, ‘Hey, Rider will touch the ball every time down the floor.’ ”

Rider averaged 31 points a game and set a school single-season scoring record. However, Crane said Rider flunked three spring-semester classes and was ineligible when the semester ended. Rider also had trouble with the law.

He was charged with misdemeanor theft and misdemeanor battery, according to municipal and county court records. The theft charges were dismissed, according to Allen County court records. Rider pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery charges, was given six months probation and fined $201, according to Iola Municipal Court records.

Rider said that someone had used a racial slur against him “so I hit him.” He said he believes that he was accused of theft in retaliation for the altercation.

Kansas observers believe that Rider was out of his element as a big-city basketball star in the small southeastern Kansas town of Iola. “I’d describe him as an immature kid,” Crane said. “He’s not a bad kid by any means.”

Chelette said Antelope Valley was one of several schools recommended to Rider by the UNLV coaching staff, and Rider said he had heard of the Marauders because they were successful last season when they went 27-7.

Many schools regard him as irrevocably committed to UNLV but Rider considers himself a free agent in the recruiting game. Despite his commitment to UNLV, he has grown increasingly concerned about the prospect of NCAA sanctions clouding his two remaining seasons of eligibility.

“Basically, I would love to go to UNLV, but I’m definitely open to anybody to contact me,” Rider said. “I don’t want to go to a school that’s going to be on probation.”

Regardless of where he continues his career, Rider wants to take care of one piece of business now--earning a championship ring.

“It’s a big goal because I’ve never won a basketball championship.” Rider said. “I think we’re the UNLV of junior college, we’re so strong in a lot of different areas.”

Particularly, it seems, at the small-forward position.