For Some Folks, WSC Standings Don’t Add Up

Confused about how the Western State Conference keeps its men’s basketball standings? Join the club.

This is the third season the 11-team conference, split into North (five teams) and South (six) divisions, will count only intradivisional games in the official standings.

In the current format, teams play schools in the other division once and teams in their own division twice in a home-and-away setup. All interdivisional games essentially are considered nonconference games, even though they are played under the conference umbrella, and have a bearing only for seeding purposes in the Southern California regionals.

The arrangement has the blessing of the Community College League of California, the state’s governing body for junior college athletics.

Sounds too strange? It does even to the conference coaches.

“It is confusing,” said Brian Beauchemin, Glendale coach.

But the coaches say they adopted the plan for several reasons.

“Part of the rationale for the change was that we have 11 teams. In order to play each other twice, that means we would have to start conference play in December,” said Al Nordquist, Moorpark coach.

Another reason, Canyons Coach Lee Smelser said, was to get more conference teams into the regionals.

“We had the same entries as a six-team conference,” Smelser said. “We thought we could get better representation.”

Beauchemin mentioned yet another reason to support the present format.

“When you play a team from the other division only once, especially on the road, it’s not a viable measure (of the teams’ strengths) because you don’t get to play (that team) again.”

The attempt to place more teams in the regionals didn’t fully materialize last season, however. Only four from the WSC--Canyons, Glendale, Moorpark and Ventura--made it to the 32-team tournament.

JUNIOR COLLEGES

Calendar-Watching

Beauchemin is counting the days until two of the best players on the Glendale basketball team, forward Michael Wright and point guard Maurice Sowells, return from injuries.

The Vaqueros could certainly use them.

“It’s killing us depth-wise not to have them,” Beauchemin said. “Our guys are getting dead tired in the second half (of games).”

Glendale (9-9, 1-3 in Western State Conference play) has dropped three consecutive games. The Vaqueros started the season with five victories in six games and won their first conference interdivisional game Jan. 4 against Cuesta, 76-57. The Cougars were ranked eighth in the state at the time.

The game at Cuesta marked the return of Wright from a preseason knee injury and things looked promising for the Vaqueros, especially when the 6-foot-5 freshman scored 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.

But two nights later, Wright and Sowells went down with ankle injuries in an 82-77 overtime loss at Oxnard. Beauchemin hopes they will return next week.

“They are our best athletes, those two,” he said.

CAL LUTHERAN

Shooting Stars

Although Kingsmen basketball Coach Mike Dunlap has taken great satisfaction in his team’s 12-game winning streak to start the season entering tonight’s Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game at Redlands, he admitted that he never envisioned it at the start of the season.

Dunlap expected Cal Lutheran’s defense to be tenacious and the Kingsmen have not let him down, limiting opponents to 44.4% shooting from the field and forcing an average of 20 turnovers. But he had not counted on his offense hitting 52.8% of its shots, including 47.6% from three-point range.

“I didn’t expect us to have this kind of a shooting percentage at the start of the season. But I think we’ve benefited by taking an awful lot of shots in practice each day,” he said.

Each Cal Lutheran player typically makes 350-400 baskets a day in practice, according to Dunlap.

The players usually attempt 180-200 shots in various drills during daytime practice before returning in the evening to shoot under the supervision of Dunlap or one of his assistants.

During the practice drills, the team is often split into six two-man units in which one player positions himself on a certain part of the floor as another shoots over him. The team that makes the desired amount of shots first in a five-minute time period gets a brief rest as the others do pushups or some type of running drill.

“The pushups and running do not amount to much on an individual basis,” Dunlap. “It’s just enough to sting the guys and make them want to win the next drill.”

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE

Yard Expected to Play

Chris Yard, the top scorer and rebounder on the Cal State Northridge basketball team, has resumed practice on a limited basis this week.

Yard suffered an injury to his right knee in the first half of a game at UC Irvine last Saturday.

Northridge has three games next week, beginning Monday at Colorado, and Yard is expected to be ready.

Yard, a 6-6 forward, is averaging 13.2 points and 6.4 rebounds.

Around the Campuses . . .

* The Master’s men’s basketball team tied a season high with 10 three-point baskets in Thursday’s 112-76 victory over visiting Point Loma Nazarene. The Mustangs, who made 10 of 22 attempts against the Crusaders, were 10 for 21 from three-point range in a 127-34 season-opening victory over L.I.F.E. Bible.

* With 15 rebounds against Point Loma, Master’s center Emeka Okenwa has had double-digit rebounding totals in 12 of the Mustangs’ 17 games.

* Cal Lutheran forward Paul LaMott made six of nine shots from the field against Occidental on Wednesday and his shooting percentage dropped to 68.9%.

* Cal Lutheran guard Paul Tapp continues to shoot better from outside the three-point line than inside it. Tapp, who is averaging 12.4 points, has hit 56.3% (36 of 64) of his three-point shots, but only 40.6% (13 for 32) of his two-point attempts.

Staff writers Fernando Dominguez, Mike Hiserman and John Ortega contributed to this notebook.