Therapy for Shellshocked CSUN : College basketball: Reeling from string of tragedies, Matadors welcome first post-quake practice, held at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion.

The Cal State Northridge men’s basketball team got back to business Tuesday, though certainly not business as usual.

The Matadors worked to sharpen fundamentals in a relatively light two-hour workout in the unfamiliar surroundings of Pauley Pavilion. The practice was held at UCLA because Northridge’s home gym still must pass another round of post-earthquake safety inspections before its doors are reopened.

For at least one Matador, the session marked only the second time in a week he had held a basketball. “The last time I touched a ball was when I was moving mine out of my apartment last Friday,” point guard Andre Chevalier said.

Northridge, which next will play Saturday night against Northeastern Illinois in Chicago, last week canceled a game against Air Force and rescheduled another against California in the wake of the Jan. 17 quake that destroyed or severely damaged many of the players’ homes.

The Matadors were in Boulder, Colo., for a game against Colorado when the 6.6. quake hit. Northridge stayed to play the game, losing 100-85, but broke off its trip and returned home the following morning.

“In a way it’s hard to get back to basketball, but it’s also necessary to get back,” Coach Pete Cassidy said after practice. “It’s time to move forward, to get on with life.”

The Matadors were without center Peter Micelli in their first practice since the quake. His father, Nicholas, was buried after services in Beverly Hills on Monday. Peter Micelli was driving his sister, Maria, to Santa Barbara, a school spokesman said. He is expected to rejoin the team today.

Nicholas Micelli, 50, an avid supporter of the team, died last Wednesday, apparently of a heart attack, only hours after delivering food and other supplies to his son’s Northridge residence, which had become a shelter for more than a dozen displaced Matador athletes.

Micelli’s death rocked the team at a time when the players appeared to be winning a struggle to stabilize their own quake-ravaged lives.

“We were just getting ourselves together,” guard Ryan Martin said. “At least we all had our lives and our close ones, but then Pete’s father dies and it’s like . . . the hits just keep on coming and coming and coming.”

Indeed, Micelli’s death is the latest in a string of tragedies that have touched the Northridge team.

The stepfather of Keith Gibbs, then Northridge’s star swingman, died in February, 1992. Six months later, Maurice Contesse, the best friend of forward Chris Yard, was killed when a truck Yard was driving was involved in an off-road accident in Las Vegas.

Three months after that, only days before the first exhibition game of the Matadors’ 1992-93 season, Lloyd McLinn, father of guard Brooklyn McLinn, died, apparently of a heart attack.

Northridge players wore black bands on their uniforms last season as a tribute to McLinn, Contesse and John Flowers, a recruit who lost both legs in an August, 1992, car accident that occurred two weeks before he was scheduled to leave his Glendale, Ariz., home and move to Northridge.

“You reflect on the tragedies and the injuries that have happened and you say, ‘Well, those are challenges in life,’ ” Cassidy said. “You work with what is dealt to you. It’s going to change. There are only so many hurdles and then the tide turns.”

Shane O’Doherty, the Matadors’ backup center, said Micelli’s death has affected the team even more adversely than the earthquake.

“Andre and Brooklyn and the rest of us will get new places to live, but Pete will be without a dad forever,” O’Doherty said. “It gets to all of us, emotionally, but I think getting back to basketball will help us. For a few hours we can get our troubles off our minds.”

The rhythmic beat of dribbling basketballs was certainly music to Martin’s ears.

“I’ve been so miserable, to actually get back out and play was a relief,” he said.

Which is precisely the effect Cassidy was hoping for. “This is our little world right now,” he said, surveying the arena. “We can take our little world and use it to our advantage, for our psychological healing.

“This is our therapy session.”

The trip to Chicago, and then on to South Bend, Ind., for a game against Notre Dame on Monday, also has given the team something to look forward to, if only for the opportunity to travel to a place where aftershocks won’t interrupt sleep.

“Win or lose it will be refreshing just to get back out there,” Martin said.