Chevalier Has Spent Entire Career Just Making Points : Northridge basketball: A recruiting afterthought who has answered each challenge, he could break the school’s all-time scoring record.

Having been forced to buck the odds so many times, did Andre Chevalier expect his college basketball career to end any other way?

With only tonight’s game against San Diego State left to play, Chevalier needs 29 points to become the leading scorer in Cal State Northridge history.

The temptation, once again, is to write him off.

His career high is 28.

His average is 14.

His chances for the record, therefore, would seem to be remote.

Then again, there is the matter of Chevalier’s track record.

Courted by Northridge only after a top recruit was declared academically ineligible, he has been a starter for the Matadors since the seventh game of his freshman season.

In 1990, as a senior at Cleveland High, Chevalier averaged eight points a game. Yet here he is, four years later, challenging Jim Malkin’s scoring record of 1,301 points, a standard that has been in the books for 32 years.

Count him out? “No way,” said Northridge Coach Pete Cassidy. “You never sell that young man short.”

Many have. And have been proved wrong.

Chevalier was born without two middle fingers on his left hand and he is legally blind in his right eye, conditions some critics predicted would preclude him from a successful Division I basketball career. And as a ball-handling point guard? Forget it.

But Chevalier refused to let that opinion prevail. Defenders who chose to attack his alleged weakness often are left groping at air.

“We thought we should force him to go to his left, to make him use that left hand,” Grand Canyon Coach Leighton McCrary said. “But after two times down the floor we said, ‘Why don’t we go back to playing him straight up?’ He is quick on quick.”

Tony Fuller, San Diego State’s coach, also considered attacking Chevalier’s left side. A few minutes studying film convinced him that he should reconsider.

“After watching him on tape and watching him play we forgot about that,” Fuller said. “He’s got a better left hand than a lot of our guys.”

Fuller rates the Northridge senior with the best point guards his team has faced. McCrary, whose team was scorched by Chevalier for 25 points, 11 assists and four steals last month, takes his praise even further. “He’s the best guard we’ve seen this year, without a doubt,” he said.

Cassidy, coach at Northridge for the past 23 seasons, said he will remember Chevalier as “a tough, tenacious kid who gave a helluva lot of people fits.”

Chevalier already owns Northridge career records for steals, assists and free throws, proof that he has flourished rather than merely survived under what has been the most challenging of circumstances.

If only the entire Northridge team could say the same. The Matadors, 7-18 this season, have won 36 games and lost 72 during Chevalier’s career.

“Individually I exceeded what everybody thought,” Chevalier said. “But team-wise it’s been worse than I ever expected.”

Northridge, a fledgling Division I independent, was expected to lose in Chevalier’s first couple of seasons. However, the Matadors, for a variety of reasons, have continued to flounder in each of their past two campaigns.

Last season, Northridge lost its entire recruiting class of front-court players because of injury, academic ineligibility and an automobile accident that ended the career of the team’s top prospect.

This season, there have been key injuries, the unexpected death of center Peter Micelli’s father, and the drama of the Jan. 17 earthquake that left all but two Matador players temporarily homeless and the team without the use of its home court.

Is it any wonder, then, that Chevalier summarizes his career at Northridge by saying, “It’s been good. It’s been bad. It’s been terrible. It’s been tragic . . . a lifetime of experience in four years.”

The low point has been this season, one Chevalier approached with confidence. A postseason berth, if not in the NCAA tournament of 64 then perhaps in the NIT, was within reach, he predicted.

How quickly those plans unraveled.

Northridge opened with consecutive blowout losses against Stanford and Gonzaga. The third game, another defeat, Chevalier missed because of a severely sprained left ankle.

Then, with the Matadors enjoying only their second victory after 10 losses, Chevalier suffered a broken bone in his right hand during a 90-72 victory over Buffalo on Jan. 4.

Four days later, against UC Irvine, Chevalier missed all eight of his shots but still helped Northridge win. He made seven of eight free throws, including two with 19.6 seconds left to give the Matadors a 68-66 victory.

The following game, a setback to St. Mary’s, Chevalier again scored only seven points. Since then, he is back to his old self, having scored in double figures in nine of 11 games.

He also has returned to his typically frantic defensive routine: slapping at an opponent’s dribble, doing jumping jacks in an effort to interrupt passes and diving after every loose ball.

Maintaining such a pace has not been easy. In the latter part of January, the Matadors were jolted both by a 6.7 earthquake centered near the Northridge campus and by the death of Nicholas Micelli, an avid booster of the team.

Chevalier and his mother, Shirley, were displaced by the quake. The 22-year-old senior admitted that basketball “was not a top priority” for many members of what came to be called “Team Tragedy.”

Two weeks after the quake, when the team finally got back to playing basketball, the Matadors learned that forward Chris Yard, one of their top players, had suffered a season-ending knee injury.

As Northridge concludes its season tonight, there is new concern for another teammate. Brent Lofton, a forward Chevalier has known since high school, was benched last week at the request of team doctors who thought they might have detected a heart abnormality.

“Everybody says college is the best time of your life,” Chevalier said. “I know I hope these weren’t my best years. I hope things are going to get a lot better.”

His experiences at Northridge might not have earned him a professional basketball career, but Chevalier is fairly confident he can handle the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

Being a Matador certainly did not spoil him.

As a budget-conscious Division I independent, Northridge has in the past four years played at home only 39 times in 109 games. Often when the Matadors travel, they are booked on special two-for-one deals requiring pre-dawn departures on flights that routinely offer two layovers and no meals.

“Those kinds of things wear you out physically and mentally,” Chevalier said. “It makes it tough sometimes. When people think of playing Division I basketball, they’re not thinking about the way it is here.”

Still, Chevalier will leave Northridge with his records, the experiences of competing against the likes of UCLA, USC, Cal, Stanford, Missouri and Notre Dame and, possibly, as an academic All-American.

A Pan-African studies major who is interested in a business career, Chevalier has a 3.23 grade-point average and has been a regular on the Dean’s List.

“I know my experiences at Northridge made me a better person,” he said. “I don’t know if it made me a better player, but I know I’m a stronger person.”

Certainly one capable of pulling a final surprise.