CLU’s Smith Planning to Compete Elsewhere

Jason Smith, one of the top reserves on the Cal Lutheran men’s basketball team that compiled a 25-3 record this season, said Wednesday he plans to play elsewhere next season.

Smith, a 6-foot-5 freshman swingman from Melbourne, Australia, who averaged 9.0 points and 4.7 rebounds, said he is considering transferring to Westmont, a traditionally strong NAIA Division I program.

“Some of it is due to financial considerations and some of it is due to the fact that (Mike Dunlap) will no longer be the coach at Cal Lu,” Smith said.

“With a new coach, the program is going to be in transition next season and I want to go to a program where things are already established.”

Dunlap, who guided Cal Lutheran to an 80-55 record from 1989 to 1994, will coach the Adelaide 36ers of Australia’s National Basketball League starting next month.

Smith, Cal Lutheran’s sixth man at the start of the season, replaced guard Paul Tapp in the starting lineup from the sixth to the 11th games until sidelined by injury.

Smith averaged 13.0 points and 5.7 rebounds as a starter, but a bone chip on his left knee forced him to miss the first seven games of Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play. He never returned to the starting lineup.

He underwent surgery to reattach the chipped bone Wednesday and is expected to be on crutches for the next three weeks.