MEN’S BASKETBALL PREVIEW / THE MASTER’S : Oates Trying to Extend Mastery

So what does Bill Oates, the second-year men’s basketball coach at The Master’s College, do for an encore?

How about guide his team to a victory or two in the NAIA Division I tournament? The new season begins tonight at home against Walla Walla (Wash.) College.

During his initial season at the school, Oates directed the Mustangs to a 28-5 record and their first appearance in the NAIA championships, where they lost to Georgia Southwestern, 98-86, in the first round in Tulsa, Okla.

Center Emeka Okenwa, the team’s leading scorer (17.1 average) and rebounder (9.8) and point guard Andy Thompson (10.2 points and a team-high 7.3 assists) were lost to graduation. But Oates has a solid nucleus. Six players return from last season’s eight-man rotation.

Add to the mix two junior college transfers and an improved reserve who saw limited action last season and Master’s should have plenty of depth. Nonetheless, Oates does not appear to be concerned with topping--or even matching--last year’s accomplishments.

“We’re really not concerned about measuring ourselves against last year,” he said. “We just want to get this team’s players to complement each other so they can play well together this season.”

Forwards James Mosley (6-foot-3 junior) and Matt Kordik (6-6 junior), center Leo Gorauskas (6-9 sophomore), and guards Doug Leaman (6-2 senior) and Mike Penberthy (6-2 sophomore) are expected to start tonight.

Mosley (15.9 ppg), Leaman (11.6) and Penberthy (9.9) are the team’s leading returning scorers. Each shot 43% or better from three-point range last season.

Gorauskas averaged 5.7 points and 3.6 rebounds, and Kordik averaged 18 points and seven rebounds for Rancho Santiago College. Rogerio Soares, a 6-6 senior forward, averaged 6.5 points a game for the Mustangs last season, and Matt Ratzlaff, a 6-7 senior forward, averaged 4.3 points.

John Mosley (no relation to James), a 6-foot junior guard, is a transfer from East Los Angeles College. Senior Colin Lubsey, a 6-5 forward who averaged 6.9 points and 4.7 rebounds per game as a starter last season, will not join the team until January because he has only one semester of eligibility remaining.

When he transferred from Creighton to Master’s in the spring of 1993, Lubsey had only three semesters of eligibility left. “I think we’ll definitely be a better ballclub in the second half of the season when we get Colin back,” Oates said. “But we’re going to need to develop early on or we could be in trouble with the schedule we have.”

Cal State Bakersfield, two-time defending NCAA Division II champion, and traditionally strong NAIA teams Azusa Pacific, Westmont and Biola are all on the Mustangs’ schedule.

Azusa Pacific and Westmont advanced to the second round of the NAIA tournament in March. Biola lost to Master’s, 93-80, in the final of the NAIA Far West Region Independents tournament.

The Far West Region Independents winner receives an automatic berth in the NAIA tournament.