COLLEGE DIVISION / ARA NAJARIAN : Riverside Loses Players but Wins Games

It’s only eight games into the season, but the UC Riverside men’s basketball team is already having surprising success.

Having eight new players figured to be a challenge for Coach John Masi. Replacing Bob Fife, last year’s California Collegiate Athletic Assn. player of the year, figured to be impossible.

But there were still a couple of wrinkles Masi didn’t figure on heading into September.

One, was Chris Jackson leaving to play football.

Jackson, who was a reserve guard last year, decided to quit after last season and pursue football.

“There’s not much you can do about that,” Masi said. “He felt he wanted play Division I, and that he could in football. His twin brother (Ray) plays for Washington State, so he felt he could.”

As a sophomore last year, Jackson averaged 14 minutes and 3.2 points off the bench. Perhaps his best moment was in a victory over two-time national champion Cal State Bakersfield, when his late free throws helped ice the game.

There was a good chance that he would have been a starter because the job was open after Marcellus Smith graduated.

But Jackson wanted to play football, so he transferred to Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa.

As a receiver there, he caught 37 passes for 743 yards--that’s 20 yards a catch--and nine touchdowns. He set Orange Coast records by catching a 67-yard touchdown pass and by catching three touchdown passes in one game. He planned on playing basketball there as well, but he has not completed enough units to be eligible until January.

The other wrinkle Masi didn’t figure on was losing Darryle Flicking, a transfer guard from Riverside Community College.

Flicking set a state junior college record by scoring 1,991 points in his two seasons, and he averaged more than 29 points a game. Most reports were that he was good enough to play Division I basketball, so it was a nice bit of recruiting by Masi to keep Flicking in Riverside.

In the Highlanders’ first game of the season, Flicking scored 36 points in an easy victory over Cal Baptist. However, Masi was disappointed with Flicking’s shot selection--he made half of his 28 shots--and that was the beginning of the end.

Flicking quit the team in hopes of getting a release to transfer to another school.

In a written statement, Flicking said he and Masi disagreed about his role on the team and that he was hoping to redshirt this season and transfer. Masi agreed that Flicking had different ideas about his role on the team and has agreed to let Flicking transfer.

Masi now uses eight players for nearly equal minutes, and the team has a 6-2 record. No player on his team has cracked the conference top 10 in scoring and Boo Purdom, a small forward, leads the team in assists.

“With eight new players, and trying to play nine or 10 players, we have to be somewhat interchangeable,” Masi said. “We unquestionably have more good athletes to do so. But we need to be consistent.”

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It took awhile, but Claremont-Mudd has become the latest Southland football program to change coaches.

John Zinda, 55, who has been the Claremont-Mudd coach for 27 years, officially stepped down so that his assistant, Rick Candaele, could take over. Zinda will continue as athletic director.

Zinda had served the longest of any coach in any division among four-year colleges in California. His record is 93-131-4.

Two years ago, Claremont-Mudd’s football program was in jeopardy of being discontinued. Dwindling numbers of players and victories caused the Board of Trustees to call a meeting to examine the viability of the program. At one point the team had gone winless for 25 games and had only 27 players.

The result of the meeting was to increase funds and the size of the coaching staff to help turn things around.

Candaele, who was the head coach at UC Santa Barbara before that program was discontinued, was brought in as an offensive coordinator with the idea that he would eventually become the head coach.

His impact was immediate, but even more evident last season as the Stags were ranked third in the NCAA Division III passing offense (308.2 yards per game).

“This isn’t really a coaching change, but a transition,” Zinda said. “We planned this move for the past two years. Everybody--the players, the coaches, administration, parents--has known about the process and has worked to make it a smooth transition, which it has been.”

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College Division Notes

Vic Shealy has been named football coach at Azusa Pacific. It is the first head coaching job for Shealy, 33, who previously was defensive coordinator at Austin Peay. He succeeds the retiring Jim Milhon.

Cal Poly Pomona’s men’s basketball team is off to a 7-1 start, the best in school history. The previous best was 6-2 in 1963. . . . Pacific Christian College (9-6) is the nation’s top-ranked team in the National Christian Colleges Athletic Assn.

Several Southland football players were honored by the Don Hanson National Weekly Gazette, one of the few national publications that honors NCAA Division II and III programs. Sophomore wide receiver Mike Cook, who set records at Claremont-Mudd by catching 70 passes for 1,014 yards, Gary Giannoni, a senior defensive back for Redlands, and Tomek Mikler, a junior punter for Redlands, were named to the All-West Region first team. Senior quarterback John Shipp, who set a Claremont-Mudd record with 2,871 yards of total offense, was named to the second team. Shipp was the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s offensive player of the year, and Cook was an SCIAC first-team selection. Other Southland selections to the second team were offensive lineman Kelly Akridge and kicker Bill Hamlin of Chapman, and defensive lineman Mike Weiland and linebacker Brett Wixom of Redlands.