Ineligible Players to Sit Out Awhile

Two of the Cal State Northridge women’s basketball team’s recruits will not be able to play for the first month of the season, Coach Michael Abraham said.

Suzie Gyarfas, a 6-foot-7 center who had been playing club basketball in Israel, has not passed her Scholastic Assessment Test. Assuming she does--and Abraham said she was only 10 points short last time--she will be able to play after the first semester ends late in December.

Ice Lincoln, a 6-3 forward from Santa Monica College, is also caught in academic red tape. She has work to complete this fall at Santa Monica before she can be admitted to Northridge, also at the semester break.

Outright larceny: Jamilah Jones, a freshman guard from Bishop Montgomery High, has been among the most impressive players on the Northridge women’s basketball team during fall workouts.

“She has been an absolute complete steal for us,” Abraham said. “She’s really playing at a higher level. She should have been a Pac-10 player or a Southeast Conference player. I feel like a lot of Pac-10 schools missed the boat on her.”

Full-squad workouts begin Oct. 15 for the Matador men and women.

Down the middle: Pepperdine, splitting four games, finished seventh in the 11-team SoCal water polo tournament last weekend at Newport Harbor High in Newport Beach. The Waves (2-2) beat UC Santa Barbara and Air Force and lost to Stanford and top-ranked UCLA, the eventual champion. Todd King had six goals and Brian McAllister had five goals, including a two-pointer, for six points in the tournament for Pepperdine, which plays at Stanford on Friday and at California on Saturday.