Uneasy Rider for Cal Lutheran

Rich Rider, men’s basketball coach at Cal Lutheran, has one favor to ask of the team’s fans and opponents: Don’t judge the Kingsmen until mid-January.

Hit hard by graduation and with two projected starters out due to hand injuries, Cal Lutheran will open its third season under Rider in the Menlo College tournament Friday with a rotation that goes only seven or eight deep and a starting lineup that includes only one returnee.

“I really like our guys and I really like this team,” Rider said. “But we’re inexperienced and injured. That’s like combining gasoline and matches. It’s not a good combination.”

Nonetheless, it’s what Rider will have to work with for the first couple of weeks until senior swingman Brian Capella and junior point guard Johnny Allen return.

The 6-foot-5 Capella averaged 6.3 points and 4.1 rebounds coming off the bench for the Kingsmen (19-6) last season and the 5-9 Allen led Cochise (Ariz.) junior college in assists and steals.

Mike McGill, a 6-7 sophomore, will replace Capella in the starting lineup and Chris Dunbar, a 6-foot senior, will step in for Allen.

Dunbar, Capella and starter Andy Saint are the only returning players who were part of Cal Lutheran’s nine-man rotation at the end of last season.

Saint, a 6-6 senior forward-center, averaged 7.9 points and 7.3 rebounds as a junior and will be expected to score more this season.

Rounding out the starting lineup will be guard Chris Whitfield, a 6-foot sophomore who was a high school teammate of Allen at Buena High in Sierra Vista, Ariz., and Mike Dulaney, a 6-4 forward. They’ll temporarily occupy the spots vacated by McGill and Dunbar.

“There’s no doubt we’re inexperienced,” Rider said. “We’re going to be starting [three sophomores].”

The help off the bench will also be new.

Senior guard Chad Dueker played sparingly for the Kingsmen last season.

Bill Bedgood, from College of the Canyons, and Michael Salser, who went to Antelope Valley College, are 6-6 junior swingmen on the front line.

The lack of bodies, at least by Cal Lutheran standards, means the Kingsmen will play less man-to-man full-court defense and more zone in the first few weeks of the season.

“With fewer people to rotate, we can’t pressure as much and we won’t be able to run as much on offense,” Rider said. “We’ll have to pick our spots.”

If there’s a positive, it’s that Southern California Athletic Conference play doesn’t start until Jan. 9.

The Kingsmen, second in the SCIAC with an 11-3 record last season, should be at full strength by then and will have been playing together for about a month, a fact not lost on the folksy Rider.

“Right now, we’re still wearing the name tags from our get-acquainted party,” he said.