Braswell Sharpens Focus on Big Plans

Bobby Braswell has done a lot of little things in his first season as the Cal State Northridge basketball coach--and talked about a lot of big things.

New uniforms? Done. New attitude? Done. New style? Done.

A packed Matador Gym? A winning team? The NCAA tournament?

Well, got to save something for 1997. More specifically, the 1997-98 season.

That will be when three players who have come to the program since Braswell’s hiring and his five recruits finally will be able to play.

It finally will be his team, which he hopes will carry Northridge (4-5 this season) to the level he envisioned when he took the job in May.

“If we start making it to the NCAA tournament, I think this place will explode in ways that we don’t understand,” Braswell said. “If you make it to the NCAA tournament a few times, then all of the sudden you have a crowd problem. All of the sudden you can’t put people in the place and then you’ve got to build a new arena. That’s one of the problems I’m hoping to cause here.”

Braswell, a former assistant at Long Beach State, would like to see Northridge’s basketball program grow the way Long Beach’s has. The 49ers became so succesful that their tiny campus gym couldn’t hold the crowds, so the $22-million, 5,000-seat Pyramid was built.

But winning basketball will have to come first. And several of the pieces for a good team won’t join the Matadors until next season.

Freshman forward Jeff Parris, who was Braswell’s first signee last May, has been declared ineligible by the NCAA.

Forward Mike O’Quinn, from Loyola Marymount, and guard Greg Minor, from South Plains College in Texas, transferred to Northridge after Braswell’s hiring. They are sitting out this season in compliance with NCAA transfer rules.

All three would be playing significant roles--and perhaps starting--if they were eligible this season.

Braswell also signed five high school players--a recruiting class one observer said was the best in the Big Sky Conference.

“I don’t think people should expect too much or be too crazy because we will be very young, but we will have some guys--Greg Minor and Mike O’Quinn--who can score in bundles,” Braswell said.

“I believe that we are going to be a better basketball team next year. It’s my goal that every year we become a better team than we are now.”