CSUN Transition Game Plagued by Heavy Turnover : College basketball: Departed players take some parting shots, but Coach Pete Cassidy defends the personnel changes as team gears up for Division I.

It is difficult enough on a shoestring budget to take a mediocre Division II basketball program to the Division I level.

The difference in talent can be demoralizing and an arduous schedule, such as the one Cal State Northridge faces--only 11 of 28 games will be played at home--can be difficult to overcome.

At Northridge, the obstacles are even greater because the program’s timing could not be worse. Since their final Division II game last February, the Matadors have lost eight players with eligibility remaining and two others are academically ineligible. CSUN will make its Division I debut Friday at Colorado.

The athletes recruited expressly for making the transition didn’t stick around to see it through. Forward Kendell McDaniels, the team’s second-leading scorer as a sophomore last season, transferred to Cal State Bakersfield. Bill Mazurie, the top freshman scorer, left for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Freshman center Shanan Rosenberg, academically ineligible last semester, transferred to Division II UC Davis and sophomore forward Sandy Brown switched to Occidental.

Senior starters Jemarl Baker and Eugene Humphrey and walk-on Andre Henry, all of whom were major contributors, left the program but remain students at Northridge, as does walk-on Brooklyn McLinn.

From the standpoint of the defectors, with the exception of Baker and Humphrey, the program is fraught with problems. From where 20th-year Coach Pete Cassidy sits, a housecleaning was inevitable.

“We’ll probably never have the turnover that we had last year and wouldn’t have if we didn’t go Division I,” Cassidy said. “You can’t gradually change 25% of your schedule, then 50%. If you upgrade the schedule, you have to upgrade your personnel. Any time you tell kids they don’t measure up to the standards, you are the bad guy. I tried very seriously to be fair.”

Although Cassidy attempted to recruit Division I-caliber players the past two seasons in anticipation of the move, he admits that he sometimes was not successful.

“You don’t really know about kids until after the first year,” Cassidy said. “The courtship that is recruiting goes only so far. The players are on their best behavior. I don’t think any coach knows a kid until they see them in a stress situation, day in and day out.”

Mazurie and Brown did not pass Cassidy’s stress test, but they were given more playing time than two players Cassidy retained, Erik Cooper and Kirk Scott. Henry and Rosenberg also played more than Cooper and Scott on a team that went 12-15 in its final Division II campaign.

“Some of the kids we didn’t invite back because we didn’t think they would make it,” Cassidy said, referring to Brown and Mazurie. “Others, I thought worked hard. Sometimes you say, maybe with hard work and commitment, they can be a Division I player.”

That was Cassidy’s thinking in the cases of Henry, McDaniels, Baker and Humphrey.

But Henry, a walk-on who started nine games last season, quit after learning that he would have to start over at the bottom of the depth chart. McDaniels didn’t take kindly to the treatment of Brown but didn’t make up his mind about quitting until Cassidy told him that he couldn’t afford to give him two weeks to consider it. Cassidy reasoned that he needed to recruit a replacement for McDaniels immediately. In the cases of Baker and Humphrey, he didn’t get the chance--they quit too late for him to get replacements.

Baker, the team’s third-leading scorer, decided in late September not to return because of family responsibilities. Humphrey, CSUN’s point guard, announced Nov. 6 that he was quitting to spend more time on his studies.

The turnover rate among personnel has taken its toll on a recruiting budget that has been limited from the outset.

“There’s a lot of players over the years that we lost because we didn’t have the financial wherewithal,” Cassidy said.

“We not only came in second and third to Division I schools, we lost to Division II schools as well. We are also under time restraints recruiting because we (the coaches) have to teach classes here as well.”

In the past three seasons, 16 players have lasted one year or less, requiring the CSUN staff to repeat the recruiting process more often. Instead of focusing on a few recruits each year, the Matador staff has had to restock with 11 players this season.

“Any time you have to recruit a bunch of guys in one year, it is going to be tough,” said Rusty Smith, a former assistant coach.

“Ideally, you recruit three to four guys a year, maybe one to two some years. Every now and then these things do happen.”

Another consequence of frequent turnover is the amount of practice time wasted on teaching skills to players who ultimately will not return. Wrongly assessing these players is not limited to talent and potential.

During the early signing period last fall, Cassidy signed two players to national letters of intent, Dorian Manigo of Riordan High in the Bay Area and Mark Wilkinson of Foothill High in Orange County, who did not qualify academically under Proposition 48.

Another signee, Troy LeBlanc, did not receive his associate of arts degree from Skyline College and could not enroll at CSUN.

Cassidy is concerned about the situation, but he won’t invoke a rule that potential recruits have to pass the Scholastic Aptitude Test or the American College Test before he signs them to scholarships. He fears he would lose the chance to sign too many outstanding players. “Most kids haven’t taken the test yet (by the Nov. 14-21 early signing period) or if they have, they don’t have the results back,” Cassidy said.

As for the players who are academically ineligible this semester, Cooper and Percy Fisher, and the pair that were in that situation last season, Scott and Rosenberg, Cassidy insists that his new staff members, assistants Tom McCollum and Wayne Fluker, must be more discriminating. “We can’t let guys in who are marginal,” he said. “We have to make sure they have a better chance.”

Sandy Brown fits into the Loyola Marymount-style offense CSUN is employing this season, but that is not what Cassidy wanted a year ago.

“I didn’t fit into the system, the eight-passes-before-a-shot rule,” said Brown, who averaged five points a game as a reserve.

“The type of team we had was a bunch of greyhounds, a run-and-gun type that could move up the court, but (Cassidy) wanted a slow tempo. Almost the whole team had trouble adjusting to that pace. You had to play with a feeling of restraint.”

To the players, it is restraint, to Cassidy, it’s discipline.

“The 5-7-8 passes were (practice) drills,” Cassidy said. “We had to have discipline to run the offense, especially a motion offense. Even in the games I didn’t want outside shots some times.”

In a meeting with Cassidy, Brown was told that the staff was recruiting players with abilities that were superior to Brown’s.

“It was kind of insulting,” Brown said. “He said I hadn’t developed into his type of player. I admit I wasn’t going to pass the ball every time I touched it; I am a scorer. It could be defense; I have lazy days in practice, but I kid you not--in games I would play defense.”

Another shortcoming was Brown’s reedy 6-6 and 160-pound frame.

“I didn’t gain enough weight and I didn’t get as strong as he expected me to get,” said Brown, who Cassidy characterized as “unwilling” to work out with weights.

From the beginning, Brown had difficulty communicating with Cassidy.

“Cassidy doesn’t talk to recruits,” Brown said. “He lets the assistants recruit. I saw him only once before I signed. A couple guys joked about it, how he doesn’t do the recruiting. It’s like looking at a book. The book looks interesting, but when you open it, it is boring.”

Smith, the team’s top recruiter until June when he accepted a similar position at Eastern Washington, claims that Cassidy’s style is not unusual. “Every program does it differently.” Smith said. “Some head coaches are involved a little more than others.”

On trips, Brown said he only saw Cassidy just before the games.

“An assistant coach came to your room and talked to you and laughed, but not the head coach,” Brown said. “We had quite a few team meetings, though. You were allowed to speak up, but he (Cassidy) was stubborn. Nothing anyone tells him would change his mind.”

Cassidy acknowledges that he doesn’t get close to his players, but he believes that is the role of a head coach. “When you are the head guy, players are less apt to come to you with their problems and concerns,” the 56-year-old coach said. “They go to an assistant to buffer that. The head coach seems to be put up there. I don’t think he puts himself up there.

“The age difference doesn’t mean I can’t help them, but do you think I’m going to hang out with them? I don’t think so. I want them with their peers. I have three children. When they have a party at the house, they don’t want mom and pop around.”

Mazurie, another player who clashed with Cassidy, found himself in much the same situation as Brown during the recruiting process. “I never really talked to (Cassidy),” the 1989 graduate of Capistrano Valley High said.

“I dealt with Coach Smith and Coach (former assistant Dave) Fehte. But it didn’t matter. How do you know a coach until you are in practice? It is like a crap-shoot.”

A reserve, Mazurie averaged 7.3 points and two assists a game. He was on a short leash, however. On several occasions, he was yanked out of the lineup after his first mistake.

Smith thought enough of Mazurie, however, to recruit him to Eastern Washington, but Mazurie chose San Luis Obispo to stay closer to home.

In terms of scoring, McDaniels’ loss was the greatest. He averaged 11 points, second-best on the team behind Derrick Gathers, whose eligibility ran out.

“The last two seasons we were walking in place,” McDaniels said. “The program wasn’t going in any direction. Then Sandy Brown, my best friend, got cut so I didn’t want to play. I wasn’t going to play at all, but the Bakersfield coaches said I could go there.”

It wasn’t easy leaving.

“That was my home and I was comfortable there academically,” said McDaniels, a graduate of Chatsworth High. “Coach Cassidy told me he’d like to have me, but if I wanted to go, he wouldn’t stop me. Coach Smith wanted me to stay, for what reason I don’t know because he was leaving.”

At 6-foot-8 and 235 pounds, Rosenberg gave the Matadors the size they desperately needed. But instead of posting up for CSUN for four years, Rosenberg is toiling at UC Davis.

“I was unhappy, but I don’t really think it was the methods or the coaches,” Rosenberg said. “I believe there wasn’t a proper amount of respect between the players as a group and the coach. It is nothing against him. I like Coach Cassidy. A lot of it was (lack of) chemistry. It wasn’t working out too well. All the guys got along, but I don’t think we were really brought together as a family. There was the players and there was the head coach and when it came time to play basketball, then we were together.”

While Rosenberg’s loss was softened by the return of 6-7, 300-pound center Todd Bowser, Henry’s absence is critical in light of Humphrey’s departure.

“I left because I wasn’t going to be given an opportunity to play, even though I was playing well,” said Henry, who guided the team to six of its 12 wins in a starting role. “I hadn’t decided to quit until (Cassidy) told me I’d be starting from the bottom,” Henry said.

“I never had a problem with (Cassidy). I got along with him. But he is not a motivator. He motivates by threatening you that you are not going to play.”

Another factor was Cassidy’s decision not to give Henry scholarship money.

“In Division I, if you give a guy a dollar that counts as a scholarship used,” said Cassidy, who is limited to 15 players on scholarship but has funds for only 10. “In my opinion, I couldn’t afford to do that. I’m sure he’s upset but I felt I had to do it.”

McLinn too is still attending CSUN.

“There are a lot of rumors that (Cassidy) is not supposed to be coach next year,” said McLinn, a sophomore from Taft High. “I felt I would sit out a year and see what happens. If he is still the coach, maybe I’ll transfer; if there is a new coach, I’ll try out.”

Two-time all-conference forward Pat Bolden, who played from 1984-88, had no problems with Cassidy, but that wasn’t the case with the rest of the team. “People had a hard time learning his system and they griped about (lack of) playing time,” said Bolden, who is trying out for the Omaha Racers of the Continental Basketball Assn.

“A lot of it had to do with his substitution pattern. We had some players that were a little more athletic on the bench and maybe some of them deserved to be on the court, but Cassidy wants you to think and he demands a specific role from each guy. He might start a role player over someone with more athletic ability.”

Bolden also pointed out that Cassidy’s offensive style didn’t jibe with those of some players.

“Sometimes it was 10 passes before you could shoot it,” Bolden said. “If you came from a running program, that was a tough transition.”

The Matadors went 20-10 and won the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. title in Bolden’s freshman year. “We had excellent chemistry,” he said. “Not just in practice. We were friends. We played ball with each other all the time.”

The Matadors would finish no higher than fourth in the conference during their stay in Division II.

James Carr, a reserve from 1985-87, enjoyed an amicable relationship with Cassidy and contends that many of his teammates did not have a realistic view of their abilities. His criticism is limited to a belief that Cassidy harnessed Bolden and that Cassidy should have been more involved with recruiting. “A lot of guys came here expecting something and they got a controlled style that they didn’t like,” Carr said.

By the same token, those players could have investigated the program more closely before signing their national letter of intent. “I explained that we were a medium-tempo team,” Smith said. “We tried to run, if the shot wasn’t there, we worked it around.”

Cassidy says the backlash is natural.

“I don’t always say yes when they walk through this door,” he said. “They come in for playing time and more (scholarship) money.

“My hands are tied (financially) and I can’t always help them. Naturally, they are bitter and say you can’t communicate. I have a hard time dealing with lazy, self-centered players who don’t pay attention. So you become like a parent scolding them when they don’t fulfill their potential. Naturally, I’m labeled a bad guy. But I hold no bitterness toward them. They are too young to hold bitterness toward.”

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE BASKETBALL EXODUS Brooklyn McLinn: Guard Sophomore: Not Playing McLinn (6-foot, 150 pounds) played in eight games as a walk-on for the Matadors last season and scored only four points. He still attends school at Northridge but says he will not try out for basketball again unless a coaching change is made. Andre Henry: Guard Junior: Not Playing Henry (6-0, 145) appeared in 20 games and started nine at the point guard position last season. He played well when Eugene Humphrey, CSUN’s starter, was sidelined because of an injury, but by the end of the season Henry’s playing time had dramatically diminished. He averaged 1.5 points and 2.2 assists a game. Jemarl Baker: Guard Senior: Not Playing Baker (6-2, 165) started all but one game for the Matadors last season and led the team in scoring twice. He was third on the team in scoring with an average of 9.1 points a game. The two-year starter was among CSUN’s best defensive players. He decided in September not to return because of family responsibilities. Kendell McDaniels: Forward Junior: Bakersfield McDaniels (6-4, 210) was the top scorer among players who were supposed to return. He led the Matadors in scoring six times and averaged 11 points and 6.4 rebounds while shooting 54.3%. McDaniels left CSUN after becoming disenchanted with the coaching staff’s treatment of his friend and teammate, Sandy Brown. Bill Mazurie: Swingman Sophomore: San Luis Obispo Mazurie (6-2, 175) played in all 27 games last season. He led CSUN freshmen with a scoring average of 7.3 and was fourth on the team in assists (58) and steals (20). After the season, Mazurie was encouraged by CSUN coaches not to return and he transferred to Division II Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Eugene Humphrey: Guard Senior: Not Playing The starting point guard last season, Humphrey (6-0, 162) left CSUN on Nov. 6 to spend more time on academics. He averaged 6.9 points, led the team with 73 assists and was CSUN’s best free-throw shooter, making 38 of 44. The loss of Humphrey forced Keith Gibbs to move from shooting guard to point guard. Sandy Brown: Swingman Junior: Occidental Brown (6-6, 160) appeared in all but one of CSUN’s games last season and started three games. He averaged 5.3 points and two rebounds. Brown transferred to Division III Occidental College after being told by CSUN Coach Pete Cassidy that his skills were inferior to those of players Northridge was recruiting. Shanan Rosenberg: Center Sophomore: UC Davis Rosenberg (6-8, 235) played in 16 games last season. After averaging 3.1 points and 1.8 rebounds in limited appearances, he missed the second semester because of academic ineligibility. Rosenberg claimed that Northridge players and coaches lacked mutual respect.