He’s Far and Away Above His Teammates Down Under : Basketball: Former SCC player Jeff Bickmore hasn’t gotten much help on the court in Australia. But he’s enjoying his days as the Gippsland Lakers’ leading scorer.

Usually Jeff Bickmore is one of the most easy-going players on the basketball court. But everyone has a breaking point.

For Bickmore, it came after three horrible passes--none of which came within five feet of him--from a teammate during a professional basketball game in Australia.

“He’s the worst passer I’ve ever seen,” Bickmore said. “He tries no-look passes that end up five feet over your head. The referee gave me a technical for yelling at my own player. That’s the only technical I’ve gotten in my whole life.”

So after four months playing professionally in Australia, Bickmore can point to at least one valuable lesson he has learned: Basketball isn’t the same Down Under.

There are, of course, the minor linguistic differences. Bickmore is now a 6-foot-8 centre , and his Gippsland Lakers don’t play games, they play matches.

But those pale in comparison to the gulf that separates playing for Southern California College in Costa Mesa and the Lakers in Traralgon, Victoria.

During the four seasons Bickmore started at SCC, the Vanguards won more than 75% of their games. In Australia, Bickmore’s team has won only once in 16 games. In his final three seasons at SCC, Bickmore averaged about 20 points and eight rebounds. For the Lakers, he’s averaging 42 points and 13 rebounds.

“It’s hard to get rebounds on our team because no one ever misses against us,” Bickmore sad, laughing.

Bickmore laughs easily now, but he really didn’t know what to expect when he joined the Lakers in April. Each team in the Continental Basketball Assn., Australia’s second-strongest professional league, is allowed two foreigners. The foreigners are supposed to score, and Bickmore had no idea what his competition would be like.

He got his answer soon enough. Playing his first game for Gippsland a day after a 24-hour trip to Australia, Bickmore had 31 points and 18 rebounds, despite a yawning case of jet lag.

Bickmore picked up the pace once he was rested and adjusted to the league. He had consecutive games of 59 and 58 points and now leads the CBA in scoring.

“I can’t really afford to have a bad game because if I have one we’re really going to be in trouble,” he said.

Bickmore said he and fellow American Woody Jones, who played at Palos Verdes High and Hawaii Pacific, are the Lakers’ only decent players. The Australians on the team, he said, are great guys to be around off the court but on the court they are inconsistent and inexperienced.

“We’ve lost a lot of close games,” Bickmore said. “We have a real young team, and our team’s really bad compared to the other teams in the league. A lot of times I’ll score 40-something of our 80 points.

“It’s not like I’m shooting a lot either. It’s just our guys aren’t very good.”

The coaching isn’t much better, Bickmore said.

“It’s hard because I never learn anything,” he said. “With (SCC) Coach (Bill) Reynolds, I learned something pretty much every day, because he’s such a good coach. But with my coach out here and the coaching staff, I feel like I’m teaching them all the time. They’re good guys, and they really try hard, but they just don’t have the basketball experience that we have in America.

“They just don’t know anything.”

But Bickmore isn’t complaining--too much. Although he is a bit frustrated that his team hasn’t been able to win more than one game, the experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I don’t have to work,” Bickmore said. “All I do is sit around and play basketball. It’s really an easy life, and it’s a lot of fun too.”

Traralgon is a town of about 18,000, about 90 miles from Melbourne in southeastern Australia. It is windy, rainy and cold this July winter. Bickmore, a dedicated beach-goer in warmer climate, hasn’t even been to the beach.

“There’s a beach probably about an hour and a half from here,” he said. “But it’s so cold, you wouldn’t even want to go down there.”

That means Bickmore, always among the tannest on the court at SCC, has lost that look.

“It’s gone. It’s completely gone,” he said. “I’m like an albino now. There’s just no sun.

“It’s not that bad, you just get used to it. Everyone laughs at me over here because I always wear shorts no matter how cold it is because that’s what I’m used to wearing. They’ll ask, ‘Isn’t it a little cold for that?’ and I’ll just tell them I don’t have any pants.”

Clothing and food are about the only things the team doesn’t offer Bickmore.

The Lakers provide the rent-free condominium that Bickmore shares with Jones, a car and pay for utilities and a membership to a health club.

Bickmore makes about $200 for the weekly Laker game and a similar amount for making appearances and giving clinics.

“There’s no other teams in our area, so we’re like the Los Angeles Lakers to them in a lot of ways,” Bickmore said. “When we do clinics, it’s a big deal and we have public appearances. Last night we had to go to a shopping center to sign autographs.”

He supplements his income by playing for a team in another league, making a two-hour drive to Melbourne once a week for an extra $200.

It’s hardly a lucrative way to make a living, but because of his individual success, Bickmore said he now has bargaining power for next season. Eight teams have already contacted him about playing next year, and he said he’ll make a decision before returning to Santa Ana in September.

Soon after he’ll start a student-teaching assignment, the final step toward his credential. Eventually he would like to coach, perhaps at the junior high level, but for now Australia suits him fine.

“I’m not sure how much longer I want to play here,” Bickmore said. “Next year at least. It’s kind of like an early retirement for me. I’m taking it while I’m young.”