CSUN Proves to Be Master of Its Own Fate in 77-52 Win

Last summer, Los Angeles Baptist College changed its name to The Master’s College, in honor of you know Who.

In an effort to transform a religiously weak basketball program, school officials hired a new athletic director, John Zeller, who in turn hired a new basketball coach, Randy Stem. Both Zeller and Stem came from Tennessee Temple, a small Baptist college in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Master’s looked to Stem, who was an assistant at Tennessee Temple, which had averaged 27 wins over the last few years, to turn a 17-18 team (1-11 in NAIA District III) into a winner. It was high time, so the thinking went, that the Mustangs took a proper in-your-face stance.

Stem and the Mustangs were jammed Thursday night in Northridge, however, falling 77-52 to CSUN. It was the team’s 11th defeat in 11 games with CSUN. Master’s fell to 3-4, while Northridge improved its record to 3-2.

Before the season, Stem, who likes to quote Vince Lombardi, said he would not accept losing. At the same time, he admitted he’d have to put up with some of that in his first season.

“Overall, we don’t have many strengths,” he said. “We have no one outstanding player. We’re not quick and we’re not big.”

“We’ll glorify the Lord in our attempts,” said another Master’s official.

After surveying the situation, the only strength Stem could see was his defense.

“I stress defense,” the coach said. “When I played, we’d pull shorts, pull hair out of opponents’ legs, and sharpen our fingernails. Of course, that was before I was a Christian. . . .”

Religion aside, Stem said his team would play pressure, man-to-man defense. “We should develop defensively. I’ll be hard to get along with if we don’t.”

He’ll probably be hard to get along with this morning. His defense fell apart Thursday.

“We didn’t shoot well. We didn’t rebound well. We didn’t do anything well,” Stem said. “That was the sorriest excuse for a defense that I’ve ever seen. We just weren’t ready to play. I was very disappointed in our team.

“It was a physical game, the refs let them play and our guys backed off. If we keep playing like this, we’ll get beat a lot.”

Naturally, the CSUN players felt better about the game. Said guard Troy Dueker: “We finally played strong defense tonight. We still made too many mistakes offensively, but we set picks and ran the offense much better.”

Matador assistant coach Mark Felix ran the team tonight in the absence of Coach Pete Cassidy, who attended funeral services today for his father.

“We felt the last game we didn’t play well at all,” Felix said. “Tonight we played hard. We shot better. We’re running a January offense, it’ll take some time before we get it down.”

On this night, the Matadors had it down pat enough.

Stem screamed and slapped the floor with his hands trying to exhort his team back in the game after CSUN took a 15-point lead, 17-3, midway through the first half.

CSUN had kept Master’s off the scoreboard completely until the 16:23 mark when 6-7 center Kelly Byrd was fouled by Paul Hobus. Byrd hit one of two free throws. That made it 8-1.

Northridge then ran off a 10-2 spurt. It seemed the Matadors had finally found a team they could out-muscle, out-shoot, and, miracles, make fewer mistakes than.

In fact, for the first time this season, every CSUN player who dressed for the game, played--in the first 10 minutes.

Master’s came back. The Mustangs drew within five at 24-19, when forward Virgil Harraway tipped in a missed free throw.

This game was strange in that on occasions players for both teams made spectacular plays, and then turn around and make an unforced error.