COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA TOURNAMENT: THE FIRST ROUND : No Limelight for Lucious : Harris Keeps a Low Profile While Leading CS Long Beach

For all he has meant to basketball at Cal State Long Beach the last four years, guard Lucious Harris’ milestones have taken place rather quietly.

Which is appropriate because Harris is quiet himself.

When he scored 24 points Jan. 25 at Kansas to become Long Beach’s all-time scoring leader, he was overshadowed by the attention the 49ers got for upsetting the then-No. 1 team, 64-49. “It’s a shame he couldn’t do that at home,” Coach Seth Greenberg said.

When Harris became the all-time scoring leader in the Big West Conference on Feb. 26 against Cal State Northridge, he was barely noticed because the 49ers were upset by the Matadors, 81-78.

When he scored 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds in a 70-62 victory Sunday over New Mexico State in the title game of the Big West Conference tournament and was named the event’s most valuable player, the celebration instead centered on the 49ers’ gaining their first berth in the NCAA tournament since 1977.

Some would growl about the lack of attention, but Harris, who leads the 49ers into today’s NCAA West Regional opener against Illinois at the University of Utah, does not. A solitary man with a passion for raising small birds, Harris usually lets his play--or others--do the talking.

He averages 23 points and shoots 41% from three-point range. At 6 feet 5, he is expected to be selected in the middle of the first round of the NBA draft.

“He’s just so good,” former Nevada coach Len Stevens said after Harris scored 34 points, grabbed four rebounds and had six assists against his team in January. Stevens, who has since been fired, added: “We don’t match up with him at all. He’s too tall for our quick guys and too fast for our big guys.”

Getting Harris to talk about himself isn’t easy. Though cordial and polite, he is guarded about his personal life. For example, Harris eschews living in dorms like most of his teammates and, instead, commutes to Long Beach from the South-Central Los Angeles home he shares with two sisters.

“Lucious is just kind of quiet,” said guard Jeff Rogers, Harris’ roommate on the road. “Some people might take that to mean he’s stuck-up because they don’t know him. But he’s not. He’s a good guy.”

To know more about Harris, you often have to ask others. Cal State Fullerton Coach Brad Holland told USA Today that Harris “plays like a pro in a college uniform. He doesn’t have a weakness. He’s multitalented and is one of the main reasons why Long Beach State is where they are right now.”

Said New Mexico State Coach Neil McCarthy: “It’s awfully hard to play man-to-man (with Long Beach) because we don’t match up well with Lucious Harris. But who does?”

From teammate Chris Tower: “Lucious is just amazing. He’s so smooth and he does so many things in a game. Scoring is a big aspect of his game, but he also rebounds and passes and creates so many things for us.”

The area around Avalon Boulevard and 105th Street is a tough neighborhood. As an 11-year-old, Harris preferred baseball to the streets, but a beaning caused him to think otherwise.

Someone suggested to the lanky youngster that he try basketball, but Harris chose to lock himself up in his home and raise birds, hundreds at a time. He’d sit in a chair for hours and listen to them chirp and whistle. It was a way to escape.

The homeboys dubbed him “Birdman.”

“In our neighborhood, you do what you have to do to survive. You either get into sports or you just don’t come outside,” said Derrick Cooper, coach of the L.A. Warriors park team that Harris eventually joined.

When Harris did go to the playground, he could dunk with the best in the neighborhood, but, Cooper said, “he just didn’t show an interest in basketball.”

Nancy Johnson, Harris’ mother, sent all eight of her children to schools in the San Fernando Valley. Harris attended Northridge Junior High. By then he was 6-3 and a hit as a basketball player in gym class, but he wasn’t on the school team. The long bus ride to and from school held him back from organized sports.

About this time, Bobby Braswell, the coach at Cleveland High in Reseda, had heard about Harris and approached him about playing basketball. Harris declined, but in the fall of 1986 he had a change of heart, and Braswell assigned him to the junior varsity team.

“He missed a lot of practices and still wasn’t real committed to playing,” said Braswell, who later became an assistant at Long Beach and is now an assistant at Oregon. “He had his pet birds in his garage. He would buy them and sell them. He was more interested in them than he was in playing basketball.”

Braswell almost kicked Harris out of the gym. But before the start of his junior year, Harris agreed to play on a summer team with other potential Cleveland players. When fall practice began, Braswell was shocked.

“He clearly stood out among the rest of the guys,” Braswell said. “He just didn’t know how good he was.”

Harris was persuaded by Greenberg, then an assistant to Joe Harrington, to come to Long Beach.

Greenberg thought he had a great prospect, but Harrington, now at Colorado, wasn’t sure. He told Greenberg that his job would be in jeopardy if Harris didn’t pan out, Greenberg said.

In his freshman season, Harris averaged 14.3 points and 4.3 rebounds. He was named the 1990 Big West freshman of the year.

Greenberg took over the next season and moved Harris, a natural off-guard, to the point. Harris averaged 19.7 points but was slowed by a groin injury late in the season. Long Beach, a team of high expectations, finished 11-17.

Last season, Harris averaged 18.8 points and improved on defense as he led the 49ers to an 18-12 record and a National Invitation Tournament appearance.

This season, scouts flocked to watch Harris, an all-Big West selection. Through it all, Harris has remained unruffled.

But in Sunday’s victory over New Mexico State, ridden unmercifully by an Aggie fan at courtside, Harris spoke out.

He responded throughout the game, smiling and gesturing at the spectator.

When the game ended, Harris held a large, hand-lettered sign so the fan could read, “NCAA Here We Come.”

“Usually, I never talk back like that,” Harris said. “I’m a quiet person.”

But not on the basketball court.