Cassidy, Season Left Together : Basketball: Northridge has lost four consecutive games, ruining a promising season, since illness sidelined its coach.

As one diehard Cal State Northridge basketball fan noted Saturday night before the Matadors dropped their sixth consecutive game: “The season has really fallen apart for them, hasn’t it?”

Indeed, just six games ago Northridge was 7-11, entertaining hopes of finishing .500, and coming off its highest scoring effort in school history, 123 points in a win over U. S. International.

Now some have wondered if CSUN, with four games remaining, will win another game before its first Division I season ends March 5 at Cal.

It is difficult to measure the effects the absence of head Coach Pete Cassidy has had on the team, but it seems more than coincidental that the Matadors have not won since Cassidy went down with an intestinal condition four games ago, on Feb. 8.

Compounding matters is the rash of illnesses and injuries suffered by several key players during the losing streak.

Starting swingman Keith Gibbs, the team’s fourth-leading scorer, missed the second half of the Wisconsin-Milwaukee game and the USIU and Cal State Los Angeles games after suffering a fainting spell that required hospitalization. Gibbs is still undergoing tests and has not been cleared to play.

Reserve Dave Swanson missed the Boise State game with the flu and backup center Percy Fisher played the Wisconsin-Milwaukee game in a severely weakened condition because of the flu. Todd Bowser, the team’s second-leading scorer and rebounder, missed two games and saw limited time in two others because of a shoulder injury, and reserve David Keeter missed the CSLA game with a sprained ankle.

“Obviously, when we are playing, we don’t think about it,” Gibbs said. “Afterward we think, ‘What if we had coach and the guys who’ve been out?’ But those are excuses, and we can’t make excuses. We still have a few games to prove that we can still play. We’re a better team than we’ve shown.”

Team rebounding leader Shelton Boykin believes it is a psychological problem. “We just haven’t been able to cope without certain people,” he said.

Boykin misses Cassidy and is concerned about his health, but he doesn’t see much difference between the way Cassidy runs the team and that of assistant coach Tom McCollum, who is filling in for Cassidy.

“I don’t see them as head coach and assistant coach,” Boykin said. “I see them as 50-50. They work as a team. When Coach Cassidy was here, Tom McCollum had just as much input in practice. Coach Cassidy delegates authority. There’s no disrespect or loss of respect for Tom by anyone. I don’t see a difference in coaches, but obviously if Coach Cassidy was here the team would be a lot happier.”

Understandbly, McCollum is in a difficult situation. He is worried about Cassidy, a close friend, and under pressure to end the losing streak and help his team keep its spirits up.

“The kids have to keep understanding that regardless of what happens ,we still believe in them and we still love them,” McCollum said. “We know they get beat up at school, people say to them ‘You got beat by U. S. International?’

“They have to keep their heads up and say, ‘Yes’, and go on. We are keeping things normal. We believe we can win with these kids, it is just not a habit yet. The breakdowns hurt us and we need to shore up but we are not going to do it by changing things.”

If there is hope for the future, it is the continued improvement of freshman point guard Andre Chevalier and the emergence of freshman Martin Smith.

How confident are these freshmen? They took the pressure shots with time running out and the Matadors down by two Thursday against U. S. International. Granted, the pair missed the shots and three of the four ensuing foul shots, but it shows their growth in that they had the take-charge capabilities to take the pressure shots.

“They are super freshmen,” Boykin said. “They think they can take the game in their hands, but if they got the confidence to take the shot, they gotta hit the free throws. Later on down the line, it’ll be a good thing, they’ll have the experience.”