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Show T-Birds to Meet California In Weekend Games Two formidable road opponents op-ponents and two opening weekend losses have tailed to iiaaipen the optimism at College Col-lege of Southern Utah over its oaKetbali team. The Thunderbirds meet California Cal-ifornia small college powers Fresno State and Cal Poly and Saturday at Fresno and San Luis Obispo. Opponents will be favored in botn games. "We need some work defen-, sively, and we need to smooth out our ball handling on our patterns," Coach Boyd Adams said in reviewing the 99-89 and 85-78 losses to Colorado Mines and previewing this week's contests. CSU has initiated a new of- j fense this season, and this is causing some of the team's problems. "Our bids haven't got their feet with this new offense, but we'll be a good team," Adams prophesied. Friday's battle with Fresno State will particularly be tough for the T-Birds. The Bulldogs have been California Collegiate Athletic Association champions for five of the last six years. Three starters Harry Ma-lone Ma-lone (6-0), Ron Riegel (6-6) and Bobby Joe Lee )6-3) and a first line reserve Vince demons (5-11) are back from last year's 17-9 team. Expected Ex-pected to start with the four veterans is Lucius Davis, a 6-4 forward who broke all Fresno State freshman scoring records last season, j CSU was burned a bit last ' week by the Speed of Colorado Colora-do Mines, but neither the Bul-dogs Bul-dogs nor Cal Poly should be as fast. "They are both big teams, but we think we'll be right in there," Adams said. Cal Poly's big weapon will be Mike LaRoche, a solid 6-5 forward who is a two-time CCAA choice. Last year he secored 550 points for an all scored 550 points for an all Two other regulars from last year, Guard Al Spencer (6-1) and forwad Le Rogers (6-5), give the Mustangs excellent experience. The three returnees return-ees averaged nearly 50 points last season. "Our probable starters for these games depend on who looks best in our drills," Adams said. T-Birds expected on the floor for the opening tip include John Carey (6-10), Larry Moore (6-7), Brent Turek (6-4), Paul Beck (6-0) and Kirt Robinson Ro-binson (5-10). Turek, Beck and Robinson are transfers who looked good enough in the opening games to probably earn starting berths. |