Southland Has Shot in NAIA

The NAIA Division I men’s basketball tournament gets underway today at Tulsa, Okla., with a distinct Southern California flavor. Of the 32 teams, five are from California--that’s more than any other state--and four of those are from the Golden State Athletic Conference.

Azusa Pacific (26-5), Biola (27-7) and Westmont of Santa Barbara (26-5) spent much of the season ranked in the top 10. But all lost in the GSAC tournament earlier in March. The tournament title was won by 20-15 Concordia of Irvine, which then got the automatic berth. But the three others received at-large bids, and another Southland school, The Master’s College (21-12) won the Far West independent bid.

Azusa Coach Bill Odell, a tournament veteran, isn’t pleased with the way his team ended its season.

“At this point we were playing better basketball last year than this year,” said Odell, who has led his team to seven consecutive GSAC regular season titles and the national semifinal a year ago. “We won the GSAC tournament and we had momentum. We don’t this year.”

Biola Coach Dave Holmquist says his team’s loss in the conference tournament hurt its seeding.

Biola plays Lipscomb of Nashville (25-8) today at 10:30 a.m. The other California teams play Wednesday: Concordia against third-seeded Lindsey Wilson of Columbia, Ky., (29-4) at 10:30 a.m., 13th-seeded Westmont against St. Xavier of Chicago (26-9) at 12:15, The Master’s against fifth-seeded Georgia Southwestern of Americus, Ga., (30-3) at 2:30, and seventh-seeded Azusa Pacific against Edward Waters of Jacksonville, Fla., (24-8) at 4:15.

The Master’s and Southern California College also play in the women’s tournament at Jackson, Tenn. Southern California will meet Lipscomb on Wednesday and The Master’s will play Oklahoma Baptist on Thursday.

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At Louisville, Ky., Larry Reynolds will try to finish off Cal State San Bernardino’s dramatic turnaround with a Division II championship.

His team went 12-15 in his first season as head coach a year ago, but the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. coach of the year has led the Coyotes to a 23-7 record and the West Regional championship.

The Coyotes will play Florida Southern (27-7) in the round of eight Wednesday at 3.