MATADOR WOMEN HOLD UP HEADS; PLAYERS RELISH NEWFOUND SUCCESS.

Byline: RIZZA YAP Women's Basketball 

On Monday, the first day of spring semester for Cal State Northridge, Tannea Nelson received compliments - for the first time ever - on the women's basketball team she has been part of for four years.

Before that day, before this season, Nelson said she would walk around campus hoping nobody would ask her about her games. Now she welcomes feedback. Now the feedback is positive.

Sarah Bell - also a four-year letter-winner on the Northridge squad - remembers campaigning for fan support, asking people to attend the games. Lately students have approached her with unsolicited promises to watch the team play.

And there was a time when Tammie Mills would come home crying after a game, frustrated about another defeat. Sometimes she would even lose sleep. Today, Mills goes home celebrating. Because at 9-8, 5-2, the Matadors already have more than doubled the number of wins they collected during the 1996-97 season. It is four more than the year before. Eight more than the year before that.

In what appears to have been an overnight about-face, the Northridge women's basketball team is finally turning heads. The Matadors are one game from completing the first round of conference action and have suffered just two Big Sky Conference losses, to defending champion Montana and a heartbreaking defeat to struggling Idaho State. After a 4-23, 2-14 finish last year, Big Sky coaches in an October preseason poll picked the Matadors to finish seventh among nine teams. Media members predicted they would end up second to last. Northridge entered this week in third place.

``It's too good now,'' Nelson said with a shy laugh. ``It seems like I've always been waiting for this. When you're winning, everything changes. You walk around campus feeling better. We're going into every game with confidence, knowing we can actually come out with a win. Before, you kind of get used to losing. It was a terrible feeling going into every game knowing you're going to give it your all but that there are still pieces missing.''

More work has to be done. Nine games remain in the Matadors schedule, five of them on the road. But the team believes the missing pieces have been found. Seniors Mills, Bell and Nelson provide experience. Newcomers Myesha Saleem and Viveca Lof, and a freshman phenom named Edniesha Curry offer a new look.

Curry, a local talent from Palmdale, leads the Big Sky in scoring (16 points per game), in 3-point field goals (2.8 per game), in steals (tied at 2.4 per game) and ranks fourth in assists (4.4 per game). At the point guard position, she brings the kind of cool leadership on the floor that easily earns trust and confidence. If there's one thing the Matadors know, it is that Curry will come through.

``She unfailingly has made every big play we've needed at the end of a game,'' three-year Northridge coach Michael Abraham said. ``It is so rare that a freshman is so dominant this soon in her career.''

Unfortunately, Curry is the only Matador who consistently scores in double figures. Nelson entered the week averaging 8.4 points per contest, while Mills and Lof score 6.6 per game.

``It's tremendously scary,'' Abraham said. ``It's hard for Eddie to carry the team on her shoulders all the time. On a given day, one or two will step up along with Edniesha, but the group doesn't step up as a whole. That's what separates us from a Montana.''

Until that line of distinction can be erased, however, Northridge will settle for what it's got. And whereas the team would have been appeased by aiming for a .500 record last season, the Matadors this year are after a loftier goal - the Big Sky Conference title. That means defeating undefeated Montana. It means edging Northern Arizona, second place in the Big Sky, in Saturday's game at the Northridge gym. (And doing it again Feb. 26. on the road). It means avenging their 10-point loss to Idaho State and winning all of their road games.

``I don't know if this season will continue as well as it started, but I think we've already proven that we're a whole new team,'' Abraham said. ``The way this program is perceived now is the best reward. Before, (players) weren't sure they wanted to claim this as being part of their makeup, they weren't ready to say they're part of Northridge women's basketball.

``I feel like a proud papa. It's the excitement of new parenthood. That's what this feels like.''

GAME OF THE WEEK

Northern Arizona at Cal State Northridge

Saturday, 7:05 p.m.

The Matadors (9-8, 5-2) are looking to move up from third place in the Big Sky and into a second-place tie with the Lumberjacks (12-5, 6-1).

For CSUN: Freshman Edniesha Curry leads the team in scoring, entering the week averaging 16 points per game. Senior forward Tannea Nelson averages a team-best 5.1 rebounds per game.

For Northern Arizona: Four of five starters are scoring in double figures, paced by 13.5 ppg from forward Marisa von Bromssen.

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Box

BOX: GAME OF THE WEEK (see text)