THIS PAIR ENJOYING THEIR BLEACHER VIEW.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

They sat side by side in the front row of the shallow bleachers behind the scorer's table at the Northridge gym, he tall, high-browed and reserved, she tall, blond and bubbly.

She jumped to her feet for every ``Dee-fense'' chant, and rode the refs from the beginning, while he smiled quietly as Cal State Northridge pulled away from Weber State 91-74 in the semifinals of the Big Sky Conference tournament.

If you'd read about Northridge's run to within a weekend of the NCAA Tournament and wondered whether it really matters, you only had to watch and listen to Mark and Diana Cooley on Friday night. Think of them as the faces and voices of the university's basketball heritage.

``We are so thrilled,'' Diana said as she waited for the opening tipoff.

They might be speaking for everybody who ever spilled sweat on the hardwood floor in Room 140 of the Kineseology Building, the room better known as the Northridge gym, or the Matadome.

Thirty-five years ago now, in the days when the school was known as San Fernando Valley State College, the coach was named Jerry Ball and Division I basketball was a ridiculous dream, Mark Cooley was a high-scoring center and Diana Salzmann was a cheerleader.

``I was the pursuer,'' she said, smiling at her husband. ``The shorts were shorter in those days. He had great legs. The way the shorts are today, we never would have met.''

He played three seasons, 1964-65 through 1966-67, and when he graduated, he left his name all over the Matadors' record book, not bad for a guy who'd been the last man on the JV bench as a 10th grader at Monroe High in North Hills. When the 2000-2001 season began, he ranked in the school's top 10 in 14 statistical categories.

His 512 points as a senior, when he was all-conference in the CCAA, were the most in a single season by a Matadors center until Brian Heinle broke the record in February.

``I'm surprised it didn't happen a long time before that,'' said Cooley, who, despite his modesty, was inducted into the Matador Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985.

You see, Matadors basketball has a history.

Back when Cooley played - helping to lead Valley State to a school-record 90-point average and its first-ever winning record in 1964-65 - it was crazy to imagine its little gym hosting games as important as Friday's Big Sky semis and tonight's Northridge-Eastern Washington final, which will send one team to the NCAA Tournament.

And it was crazier at times during the three decades since then.

``It seemed like the athletic department was taking one step forward and two steps back,'' Mark Cooley said.

For 15 years, Mark and Diana were members of the university's athletic association board. Mark was part of a citizens' interview committee that reviewed candidates for the basketball head coaching job after Pete Cassidy's firing in 1996. Diana remembers him coming home one night talking excitedly about a candidate named Bobby Braswell.

``He said, `This is the guy I want to see hired,' '' she said.

Mark is an educator, in charge of bilingual education in the Azusa school district. Diana is a health teacher in Glendora, where they live. Both liked Braswell's balanced priorities.

``The other candidates just talked about recruiting and getting blue- chip players. Bobby talked about making sure the players got an education and built character in addition to winning and losing,'' Mark said. ``I think he's in the mold of John Wooden, who was an educator as well as a basketball coach.''

Braswell hasn't disappointed. Before their current 21-9 record, the Matadors' best finish was 10 games over .500 by Cooley's 1964-65 team and two others.

``For weeks, we'd call up the local (TV) stations, channel 2, 4 and 7, and tell them, `You forgot the Northridge score!' '' Diana Cooley said. ``To see them coming out here (to report on the Matadors' success) is very exciting.''

Until tonight, when the Matadors finally make live TV (6 p.m., ESPN2), seeing their games meant attending their games. The Cooleys were among the few dozen wearing red and black at Pauley Pavilion on the night last November when Northridge upset UCLA.

In Mark Cooley's day, the closest the Matadors got to the Bruins was when the Lew Alcindor-led UCLA freshman team visited the Northridge gym.

The big-league fans from UCLA and USC might tell you Northridge basketball is an insignificant speck. Friday's turnstile count, a not-quite-sellout 1,420, hardly bespoke a groundswell of local support. The closest thing to scalpers was a couple of Valley guys named Bob and John unloading spare tickets for $10 below the $35 face value.

But the proof that Northridge basketball matters was right there in the front row.

``You're still going to see exciting play (at a Matadors game),'' Diana said. ``You're going to see a team that plays together and isn't in it for financial reward. And you're close to the action.''

``And you're going to see a team that's capable of beating UCLA,'' Mark added with a smile reflecting 35 years worth of school pride.