csun hirings

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SoCalHoops Recruiting News

CSUN's Braswell Hires Shon Tarver,
Danny Sprinkle As Assistants--(Sept. 2, 2000)

Cal State Northridge's website has changed recently to reflect the addition of two new coaches, and the mysterious disappearance of one of their current assistants. We're talking about the hiring by Bobby Braswell of former Santa Clara HS and UCLA standout Shon Tarver, and former Montana State scoring leader Danny Sprinkle, as assistant coaches at CSUN, and the absence from the site of any mention of Eric Brown, who has been an assistant coach for the past few years. We've searched around for some sort of official press release on the subject but can't find one anywhere which mentions either the hirings of Tarver and Sprinkle, nor one which mentions whether Brown has moved on or just been kidnapped and is being held for ransom over at the Pump's house in Chatsworth. . . (hey, that's a joke). We suspect that there will be some official pronouncement though in the next few days on both subject (the hirings and where Eric Brown is, not a kidnapping. . . again, that's just a joke :^) ).

Tarver, a 27 year old 6'-6" guard, was a four year starter at UCLA on a teams which produced 10 NBA players and one National Championship (unfortunately the title came after he was gone). He was standout player at Santa Clara HS who was recruited widely and wound up at UCLA from 1990-94 where he averaged 12.2 ppg (17.4 his junior season), and 2.3 apg. Shon was a flexible player, able to play the 2, 3 or 4, and he did just that at UCLA, in the CBA, in France and for various NBA teams as a spot player. Tarver was drafted in the 6th round of the 1994 USBL draft (No. 49 overall). In 1995-96 he played for Shreveport of the CBA where he averaged 11 ppg, 4.5 rpg, and 6 apg. He was later traded to Yakima's CBA team, and then went to France where he played for the team from Tours. In 1996-97 he again played for Tours and had an amazing season, averaging 24.2 ppg, 4.7 rpg, and 3.2 apg. In 1997-98 he played in Japan for a team from Osaka, known as "Hitachi Helios", aand from 98-99 he was with the Panasonic team. He played with Sacramento most recently during the summer of 1999, and then wound up again playing in France, for the Nantes pro team in the European A league. Tarver is married.

Sprinkle, also comes to CSUN with some pretty substantial travel activity, and he's someone who CSUN has had plenty of time to get to know since he plyed with Northridge's Big Sky rival Montana State from 1995-1999, where he was a four year starter and one of the more prolific scorers on some of the Montana State teams (along with Damon Ollie). During one memorable game in 1998 against hapless Sacramento State, Sprinkle scored a career-high 37 points, including a school record nine 3-pointers, to lead Montana State to an 80-43 victory. During that game, Montana State attempted a team record 35 3-pointers and hit 13 of them, with Sprinkle going 9-for-15. He briefly tried out for a spot on an Italian team (Varese) last year, but evidently has now decided his future lies in coaching.

And wherever he is, the future of Eric Brown is no doubt bright. Really though, where he is going to coach is something that we just have no idea about right now. We will try to reach him, but again, we suspect we'll hear something definitive in the next day or two. But with the coaching merry-go-round that is still occurring (with Santa Barbara assistant John Wheeler taking Scott Beeton's job up at Cal when Beeton moved to the Albany head job), we're guessing that Eric will surface somewhere real soon. . . perhaps locally.