Senior forward/center Gyno Pomare and sophomore forward Clinton Houston are practicing with the USD men's basketball team this week but their status of being on indefinite suspension remains unchanged, coach Bill Grier said yesterday.
Pomare, a returning All-West Coast Conference selection and preseason All-WCC choice, and Houston, a key front-line reserve, missed Saturday's 71-67 exhibition victory over Cal State Los Angeles for what was announced as “unrelated violations of team rules.”
Grier said yesterday that while the two are practicing he had no timetable for deciding upon possible reinstatement and that “indefinite” was still the appropriate word for the suspensions.
USD's 2008-09 season opener is Saturday at UNLV.
Grier, entering his second season as USD head coach, was compelled to discipline players on two occasions last year. Then-freshmen Rob Jones, Trumaine Johnson and Houston sat out the second game of the season for unspecified violations of team rules on a season-opening game trip that produced a victory at Hawaii.
Late in the season Jones, Pomare and guard Brandon Johnson were held out of the first 4:38 of a key WCC game at Saint Mary's (a loss) as the result of infractions in the wake of a victory at Santa Clara two days earlier.
The length of those suspensions indicated that the infractions were minor. Grier declined to comment when asked if the current cases were of similar severity and also was mum regarding the possibility of Pomare and/or Houston being reinstated in time for the season opener.
In Pomare's absence on Saturday, junior Roberto Mafra, a 6-9, 235-pound native of Brazil and community college transfer scored a team-high 21 points in the victory.
“I felt there were some positives that came out of it,” Grier said of the exhibition. “But I was disappointed in our lack of putting out the kind of effort needed, as a team, for any extended period of time.
“That's an area we have to show improvement in practice this week.”
Hank Wesch: (619) 293-1853; hank.wesch@uniontrib.com
