Cal State's Reichel signs with IBL team

Cal State San Bernardino senior David Reichel has signed with the Los Angeles Lightning of the International Basketball League which plays through June.

The IBL is made up of  teams from the Midwest and West Coast along with teams from China, Canada and The Netherlands. The league is a showcase for professional leagues overseas as well the NBA, ABA and other domestic pro circuits.

The Lightning plays its home games at Cal Lutheran in Thousand Oaks, just a few miles from Reichel’s home in Camarillo where he played his high school ball and one year at nearby The Master’s College before coming to CSUSB.

The 6-8 Reichel scored six points in eight minutes of action in Saturday’s game against Battle Creek, Mich.

Two veteran NBA players are the marquee players for the Lightning – 11-year NBA veteran Lamond Murray and Fred Vinson, most recently an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Clippers. Murray was a first-round draft pick of the Clippers and also played for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Denver Nuggets.

“This is an opportunity for me to show what I can do and hope I can sign a contract with an international team in Europe, Australia or Asia,” said Reichel, who will get his bachelor’s degree in business from CSUSB in June.

He said the IBL has a 50 percent success rate of placing players with pro teams at higher levels and overseas.

Asked about the quality of play in the IBL compared to NCAA Division II, Reichel said, “Everyone is not that much quicker, but they are much stronger and the veterans know all the tricks of the trade.”

Reichel had an outstanding year for the Coyotes in 2006-07, averaging  5.6 points a game in 32 games, helping CSUSB post a 26-6 record and win the NCAA Div. II West Regional. The team made the Elite Eight for the third time in the history of the program and became the first to advance to the Final Four, beating Wingate 100-73 in the quarterfinals.

He averaged 14 minutes per game, shot 54 percent from the field and set a new all-time single-season record by hitting 50 percent of his three-pointers (39 of 78) in 2006-07.

His senior season was marred by a thumb injury that forced him to miss six games and affected his shooting and playing time. He averaged 5.1 points per game but shot only 36 percent from the field. Still, he averaged 15 minutes per game for a team that won a CCAA conference co-championship.

Reichel’s best performance of 2007-08 was a career-high, 17-point outing against Kentucky Wesleyan in early November in the Disney West Coast Classic. He averaged 7.4 points a game before being hurt during the Christmas break. He scored 11 points against Humboldt State in CSUSB’s 82-73 win on Jan. 26 and grabbed a career-high eight rebounds against UC San Diego in the CCAA tournament quarterfinals on March 4.

The Lightning is owned and managed by Mark Harwell, a television and film executive. The head coach is Ron Quarterman, former coach at L.A. Pierce College and an assistant with the L.A. Aftershock of the ABA.

The IBL teams include Bellingham, WA., Snohomish County, WA., Vancouver, WA.,, Portland, Ore., Tacoma, WA., Central Oregon, Las Vegas, NV., Elgin, Ill., Elkhart, Ind., Chicago, Grand Rapids, Mich, and three international teams – Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Shanxi, China; and Holland.

The Lightning play most of their games at home at CLU, but will be traveling to Las Vegas, Chicago, Indiana and Michigan for games. The team is in the Southwest Division of the IBL along with Central Oregon, Portland, China and Las Vegas. The IBL is adding seven more teams in 2009, according to its website.