Randy Youngman is a former page 2 columnist with the Orange County Register
March 12 - Tigers Live to See Another Day
March 11 - Thomason Looks to Go Out with Championship
ANAHEIM – Sometimes, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Sometimes, it is more about desire, determination, inspiration and heart.
How else do you explain a 9-21 Cal State Fullerton basketball team that squeaked into the postseason tournament as the No. 8 seed suddenly riding an emotional wave all the way to the Big West Women’s Tournament semifinals?
How else do you explain a team with no players who achieved all-conference recognition – not even honorable mention – recording upsets on back-to-back nights to earn a shot against top-seeded Pacific on Friday afternoon at Honda Center?
Playing with emotion and passion in the memory of beloved CSF assistant coach Monica Quan, who was murdered outside her Irvine condo last month, has been very powerful for Marcia Foster’s Titans.
And somehow they channeled their grief into motivation – or “MOtivation,” as the wording on the front of their orange warm-up jerseys proclaims.
“Coach Mo,” that’s what they called Quan, and one of Winston Churchill’s quotes was etched in cursive lettering on the back of their warmups: “It is the courage to continue that counts.” Yes, it is how you handle despair that counts most.
And the Titans banded together with a purpose when postseason play began, first knocking off No. 5 seed Long Beach State and then No. 3 seed Hawaii, during the first two rounds at UCI’s Bren Center.
“The depth of sorrow that existed initially, especially the week after (and) the first two weeks after the tragedy with Monica, was so heavy,” Foster, the fourth-year Titans coach, said earlier this week. “It was just hard to function. The first week, I don’t know if many players went to class or anything.
“There’s going to be stuff that happens in your life and you have to keep moving forward. You don’t get to stop. You can stop for a second and grieve, and that’s what we did. And then we’ve just had so much (emotional) support, I think they relied heavily on one another. We’ve just stayed together. We’ve just bonded. There’s not a better way to honor Monica than to play our best basketball.”
And that’s what the Titans did this week. But how long could it last? Could the improbable happen again, against Pacific, the best team in the conference?
Fullerton quickly fell behind by 10 points, 14-4, in the first six minutes Saturday, so you wondered if the emotional well had run dry. They also missed 15 of their first 20 field-goal attempts. But they still didn’t quit and somehow pulled within four points at halftime.
Pacific noticed something was different.
“It felt like we played a completely different Fullerton team,” Pacific forward Kendall Rodriguez said afterward, alluding to 31- and 12-point wins over the Titans during the regular season. “They played with a lot of heart and motivation.”
And, of course, these Titans were a completely different team, a team unified and motivated by grief, one that battled valiantly to stay with the Big West champions the rest of the game. They tied it twice in the second half but fell behind by seven points, 46-39, with 5:40 left. But they rallied again, pulling within one point on a basket by Kathleen Iwuoha (season-high 15 points).
Time, however, appeared to be running out in this compelling Cinderella story when Pacific made two free throws for a 51-46 lead with 55.9 seconds left.
“C’mon, ladies! I believe!” a fan in the CSF cheering section at center court yelled during the ensuing timeout.
Apparently, the Titans did, too. It was desperation time, so Hailey King and Mya Olivier attempted back-to-back 3-pointers that both missed. But Annie Park, a 5-4 freshman guard, somehow corralled the ball after the second miss and popped in a jumper to make it 51-48 with 29 seconds left.
Pacific coach Lynne Roberts calmly called a timeout.
“We talked about how there were 29 seconds left. We talked about how they’re going to have to foul and how we’ve got to be strong with the ball and not turn it over,” Roberts said.
So what happened? Fullerton double-teamed the ball in the corner, forced a turnover, and Titans guard Tailer Butler found Olivier alone at the top of the key.
Swish! Olivier’s 3-pointer tied the score at 51 with 0:16 left as the Fullerton cheering section erupted.
Was it going to happen again?
Not this time. Without calling a timeout, Pacific moved the ball downcourt and got the ball to Erica McKenzie, who answered with a 3-pointer for a 54-51 lead.
Timeout: 5.9 seconds left. The Titans needed a 3-pointer to force overtime, but sophomore guard Chante Miles sprinted upcourt and missed a runner in the lane just before time expired.
“We tried to get Chante on the run and get a quick 3 up, but we kind of got lost in the moment,” Foster said. “We didn’t get the shot we were looking for.”
Fullerton’s improbable run finally ended, and Pacific (25-6) advanced to Saturday’s 1 p.m. Big West title game to face Cal Poly (20-10), a 62-43 winner over UC Santa Barbara in Saturday’s other semifinal.
“I know how disappointed we are, because we wanted to be that team of destiny and Cinderella,” Foster said.
She paused, apparently changing her mind in mid-thought.
“And we were that team of destiny,” she said. “To be here today after the year we have had, we are that team. . . . I am so proud of this team.”
Somewhere, Coach Mo has to be proud, too.
UCI men in final: For the fourth time in school history, the UC Irvine Anteaters are one victory away from qualifying for the NCAA Tournament for the first time.
UCI, the No. 4 seed, rallied from a six-point deficit in the final seven minutes to knock off top-seeded Long Beach State, 67-60, in Friday night’s first men’s semifinal at Honda Center.
The Anteaters (20-14) will meet No. 2 seed Pacific (21-12) in Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. title game (ESPN2) after Pacific earned its berth in the final with a last-second, 55-53 triumph over Cal Poly in the other semifinal.
And that means UCI is 40 minutes from making school history.
Does UCI coach Russell Turner want his players to think about how close they are to achieving their ultimate goal, or would he prefer they not think about it?
Turner paused before answering.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I believe in my guys. . . . They all know (what’s at stake) and all the people will be asking them about it. That’s great. It’s college basketball; it’s March Madness. We’ll take our shot. . . . I’m excited for the opportunity that we have (Saturday).”
Senior guard Daman Starring, who made up for his shooting struggles (2 for 11) against Long Beach with his passing down the stretch (team-high seven assists), echoed his coach’s sentiments.
“It’s a huge opportunity for us, and we’re looking forward to it,” Starring said, smiling.
Long Beach State (19-13), the Big West regular-season champion for the past three years, had a seven-point lead, 43-36, when Big West Player of the Year James Ennis picked up his fourth foul and went to the bench with 14:19 left in the second half.
It took a while for UCI to take advantage of Ennis’ absence, but two huge 3-pointers – by Travis Souza from the corner and by Michael Wilder from the top of the circle – pulled the Anteaters within 51-49 with 5:05 left. Starring set up both treys with crisp crosscourt passes from Starring.
After Ennis returned to the court, he missed a 3-pointer before fouling out with 1:08 left, with Long Beach down by four points. UCI freshman Alex Young (game-high 18 points) made both free throws for a six-point lead, and the 49ers never got closer than three points after that.
“We got a 51-46 lead, but we came up empty (on a few possessions) and couldn’t break the game open,” said Long Beach State’s Dan Monson, the Big West Coach of the Year for the third consecutive season. “A huge key was James getting a fourth foul. He probably wanted it so much that he got a little out of control. But I don’t fault a guy for fouling out trying to live his dream.”
Ennis, however, was depressed after the loss, even though he knows his team will get an NIT berth based on their regular-season championship.
“I’m down on myself a little bit because I let my teammates down,” said Ennis, who scored 11 points on 4-of-9 shooting. “I’m a senior. I’m supposed to help my teammates (more) in this game. I felt like I didn’t do my job.”
Instead, it was the Anteaters who prevailed, ultimately because of their characteristically stifling defense – led once again by shot-blocking specialist Will Davis II, the Big West Defensive Player of the Year. On this night, he contributed 14 points, nine rebounds and three blocks.
“They had the (Big West) Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, but tonight we had the better team,” Turner said. Perfectly stated.
Thomason survives: Retiring Pacific coach Bob Thomason looked awfully calm in the closing minutes for someone whose coaching career almost came to an end in Friday night’s late semifinal.
But his Tigers guaranteed that he will coach at least one more game when Travis Fulton rebounded a missed shot and scored on a put-back with 1.3 seconds left to give Pacific a 55-53 victory over No. 3 seed Cal Poly.
“They want to keep me working right now,” said Thomason, the winningest coach in Big West history in his 25th and final season at Pacific.
Pacific will meet UCI for the tournament championship. Each team won at home during their season series: The Anteaters prevailed, 68-59, at the Bren Center on Feb. 20; the Tigers won, 70-62, in Stockton on March 7.
At least Thomason won’t have to coach against his longtime friend and former UOP teammate, Pat Douglass, Turner’s predecessor at UCI.
Which team does Thomason think Douglass will be pulling for Saturday night?
“I think he’ll be happy for me if we win,” Thomason said, adding that he talked to Douglass this week and noted that he was inducted in the California Community Colleges Men’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame on Friday during the CCCAA State Tournament in Sacramento.
“I probably would have been there if we had lost Thursday,” Thomason said.
But his last basketball team is keeping him occupied.
Layup line: This will be UCI’s fourth appearance in the conference title game. In their previous three, they lost to Utah State in 1988 at The Forum in Inglewood, lost to New Mexico State in 1994 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas and lost to Cal State Fullerton in 2008 at the Anaheim Convention Center . . . The Anteaters are now 11-0 this season in games in which they held their opponents to 60 or fewer points . . . The Cal State Fullerton women’s team is one of four finalists for the WBCA’s “Together We R” award, which honors programs that have strived to succeed in the face of adversity, overcoming extraordinary circumstances such as an unforeseen team crisis. . . . Friday’s attendance was announced at 5,136.
Randy Youngman is a former page 2 columnist with the Orange County Register
ANAHEIM – On their way out of the Big West Conference, Bob Thomason and his Pacific Tigers received lovely parting gifts on Saturday night at Honda Center:
The Big West Tournament championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
For Thomason, the winningest coach in Big West history in his 25th and final season at Pacific, the convincing 64-55 victory over UC Irvine earned him his fifth conference tournament title and fifth invitation to the NCAA’s invitational-only, 68-team postseason party.
And, for the third consecutive day, his team delayed the end of his record-breaking coaching career.
“Couldn’t have written the script any better,” Thomason said after Pacific’s final game in the Big West as the school prepares to join the West Coast Conference next academic year. “God had a great plan for this team and for me. I’ll have to ask Him someday why. I’m not so sure I deserved it, but I think our team earned it down the stretch this season.”
The second-seeded Tigers (22-12) stretched their winning streak to seven games by knocking off UC Santa Barbara (71-68), Cal Poly (55-53) and UCI on consecutive nights.
Junior forward Tony Gill led the way, coming off the bench to score a team-high 19 points en route to winning tournament MVP honors, and senior guard Lorenzo McCloud added 16 points to make the all-tournament team.
“I couldn’t be happier for Coach T, to send him to the NCAA Tournament in his last year,” Gill said. “He never stops coaching, he never gave up on us.”
“Coach offered me a scholarship to play basketball, and that changed my whole life,” McCloud said. “So it was one of my personal goals, to do whatever I could to help him get another championship.”
Pacific broke open a close game with a 10-2 run midway through the first half that produced a 24-14 lead and led 31-20, at halftime. The fourth-seeded Anteaters (20-15), who made it to the championship game on the strength of back-to-back victories over Hawaii and top-seeded Long Beach State, struggled with their outside shooting from the outset.
UCI made only 7 of 27 shots in the first half, including 1 for 10 from beyond the arc, and were outrebounded, 26-15, before intermission.
“They set a tone,” third-year UCI coach Russell Turner said afterward. “They had eight early rebounds . . . and they were able to exert their will on us a little bit, which surprised me.”
It was 40-28 five minutes into the second half when UCI made its first run, on the strength of Daman Starring’s outside shooting (19 points) and the inspired defensive play of Will Davis II, to cut Pacific’s lead to 44-41. But the Tigers regrouped and never gave up the lead.
It was a 5-point game with 1:19 left, but the Tigers made their foul shots down the stretch to silence what had been a raucous UCI rooting contingent.
“We’re disappointed to not come out on top, but I will say I’m incredibly proud of our team, especially our seniors,” Turner said. “I thought we were fearless. But Pacific made more plays than we did tonight.
“I told (Thomason) before the game it was an honor to compete against him. He is the winningest coach in conference history, and the job he’s done this year is outstanding. To have his team play as well as they’ve played the last two weeks is a great credit to him as a coach, as well as to his staff. They’ve had a lot of continuity in that program. He’s had a sustained run of success that we’d like to emulate at Irvine.”
It was the fourth loss in four Big West Tournament championship games for the Anteaters, who are still looking for their first NCAA Tournament berth. But outgoing senior Michael Wilder believes it’s just a matter of time before that happens under Turner.
“To see how far we’ve come since my freshman year here . . . a 20-win season . . . the closeness of our group; we’ve shown resilience all season and just came up short tonight,” Wilder said. “I love my teammates, our coaches, our whole program, and they’ve made this the best season I’ve ever had in my life.”
As Pacific plans for the NCAA Tournament – it will learn its seeding and first-round opponent during Sunday’s NCAA Selection Show – UC Irvine will be moving on to play in the Collegeinsider.com Postseason Tournament. The CIT is a 32-team tournament geared toward mid-major schools that didn’t get invited to the NCAA or NIT tournaments.
“I thought we were going to win this thing, but I told our team that we’re going to play in the CIT,” Turner said. “It’s a great opportunity for these guys to continue playing.”
That’s also what Thomason’s Tigers are going to do in the NCAA Tournament, and Thomason said he doesn’t care where his team is seeded, even if it is as a No. 16 seed.
“You have to run through the finish line,” Thomason said. “There are no shortcuts. I’m going to coach them the way I feel they need to be coached.”
Why stop now, even if it’s possibly his last game as a coach?
Cal Poly women NCAA-bound
The tears started flowing, as if a faucet had been turned on, even before the on-court celebration began.
It was no longer possible to hold back the emotions as junior point guard Jonae Ervin dribbled out the clock in the closing seconds of Cal Poly’s 63-49 victory over top-seeded Pacific in Saturday’s Big West women’s championship game.
Understandably, too, because the Mustangs were moments away from clinching the first NCAA Tournament appearance in school history.
“For me, it’s more meaningful, because I’ve been waiting a long time,” said Faith Mimnaugh, 16th-year Cal Poly coach, her eyes glistening as she addressed the media wearing a necklace made of the Honda Center net cords, after the biggest win in the 39-year history of the women’s basketball program.
“It seems like as old as these players are, I’ve been waiting (that long) for this opportunity – and I’m a little overwhelmed by it.”
There was no need to apologize.
“It’s real emotional, obviously,” 6-5 junior center Molly Schlemer, the Big West Player of the Year and the Big West Tournament MVP, said in between sobs. “Talking about Coach Faith, always helping us, always working hard to make us the best we can be, it’s amazing to pay her back this way. It’s a dream-come-true. It’s amazing what that feels like.”
Even though Pacific (25-7) was the No. 1 seed with the glittering resume and No. 40 national RPI power ranking at the start of the day, No. 2 seed Cal Poly (21-10) was confident about its chances after winning both regular-season games against the conference champions: 96-95 in triple-overtime at home and 62-59 at Pacific.
“From the jump, I had a good feeling about the game,” Schlemer said, adding that she kept telling teammate Ariana Elegado, “We will win this game.”
And the Mustangs did jump out to a 23-13 lead in the opening 15 minutes and a 33-21 halftime lead as Pacific misfired on 21 of its 28 first-half shots.
Pacific regrouped during the intermission and scored the first eight points of the second half to pull within 33-29. And then Cal Poly senior forward Kayla Griffin went under the basket four minutes into the half – the team found out later it was a season-ending knee injury -- and was helped to the locker room.
“I saw her go down,” Schlemer said. “I said (in the huddle), ‘We have to play for Kayla.’ We wanted to play for her.”
“With Kayla going down, it just (required) a collective group effort,” Mimnaugh said.
And that’s what transpired. Elegado made three key 3-pointers and 9 of 10 free throws en route to a game-high 22 points. Schlemer made up for an off shooting performance (2 for 8) by dominating the boards, collecting 16 rebounds to help the Mustangs win that battle, 46-28. Nikol Allison came off the bench to score 10 points, and Caroline Reeves chipped in with 10 points.
“Kayla going down gave us so much more motivation,” said Elegado, who also was named to the all-tournament team, along with Pacific teammates Erica McKenzie and Gena Johnson (team-high 14 points in the final), Long Beach State’s Devin Hudson and Cal State Fullerton’s Mya Olivier.
Pacific coach Lynne Roberts congratulated Cal Poly on winning the conference’s automatic NCAA berth and expressed hope that her team would receive an at-large berth when the NCAA women’s tournament bracket is unveiled Monday.
“I think our chances are good,” Roberts said. “I think our conference deserves to get two (teams).”
Mimnaugh echoed those sentiments.
“I would love to see that, and I think the Big West is deserving this year,” the Cal Poly coach said.
But the long wait is over for Cal Poly and Mimnaugh.
“They worked their tails off, believed in each other and believed in the dream,” Mimnaugh said.
Next stop: The Big Dance. For the first time.
Layup line
Interestingly, Mimnaugh went out of her way to say Cal State Fullerton’s Marcia Foster deserved Coach of the Year honors for keeping her team together in the wake of the Monica Quan tragedy and even publicly implored Fullerton to sign Foster to a long-term contract. The Titans made it to the semifinals and came within one three-pointer of upsetting top-seeded Pacific . . . Going into Saturday’s title game, Pacific had an RPI power ranking of 106, so college hoop experts believe it’s highly unlikely the Tigers will be seeded higher than 14th . . . In addition to Gill and McCloud, UCI teammates Davis, Starring and Alex Young made the All-Tournament Team, along with UC Santa Barbara's Michael Bryson. . . Attendance in Saturday’s men’s final was announced at 6,795.