The title 2011-12 CCAA Men’s Basketball Champions belongs to only one team - the Chico State Wildcats. The Wildcats beat Cal State East Bay 61-47 Friday night, the perfect summation of a spectacular California Collegiate Athletic Association title run marked by gritty play and dominating defense. Chico State, 22-6 overall, finished the CCAA regular season with a record of 16-6, a game better than both Humboldt State and Cal Poly Pomona.
The title is Chico State’s first as a member of the CCAA and first in any conference since the Wildcats shared the 1994 NCAC title. They hadn’t won one outright since 1993. They had never finished higher than third since joining the “Conference of Champions” in 1998.
Jay Flores finished with 16 points and six assists and Amir Carraway and Sean Park chipped in 10 points and six rebounds apiece for the Wildcats, winners of eight of their last nine games and 15 of their last 18.
Roshun Wynne paced Cal State East Bay with 15 points in his final collegiate game. Mark Samuels chipped in 10. The Pioneers finished their season a game out of the CCAA Championship Tournament in ninth place at 10-16 overall and 8-14 in the CCAA.
Chico State will host Cal State Dominguez Hills Tuesday at 7:30 in the opening round of the CCAA Championship Tournament with a spot in the semifinals next Friday at UC San Diego on the line.
It was in no way the Wildcats’ best performance of the season. They turned it over 14 times, went for long stretches without hitting a basket, and missed 9 of their first 17 free throws to let the Pioneers creep to within three points of the lead with 9:48 to play.
But they closed the door on the Pioneers’ upset hopes with their defense, which entered the game ranked No. 6 in the nation in terms of points allowed. The Wildcats held Cal State East Bay, the conference’s second highest-scoring team without a field goal over the next 8:41 to put the game away.
The Pioneers, who entered the contest averaging 76 points per game, finished with a season low 47.
The celebration started nearly 30 seconds prior to the final buzzer as Sean Park dribbled out the clock near mid-court, surrounded by his teammates soaking in the standing ovation from the crowd of 1,672. It didn’t end until 30 minutes later.
The contrast was striking. There were Chico State’s veterans, namely Josh Jackson and Jay Flores who were both honored during “Senior Night” ceremonies prior to tipoff, soaking in every last second, nets wrapped around their necks, smiles as wide as the gulf between the team’s predicted CCAA finish – 7
th – and its actual one. Every tick of the clock signified another shot put up alone in Acker Gym on a Sunday afternoon, another streak of lost skin on the court’s hardwood. Then there were the team’s youngsters, not really sure how to react, knowing there are still games to be played and goals to be reached.
Wildcats assistant coach Phil Rasmussen put one guiding hand on each of redshirt freshman Jordan Semple’s bony shoulders, looked him in the eye, and said: “Enjoy this as much as you can Jordan. Things happen. You never know when, and if, it will ever happen again.”
But how could he really know in his beating heart? He and his teammates who are relatively new to the program know in their heads how much work players like Flores and Jackson have put in. But it’s impossible to grasp just how much this means in the hearts of those guys who believed when no one else would, or even could, that one day this banner would be theirs, while they were struggling to get out of the middle of the pack.
So we were all left to simply stare at Jackson and Flores as they soaked up every fleeting second – smiling, hugging, running, dancing, posing for pictures, and in every way imaginable locking away these memories that like this title, will last forever.
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