ARCATA—A team's experiences can run the gamut over the course of a full season, and usually do. But in Friday night's California Collegiate Athletic Association semifinal game, the 2021-22 Chico State men's basketball experienced something it had not to this point: something Head Coach Greg Clink described as a butt kicking.
 
The 11^th-ranked Wildcats lost for just the fourth time this season and for the first time by double-digits, 80-66, against 14^th-ranked Cal State San Marcos. The Cougars (19-4) advanced to Saturday night's CCAA Tournament title game against either top-seeded Cal State San Bernardino or No. 5 seed Cal State Dominguez Hills. The Wildcats (19-4) hopped on a bus and headed for home.
 
They'll learn their NCAA Championship Tournament fate during Sunday's 7:30 p.m. selection show on NCAA.com. Chico State entered this week's action ranked No. 1 in the West Region. After that, Clink says he expects them to respond.
 
"This is what we do every week. We win or we lose every week—It's mostly been winning. But we go back to the drawing board on Monday. We find things from the previous weekend film-wise that we need to get better at, and we get better," he said. "Our theme is just constant improvement. We need to get better going into the NCAA Tournament."
 
He told his team after the game in the locker room that his belief in their ability to make a deep NCAA Tournament run is not wavering. 
 
"I told them that they need to believe. We've won the thing twice. We know what it takes to win. We're capable of winning it. But we have to execute better and play better."
 
Despite some early struggles, they led for much of the first half, and by as many as four. But the Cougars scored the last three points of the half and went to the break ahead 31-30. They never trailed again and led by as many as 16 in the second half—the largest deficit Chico State has faced all season.
 
The Wildcats, who had won six straight coming in (including a 63-57 win at Cal State San Marcos on February 19), closed the gap to seven on a pair of occasions, but never got closer. 
 
Malik Duffy paced the Wildcats with 19 points, Joshua Hamilton added 14, Colby Orr 11, and Isaiah Brooks 10. But the Wildcats committed 14 turnovers to Cal State San Marcos' five, and the Cougars shot 51 percent against a Chico State defense that had not allowed a team to shoot better than 50% against it all season.
 
"They outplayed us tonight. They plain and simple kicked our butt," Clink said. "I thought the pace of their offense was really good and they are always good defensively… When you play teams like San Marcos you gotta execute on both ends of the floor better than we did tonight."
 
Clink said it like a coach who is confident that his team will respond. Now it's up to the Wildcats to do just that.