From the Desk of Steve Victory, Cal Basketball Coach
Tuesday, March 28, 2032
Well, it’s about 4 a.m. on Tuesday, and the post-championship parties are still going on in Seattle. The nets at the Seattle Dome have been clipped. A cache of new T-shirts and hats have hit the streets proclaiming the new kings of college hoops. Already, newspapers are circulating with photos and articles on the 2032 title game.
Unfortunately, it’s the
Oklahoma Sooners getting all the glory and continuing to whoop it up in Seattle. We were the favorites, according to most of the pundits, but we lost to OU 64-58 in Saturday’s semifinals, then Boomer Sooner rolled over Syracuse 87-72 in a rather uneventful title game. OU led by a bunch at halftime…
I’ve already gotten an e-mail from my old buddy,
Fred Frank, who once again called me Mr. Chokefactory. Yes, yes. Let’s come up with something new, will ya? Actually, I owe a lot to ol’ Frank Fred. He’s helping my little bro through a lot of drinking, uh, issues. And you can’t fault a guy for wanting a championship, right? Of course, the shoe goes both ways on this one because he’s an assistant for my bro at N.C. State, which lost in the Sweet 16… The Wolfpack also took a number one seed into the tournament... Poor Sheriff…
A lot of folks have put the blame for this loss on my shoulders and said I was out-coached. Frankly I have to agree. I debated over two schemes to throw at OU, and we obviously made the wrong choice (Author’s note: breaking character: a resim using the other idea I had worked, and Cal won the NCT title easily over OU and Kentucky – arggghh!!). We’ve never scored fewer than 60 points this season yet Saturday we only managed 58. They were up 11 at half and pretty much coasted home, though we made a late push to pull within 6.
I feel the worst for the kids. They really believed we were going all the way. It was almost sickening to see how hard
Miran Lekivicius took this defeat. He gave up an early jump to the NBA to stay with us this winter and lead Cal to a national title. He played his heart out in the semis, but his shot just wouldn’t fall. He managed 9 points on 3-for-12 shooting. He did have 10 boards and six blocks. Great kid. Hard worker. Lots of heart. I hope an NBA squad has enough sense to draft him. He might not have all the pedigree of your typical NBA star, but he’ll succeed in the pros…
Adam Dunn and
Sammy Crowell led us in scoring vs. OU. But they only had 12 points each. We only made it to the FT line nine times and made just five. Oklahoma swished 16-of-20 from the stripe. Another difference maker…
Obviously, there is a lot of heartache in Golden Bears country right now, but when time passes I think folks will see we had a great season overall. We finished 36-4, which is one of my best records ever and I believe Cal’s best in school history… All but two of these guys (Leki and Sammy Crowell) will be back next year, so whose to say we can’t win the 2033 crown... But man, we were so close to taking it all this time around… so darn close…