STOCKTON – After upsetting the state’s top-ranked team, City College of San Francisco, on March 14, the Bakersfield College men’s basketball team fell short of a state championship.
“It was a very positive year for us. Obviously, we would have liked to have had fewer losses and also win the state. All in all, it was a great season for us,” head coach Rich Hughes said.
The Renegades were beaten by the Fullerton College Hornets 93-76 in the Final Four of the Men’s Basketball Championship tournament in Stockton on March 15.
Hughes feels that the Hornets played well on defense and outrebounded his team. “They did a good job against us defensively, and we struggled to score. I think the biggest difference in the game was their offensive rebounding. They scored quite a bit off second-shot attempts,” Hughes said.
Hughes added that the pressing style that the Hornets are known for didn’t affect the Renegades in terms of scoring.
“We broke the press. I thought we did a good job breaking it. We just didn’t score off of it. They (Fullerton) had some athletic guys, and we had a hard time finishing at the rim,” said Hughes.
The Renegades were led by freshman Bobby Fisher, who had 17 points. Jamie Harrison added 14 in the losing effort.
To get to the Final Four, the Renegades beat the City College of San Francisco Rams 70-67, which was a game that Hughes didn’t want to refer to as an “upset.”
“Nobody thinks we can win, so I guess you can call it an upset,” he said after the victory. “We believe we can play with anybody, and that’s what we want to prove. That’s why we’re here. We want to prove to everyone in the gym that we’re as good as any of these teams.”
The Rams used a 9-0 run to take a 15-point lead with13:54 left in the game, which was a lead that the Renegades overcame with some help from their bench players.
“We went to the bench, and we had a group that came out with extreme energy. We just started to pick up the intensity, which is the way we play,” Hughes said. Hughes said that he was upset when he saw his team down by 15 points.
“I was frustrated because that is not the way we practice, and that’s not the way that we play,” he said. “I told them this is the wrong time to quit when you have all these coaches watching you play. You’ve worked hard to get here, and now you’re going to quit. Finally it just snapped, and we started going the way that we play.”
Fisher had 15 points, two blocks and five rebounds while Justin Calhoun added 12 points and seven rebounds in the victory over San Francisco.
Citrus College, seeded No. 1 in the South, won the state title by defeating Fullerton College 72-67 on March 16.
“It’s good to see someone in our conference win it,” Hughes said. Citrus, along with BC, is a member of the Western State Conference.
“We were kind of disappointed. We played two very close games with them, and if we could have played a little better against Fullerton, we would have had the confidence going into the finals,” Hughes said.