Jacks Hoops!

This past week, we had the joy of attending our first Humboldt State (HSU) college basketball game (thanks to Alyssa for organizing!). Being there reminded me a lot of my days at Richmond, where I attended pretty much every men's basketball home game as a participant in the band. Kelvin, however, had never actually been to a college basketball game, as, in order to get tickets at UCLA, students had to skip classes/camp out for days (what a difference, eh?)! In any case, we love watching basketball, particularly live ball.

We'd heard that HSU had had some exciting games, and this was their first day of conference playoffs which was fortunately a home game. The girls played first (we caught the last 15 min or so of their game); while they made an impressive comeback in the last 5 minutes, they lost in a heartbreaker by 3 points to Chico State.







The men's game was one of, if not THE, most exciting basketball games I have ever watched (and definitely the most exciting game I have watched live). Cal State LA had a bunch of towering guys (their players' average height was probably about 5-6 inches more than that of the HSU team, whose electrifying pointguard is 5'5, shorter than I am!), including this one guy who looked like a football center (or Paul Bunyan) and who shot a bunch of annoying 1.5-foot shots to keep the CSULA Eagles comfortably ahead for basically the entire game.

The Jacks (short for "Lumberjacks") made an amazing comeback, down 15 in the second half, and took their first lead 39.8 minutes into the 40-minute game with a pair of free-throws that put them up by one point with 11 seconds to go. They held their opponent scoreless for the last 3 minutes of the game and, with a full-court-press steal, ended the game on a fabulous breakaway dunk to win by three while the crowd stood and cheered. It was amazing to witness!!



The post-game celebration ("Why aren't the fans storming the court?" asked K).




The team went on to beat Cal Poly and then Chico State to win their division! I hope they can go on to do well in the region and nation in D2 ball! Bring on the March Madness!