One of the cool things about this job of mine is that, on occasion, I get to talk to some pretty neat people.
One of the better ones is Mike O'Malley, the now-former coach of the Chico State men's soccer team. He stepped down on Wednesday as announced by Chico State SID.

O'Malley is a guy who you can tell feels for his team. His passion is probably what made him so good in his time as Wildcat coach. So when I covered games, it was easy to see that those losses really stung, and the wins made him smile. It's nice dealing with genuine people like that, because let's face it, you don't get to a lot of the time. People want to be diplomatic these days, whereas O'Malley is who he is. Plus, he's a family man, and I have a lot of respect for that. His last game was a win, and I got to talk to him after it. For a guy whose season was, as he called it, "an unbelievable work of fiction," I will admit that I was glad for the guy.

Chico State's losing a good one.

Some attaboys on the Warner corner this week, as Darroll Phillips picked up California Collegiate Athletic Association Player of the Week for his 3-point-laden pair of games at the Mac Martin Tournament. He went for 26 and 32, and helped Chico State men's basketball team grab its first wins of the year.

On the women's side, Molly Goodenbour & Co. made a seismic shift from No. 15 in Division II to No. 8, undoubtedly aided by a 4-0 start and a victory over the previous No. 4 team, West Texas A&M. Weirdly enough, Chicoans won't get to see this product anytime soon, as the women don't play a home game until Dec. 28 against St. Cloud State.
Note: I stand corrected here by Luke Reid of Chico State SID, who reminds me of my incapability to interpret a schedule: "That game on Dec. 28 is actually in Rohnert Park at Sonoma State's tournament. The Wildcats won't be home until they play Cal State Monterey Bay Jan. 4."

The fact that I don't get paid to do this makes it only slightly more palatable.

Both teams will begin their conference schedules Wednesday, though, with a road trip through Cal State Stanislaus and then to UC San Diego. The Warrior women are 1-3, while the Wildcat-nemesis Tritons have raced to a 5-0 start; for the men, Cal State Stanislaus is 1-3 and UC San Diego is winless at 0-2.

I won't lie; I'm chomping at the bit a little to stop using horse-related clichés, as well as to see how the women fare against the No. 4 Tritons on Saturday. UC San Diego, if you'll remember, was the team that came to Chico in last year's tournament and booted the Wildcats from it rather convincingly. Will it be a statement game? It counts for conference, so I'm going to say yes, and I think it's fair to say Chico State would say the same. Then again, Goodenbour doesn't take any of them as anything less. She doesn't have the No. 8 team in the country for nothing.

It's been pointed out that I shouldn't have called my take on Chico State's games a "report card" since I didn't offer any grades. So, out of spite, I'm going to do the same thing with this one. Also, grades are arbitrary and while I feel like I know my way around a basketball game better than most folks, there's no tangible way to measure, uh, intangibles.

Moving along nicely...

The men's basketball team picked up its second win and as many in two games to close out the Mac Martin Tournament on Saturday. The difference between this one, a healthy performance against Hawaii Pacific, and Friday's win over Menlo is that the Wildcats were in control nearly all of regulation. Puck Smith was at times, dare I say, content with his squad's execution, and despite Friday's win, that's a far cry from his demeanor against Menlo.

UPS
-- Without question, the biggest factor Saturday was the Wildcats' ability to hit 3s. Darroll Phillips stroked seven of them, heading up a 17-for-27 effort from Chico State that was one short of the school record. Maybe it was because power forward Mike Martin was benched for the game for violating team rules and the Sea Warriors (stupid mascot) wanted to capitalize, but Hawaii Pacific loaded up the interior with defenders and let the Wildcats continue to fire away. Smith doesn't want to live and die behind the 3-point line, but if it's there, it's a good sign for Chico State that the Wildcats can take advantage.

-- Speaking of Martin, his replacement came in the form of true freshman Rod Hawkins, who contributed 10 points in his first collegiate start. Bench play was big for the Wildcats, as 25 points came from non-starters. The play of Andrew Ferrin, Jesse Soto and Hawkins was the deciding factor in the final minutes.

-- Justin Argenal continues to expertly run Chico State's offense, not only with his assists (he had nine Saturday) but his leadership. The man loves watching his teammates do well, and he likes helping them do it even more. I've never seen a player get so pumped over watching a teammate fight for an offensive rebound as Argenal did when Ferrin tied up a loose ball and was slammed to the ground. You want leadership and chemistry? That's the kind of thing that builds both.

DOWNS
-- Chico State allowed a 24-point lead to whittle down to three in the second half, and that's absolutely got to be avoided if the Wildcats want to make any noise in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. Their next game is at Cal State Stanislaus, and if they can't maintain pressure and momentum -- something they failed to do all 40 minutes Saturday -- the outcome is guaranteed to not be as pretty.

-- It's nice for Chico State to have all those 3-pointers, because when you think of some of the school's more successful teams, there was always someone to hit the open 3. But the fact that the shots were falling really bailed out an absolute refusal from Hawaii Pacific to allow points in the paint, and the Wildcats need to be able to force that hand. Frank Igbekoyi couldn't get it going, and Martin's absence probably affected it some, but balance will be non-existent if Chico State continues to get just 14 points in the paint.

The Wildcats got a glimpse of some conference opposition at their own tournament, watching Sonoma State beat both Hawaii Pacific and Menlo. It took overtime for the Seawolves, picked to finish fifth in the CCAA, to beat the Oaks. It's a little early to start sizing up the conference based on preseason games against like opponents, but it could be a positive sign for Chico State that it had less trouble putting Menlo away.

Yes, it's only one game, and yes, the Chico State men's basketball team is only 1-2 in its young season. But I don't think it's a stretch to say that this year's group, even with all the new faces, should have no trouble improving upon last year's abysmal record based on the Wildcats' performance against Menlo last night.
Puck Smith likened his team's performance to the end result of the digestive process (in not so certain terms) afterward, but he also said he's not taking the win for granted.
From a spectator's point of view, Chico State has some definite ups and downs so far. I'll now categorize them under capitalized headers.

UPS
— It looks like the Wildcats have a legitimate post game through Frank Igbekoyi and Mike Martin. Igbekoyi was getting the ball ludicrously deep early in Friday night's win, and he's got a nice baby hook. Don't be surprised to see more double-doubles from him. Martin just looks strong with the ball at all times and can play some perimeter pretty well, too.
— Darroll Phillips, at first glance, is a bona fide sharpshooter and just the kind of clutch presence Chico State will need to win those close games (whether a preseason game against Menlo should have been close at all is up for debate, but still). He scored 27 points, so obviously he can fill it up, but what impressed me was his five steals. With a defensive backcourt of Phillips (he's a 3, but he plays like a 2) and Justin Argenal, the Wildcats could be very disruptive. What I like most about Phillips, though, is that he seems to play with a calmness in big situations.
— Chico State is solid defensively around the perimeter. Phillips and Argenal are, again, intense and opportunistic, and even Martin, a power forward, has the athleticism to hop out and defend.

DOWNS
— Consistency is going to have to manifest itself at some point. As good as Igbekoyi was, it wasn't a game-long venture; he didn't score in the second half. The Wildcats shot the lights out from 3-point land in the second half, but couldn't get even one of their nine attempts to go down in the first. Martin seemed to ebb and flow from second to second. In one sequence, he drove strong through a double team (good), missed his layup (bad), ripped down his own board (good) and then lost his dribble (bad).
— Interior defense against big players was a problem. Chico State was outscored in the paint 30-22, which might not seem like a big discrepancy but really is what kept Menlo in the game. The Oaks plugged up the paint with 6-foot-11 Chris Funke — a perfect name for a center, by the way — and it was all the Wildcats could do to try to front him. This is an area where their perimeter defensive pressure could bail them out, as entry passes are sure to be viewed as pure evil.
— Chico State's got to get more out of its wing players not named Argenal or Phillips. Ryan Smith provided energy and hustle, but in 26 minutes touched the stat sheet with one rebound and two assists. His support off the bench wasn't tons better, though Jesse Soto, Josh Jackson and Rod Hawkins all had glimmers of success. Still, there was only 10 points between those four players, to go along with eight turnovers. That will change as the season progresses, but for now, it's a weakness.
— Chemistry is big, but so is the list of new players in the Chico State locker room. This is the initial teammates-feeling-each-other-out stage, and there will be hiccups along the way. It will take a while for everyone to get accustomed to each other, but once it happens, I truly do think the Wildcats can be competitive. As for the conference season, that could be another story, but for right now there are signs of a solid team in the making.

The voice of Sportsfan radio's Mike Baca has been telling a tale of wild inconsistency from Washington, as the Chico State men's basketball team opened up to an 11-point lead over Central Washington in the Tarp It Wildcat Classic (Central Washington calls itself the Wildcats also), then broke out in a turnover rash and ran into foul trouble. Chico State now trails 50-42 at halftime despite (or because of, depending on how you look at it) shooting 15-of-23 from the field, 5-of-8 from beyond the 3-point line and 7-of-8 from the free throw line. Darroll Phillips has 14 points and Frank Igbekoyi put up eight points in 12 minutes.

But the good stat sheet-filling ends there for Chico State. Mike Martin picked up three fouls in just seven minutes; Ryan Smith did the same in just three minutes. From the sound of this one (coach Puck Smith has picked up a technical), it doesn't sound like all the blame can be placed on lack of defensive rotation or hustle.

Baca alluded to it a little, but Central Washington is a Great Northwest Athletic Conference team, and this is a home, nonconference tourney for them. You can be sure that the GNAC didn't just randomly pick up some bozo refs to do the officiating at this thing, and while I'm not saying that the games are fixed by any means, they certainly aren't any different than any other conference-hosted game. Chico State's own California Collegiate Athletic Association has refs it calls on to do its games, especially the nonconference ones, because a conference looks better when it wins. Yeah, it reeks a little bit, but that's the way it is.

No, Tim Donaghy, you can't place a bet.

But the inside game Puck Smith always longs for hasn't been attempted much on Chico State's side of the floor, while Central Washington is going at the Wildcats trying to get fouls and continues to draw them — Martin just picked up his fourth foul on a missed Central dunk attempt and what sounded like a homer foul (since Baca shouted "Holy cow, the Wildcats are getting homered, they could have just saved us the trip").

There's now a chance for a Central three-point play as Rod Hawkins picked up his third foul; Chico State has fallen behind by 14. I'm getting a little tired of hearing that whistle.

Don't want to say I told you so (lie), but Lindsay Macias' 13 kills in Thursday night's season-ending loss to Western Washington moved her past Stacy Clifton in the Chico State record books — as a junior. She's still got another year to tack onto what has already been a spectacular career. She's now at 1,167 kills, close to an average of 400 a year.

Joining in on the happy volleyball news are Erica Brick and Gillian Heydorff, who joined Macias as All-California Collegiate Athletic Association selections on Thursday. Good for them, and as a program, it's a good core to take into both Brick's and Macias' senior seasons next year. Of course, that implies "wait for next year," which is never fun to have to say.

I'm pretty pumped for basketball season, by the way. In my sports reporting experience and extensive sports fandom, basketball games are usually the ones that most readily go down to the last few seconds, and a lively crowd feeds on momentum. That results in some loud atmospheres, and when you're getting paid to take it all in, it's a pretty sweet deal. The Wildcat women take on Mesa State tonight in their season opener, while the men will try to score a win over Northwest Nazarene.

As the ever-intoxicated 21-year-old women patrolling my humble Ivy Street abode Thursday night (Thursday night!?) would say: "Weeeoooo!"

Sighs of relief on two counts from the Chico State volleyball team's point of view on Monday: 1) The NCAA announced the Wildcats have made the Division II tournament and 2) they'll go as the No. 7 seed and face No. 2 Western Washington. It won't be easy any time you take on a team that went 21-4, won its conference (Great Northwest Athletic Conference) and earned an automatic tourney berth, but a No. 8 seed would have meant Chico State got big, bad No. 1 regional host Cal State San Bernardino, which has lost a grand total of 10 games all year, including zero to the Wildcats.

You may recall that, at one point this season, Chico State was sitting pretty at No. 2 in the California Collegiate Athletic Assocation and No. 4 in the Pacific Region. Then, the Wildcats lost six of their last seven conference matchups, including some inexplicable drops to Cal State Monterey Bay and Sonoma State, all the while juggling a patchwork rotation without the services of four suspended players.

Meanwhile, Cal Poly Pomona -- the No. 4 seed in the Pacific and team that Chico State would have faced had it held its level of play -- enters the tournament as one of the hottest teams in the region; its only losses all year have come at the hands of teams in the top five seeds. The Broncos pretty much displaced the Wildcats by beating the teams they should have while Chico State, uh, didn't.

Upset talk is fun, and there will undoubtedly be a few in this year's tournament, but the realist in me acknowledges that Chico State's last win over a higher-ranked team was Sept. 14 over UC San Diego; its last win or any sort came over 1-17 Cal State Dominguez Hills on Oct. 26. So I'll fill out a bracket, of course, but if I'm choosing upsets, I'm penciling in sneaky-good Cal State L.A. or those momentous Broncos. Until they play the host Coyotes, naturally, who will win that region.

Adding to her list of collegiate soccer hardware, California Collegiate Athletic Association MVP Katherine Bagwell joined Chico State teammate Anjie Goulding as a First-Team 2007 Daktronics All-Far West Region selection.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I love puns so much I actually considered "In the Bag" or "Good as Gould" for headline inspiration for this blog. Yeah, I know; I hate me, too.

Onward.

I imagine Bagwell and Goulding will high-five each other, then shove the honors aside to focus on Thursday's NCAA Division II Tournament-opening game aganst Cal State L.A.

For those of you who like brackets (and honestly, who doesn't?), check out the complete soccer madness.

There's a couple of photos for the Chico State-UCLA men's basketball exhibition Monday, a 93-55 loss for the Wildcats, that showed how the game went.
For the first one, if you have children, this is the time to have them leave the room:

That's the Bruins' Russell Westbrook attempting a very high-percentage shot (he made it) over Ryan Smith, who at 6'2", 180 lbs. is actually smaller than the sports writer writing this. Talk about the difference between Division I and Division II, right? But here's the thing: with Smith being right in the middle of that photo, it's a bit of a characteristic photo of how Chico State wants to play — it's the scrappy bulldog attitude that coach Puck Smith loves.

You'd have a lot of trouble telling me, for instance, that Rod Hawkins didn't get a pat on the back or two for this hustle against Nikola Dragovic:

So, no, the score wasn't close, and yes, Pauley Pavilion — which, I might add, actually does not contain the word "historic" in the proper title, despite the virtually knee-jerk tendency of most media outlets to throw it in there — got to see its Bruins thump. But Chico State will probably benefit, at least a little bit, from showing that it can hustle against one of the best college programs in the country. And for teams under Puck Smith, hustle is everything.

I wonder if, in all his distance-running wisdom, Chico State cross country coach Gary Towne might have been being coy when he said he didn't know how his men's team would fare at the NCAA Division II West Regional this weekend.
Being the ever-gullible sports journalist, I tend to take coaches' comments at face value unless there is a lot of winking involved, and with rare exceptions, I don't get winked at much.

So when Towne said he wasn't sure what to expect from an inexperienced group on the men's side, it was far from my train of thought to assume he meant, "We're going to destroy everybody, we're just not sure in what order."
Six All-Americans, though? Towne had said he was hopeful for his whole group to finish in the top 15; six of seven ain't bad.
Another "six" of significance: The sixth straight regional championship for Chico State.

Moving from an established dynasty to one perhaps in the making, the women's soccer team won its first-ever California Collegiate Athletic Association championship with a pair of weekend victories in Carson. The Wildcats are in a way like baseball's Colorado Rockies in terms of testing the theory of just how far playoff momentum goes. Chico State had some serious issues early in the season, including a three-game conference losing streak, some losses to lower-ranked or unranked teams and a lack of Zombie Nation's "Kernkraft 400" playing after goals. Seriously, it should be a staple of any soccer game. Behold (cue to about :40 for best results):

But, like the Rockies, Chico State ended its season on a hot streak, then showed that once you get into the playoffs, anything can happen.

Unlike the Rockies, there is still no Zombie Nation.

The Wildcats will get to see how far their momentum can carry them now in the NCAA Division II tournament, as they've claimed the No. 3 seed and will play No. 6 Cal State L.A. at No. 2 Seattle University's home field. Seattle gets a first-round bye, then plays the winner of the Chico State-Golden Eagles matchup.

On not such a high note for Chico State fans, the volleyball team dropped its fourth straight road game in conference play and fifth of six away from Acker Gym. The Wildcats have plummeted to fifth in the CCAA standings after looking like a legitimate second-place team much of the season. It's unclear whether the school-imposed suspensions of Lindsay Macias, Erica Brick, Gillian Heydorff and Megan Cape two weeks ago have had any lasting "team chemistry"-type effects. Keep in mind, the Wildcats are just 4-6 on the road all season anyway, not a particularly good mark even if you do have all your players.
"Violation of a team rule" is the official reason those players missed time; Cape is done for the season, and all the others have either been back or will return to action next time out. Still, for a team that revolves around discipline and using its players to their maximum abilities, it's a little confusing as to how Wildcat players could allow for both those factors to take such a massive hit.

Tonight's game for the men's basketball team at UCLA should be interesting, if for no other reason than you might see a snippet on ESPN, and it's always cool to see Chico get represented well. I've said before how I'm not sure a game like this totally helps Chico State aside from the money aspect and marginal experience, but I understand completely how a player could be pumped for it. I almost want to compare it to me covering a game story side-by-side with someone from, say, The Los Angeles Times, but writing is a bit more subjective than a scoreboard. Maybe that's the rub, though: Human pride makes everyone think they're better than they are.

The women's team got a little D-I smackdown too, which isn't to say the Wildcats played poorly, but it might have been expected against Stanford, the No. 7 team in the country. Coach Molly Goodenbour's alma mater hosted the exhibition, and all kinds of neat little AP photos and snippets came across the wire. One of the cooler ones was this master-apprentice reunion of Tara VanDerveer and two-time NCAA champ and Cardinal guard Goodenbour.