Forgive the tardiness on the Report Cards this week; I don’t have a good excuse.

But, an overall 3-1 weekend that could have been 4-0 if not for an outrageous shooting display left Acker Gym looking like a promising place for basketball. The women look to be getting on the same page, a major step forward, and the men are unquestionably better (in my view) overall than they were last season. Now, I’ve learned not to make bold predictions (remember when I said the men would definitely win more than seven last season?), so I won’t point out with any kind of foreshadowing intended that Chico State is two wins short of its entire season total from last year, or that the Wildcats didn’t get conference win No. 3 until the last day of the season (they’re 5-8, 2-4 CCAA now). Just a fun fact.

Here’s some fun opinion.

FRIDAY
Men
UPS
Under control. That’s the way you have to play if you’re going to beat a team as well-coached and disciplined as Humboldt State, and while the Wildcats didn’t actually pull off the task, they came close because they turned the ball over only 10 times. The Lumberjacks tried their best to turn this thing into a blowout, and to Chico State’s credit, it didn’t happen.

Defense. Look, I realize they got outscored, but I think I’m starting to believe in this defense. Anytime Roderick Hawkins is on the floor, I feel like he’s the equivalent of a shutdown corner in football. It’s not worth it to go in his direction, at least one-on-one. I do see him get caught in low-post screens quite a bit, because the Wildcats run a lot of man defense, but when they do go zone, he’s a long-armed lynchpin of it.

The Wildcats held the Lumberjacks to 15 points below their season average. That’s no joke, especially when you consider that Humboldt State was pulling off wacky video game shooting numbers. They shot 56 percent for the game, including 61 percent in the second half. It was unreal. They made all the shots they were supposed to and some of the ones they weren’t. I’ve never been a believer in percentages telling the tale of defense, at least not the whole thing, and this is one of those cases. There were a handful of times the Lumberjacks were stifled for 32 seconds, got one tough shot off, and it went down. That’s tough to beat.

To the point. Junior Russell not only provided the somewhat entertaining Mini-Me matchup of the night when he took on 5-foot-5 David Broome, but provided another look for the Wildcats at point guard. Everybody knows about Justin Argenal at this point, and about what he can do in terms of distributing and running the offense. Russell is quicker, gets to the basket more and is probably a better spot-up shooter. The two had similar lines in this one, and while they weren’t overwhelming (Russell had nine points, seven assists, three steals; Argenal had eight points, eight assists, three steals), they showed the two can probably be interchangeable.

DOWNS
Bad things come in 3s. If your team is going to shoot 21 3-pointers in a game, you would expect that 1) desperation mode kicked in early or 2) that team was just absolutely feeling it beyond the arc and it was too tempting to stop. But neither happened here. The Wildcats just went 5-of-21 (24 percent), and some of those selections were absolutely maddening.

What do missed 3s usually mean? Long rebounds. So for me, when I see a 3 with only 8 seconds off the shot clock get heaved before the halfcourt offense has even gotten through its second set of screens, I’m rarely surprised when there’s only one realistic offensive rebounder left. Yes, this gripe is meaningless when they’re falling; no, Argenal won’t always go 1-for-6. Still, it bears examining.

What goes up must come down, Nick Lonnegren. The guy had been on fire heading into Friday; then, against Humboldt State, his shooting touch went AWOL. In 32 minutes, he went 2-of-10, 1-for-7 from 3-point range, scored five points and turned it over four times. Given the solid play of Zach Graves, who is a shooting guard by trade, I think it might have been worth a shot seeing how he fared in relief of Lonnegren at the 3. Josh Jackson and LaCurtis Sumlin were pretty much non-factors in the role.

Women
UPS
Deadeyes. It’s largely been shooting woes early in the season for the women, and while it’s not something you can blame every loss on, it does play a big role in momentum, chemistry, flow and all those other perceived, intangible things that I like to talk about so nobody can prove me wrong.

Most of the time, shooting percentage has a direct correlation with shot selection, and the Wildcats earned and made good looks all night. Their 49 percent mark would have been higher had they made a couple no-brainer layups, too. Christine Vest continues to be solid and doesn’t take bad shots.

Balance. This is how I think the Wildcats will have most of their success this year. I thought early on that Renee Goldoff would need to be in the 18-22 range almost nightly for Chico State to compete, because I wasn’t sure about the type of help she’d get. Turns out, they’re just fine when they get just eight points from her. Natasha Smith had 17 points and Melissa Richardson and Vest both had 15 apiece. All it takes is one good defensive athlete to negate a good player in the CCAA. I think Brian Fogel is still banking, to some extent, on teams doubling Goldoff in the post and freeing things up, but at least we’ve seen that even if they don’t, there are other options.

DOWNS
Free throw-up. Of course, the CCAA’s best free-throw shooting team goes 14-for-22 from the line. What better way to blow a 15-point lead? Free throws, I’ve come to discover from years of watching, playing and talking basketball, are a very sensitive, emotional issue. Coaches don’t want to talk about them, players don’t want to think about them. Success at the line is momentous, but a couple misses often spell disaster. They didn’t come into play to that extent in this game, but I’m sure it’s an issue that will either 1) get some serious attention or 2) get completely ignored.

Free throws are enigmatic.

SATURDAY
Men
UPS
Comeback kids. The more I can call things “rousing,” the better off this world will be, and this win definitely qualified as such. It’s hard to ask for more from a college basketball game (except for about 500 more people and some new sheet music for the band ... come on, guys, I like Kansas and “Crazy Train” just as much as the next dude, but let’s mix it up a little). When it was all said and done, Chico State was the benefactor of a 20-point swing, which was especially impressive considering the crushing loss the Wildcats took against Humboldt State the night before.
It spoke volumes to this team’s character, at least for a night. It makes Chico State a hard team not to like if you’re a basketball fan.

In the clutch, Andy is handy. Don’t give me that look; my initial thought was “Motion for your Bocian,” so you should be grateful I didn’t go with that. Although, it’s worth pointing out that one of the Wildcats’ offensive sets is called “motion,” and if they ever get a big enough lead to have some fun, I’d rather hear Greg Clink yell “Motion Bocian” than “Motion fist” or “Motion strong.”

But I digress.

Your best player is the one who should bail you out, and Bocian certainly did that. If 29 points isn’t enough, how about 10 straight to send the game to overtime and send your team on a run? Phenomenal effort; even better performance. (Note to you, Reporter From Unnamed News Source: When I’m interviewing this guy — or anyone — don’t ask me to use my pen when I’m done. What’s the world coming to these days...)

Russell up some steals. Junior gets two in this blog, but this one is the more significant one. Thirteen points, 11 assists (nobody else had even one, which is astounding) and six steals, including the one that forced overtime, shoving a big middle finger right down the Seawolves’ throats after they tried to chew up the rest of the game clock and bite off the last shot for the win. This was Russell’s best game as a Wildcat so far, bar none.

Chris Sharp also deserves mentioning here. If it’s not for his second-half exploits, Chico State likely doesn’t have a chance at winning this game. He muscled up for 12 points and dominated the post, and he’s got a hellacious drop step. Very polished game on the blocks, it seems. What he did in this game is what I think a lot of people expected of him this season, and if he can continue it, the Wildcats will be in contention every time out.

DOWNS
This is very odd, putting Argenal in one of these categories, and really, it’s not like he had a terrible game. I’m not even sure anybody would have noticed that he shot 25 percent from the floor and didn’t have an assist, because his 3-pointer in overtime was an absolute coffin-nail. But here’s why he goes in this spot, for this game:

Argenal is a fan favorite, and basketball-wise, he’s been the face of this program for the past three years. He’s not loud, or flashy, or really spectacular, but he is solid as they come and productive as anybody could ask for. I’m just not sure that he’s the prototypical leader type that usually comes with the territory of being a team’s best player. He’s fine with being the fifth or sixth scoring option and letting people feed off him, and he definitely can pick his spots. My one knock on him — just for this game — is what NBA fans would call Pre-Boston Garnett Syndrome: He’s a team player almost to a fault. Hopefully you can see my struggle categorizing this as a “Down.” I feel dirty now, like I just ate a really good meal and tipped well, but didn’t pay the check. Not that I’ve actually done that.

First-half folly. A horrific start to this game put the Wildcats in jeopardy early, as they shot 9-of-31 to post a meager 21 spot in the first half. I’ve noticed this in a few games now, where Chico State has an excellent first couple of possessions, then looks like it’s not quite sure what to do next when it gets the ball again. When the Wildcats got up 6-4 early, it looked like they wanted to win with that as the final score, dribbling the clock out and settling for bad jumpers. It’s obviously a plus it got corrected, but it’s a very tough way to play every night.

Women
UPS
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a good, old-fashioned CCAA butt-kicking, it seems like. Without a doubt, this is the kind of win this team needs to build confidence as the CCAA season progresses. Fogel has stressed the importance of turning four-point leads into seven-point leads, or extending 10-point gaps to 14, and the Wildcats looked downright proficient in that regard. There’s a couple reasons why; one of them is that Sonoma State seemed determined to play defense, with a 7-to-19 assist-to-turnover ratio. That’s god-awful. Credit the Wildcat defense (a phrase which popped up a lot last year, and that’s not a bad template to work from).

A bunch of Bull. This was Synchro Bull’s best game in her young career, and it all had to do with confidence. I’m not the only one who feels like, if she wanted to, she could score around 15 points a game. She has great touch on a little running floater, she can spot up well, and she takes good care of the ball. I think she’s probably a lot scrappier than I’ve given her credit for; she just hasn’t been playing aggressively as she gets used to the college game. That looked like it started to change against the Seawolves, and she had 10 points and six rebounds. It’s hard not to stress how important offensive guard play is for a team relatively thin at the position.

DOWNS
Might as well leave ‘em sitting. Bull aside, the bench continues to be relatively unproductive, contributing just four points to the cause. And it’s not just scoring-wise, either; the non-starting group (excluding Bull, who should find her way back into the starting lineup relatively soon if her solid play continues) accounted for just one assist, one block, one steal, two rebounds and seven turnovers. That’s not necessarily reflective of bench play as a whole; for most of the game Fogel rotated eight and only got in the remainder of his subs with a minute left.

In other words, cross your fingers and hope somebody doesn’t get hurt.