‘Worst 33-3 Team in Nation’ Ends Up as Community College Champions

They were little engines that could.

A team that their coach said was “the worst 33-3 team in the nation.” They were talented but seldom executed to their maximum potential. Yet today they are champions because they refused to quit.

Last week at Toso Pavilion in Santa Clara, the El Camino College basketball team stumbled and bumbled and clawed and scratched and, by golly, it did win the California community college basketball championship.

Often it wasn’t pretty. The team missed seven layups and committed 20 turnovers in the 58-56 championship win over Columbia College of Sonora. They had 15 turnovers apiece in a 69-67 semifinal win over Merced and 79-66 opening-day victory over West Valley College of Saratoga. But they did not quit.

They fell behind in each game, only to mount impressive come-back efforts because they did not quit. At times their ragged play drove Coach Paul Landreaux crazy.

But they did not quit.

“They always wanted to win,” Landreaux said.

So now, what will the athletic program at El Camino do for a encore? Last fall the Warrior football team won the mythical national football title and the school’s soccer program won a state community college title. By virtue of the nail-biter over Columbia, El Camino chalked up its third state crown in the last eight years. No school has dominated community college basketball like this in years.

Only one man, Jerry Tarkanian, now at Neveda-Las Vegas, has won more community college titles (four) than El Camino Coach Paul Landreaux. Tarkanian accomplished his feat more than two decades ago when Landreaux was in high school.

Landreaux, who has been at the controls for all three state crowns, has an outstanding winning percentage. He is 278-53 in nine seasons. He appears a shoo-in for another state coach of the year award, which would be his third. It’s also possible that El Camino (33-3) may be the top team in the country when final rankings appear in USA Today later this month.

“Incredible” was the way a shaken Landreaux put it moments after last Saturday’s championship win, tears welling in his eyes.

This season he directed a team that faced many obstacles, not the least of which was its preseason No. 1 ranking. That’s usually a kiss of death.

The team streaked to 13 consecutive wins, then was upset by Compton College in a preseason tournament.

Other losses came to South Coast Conference foes Fullerton and Long Beach later in the season.

But El Camino ran up another 11 straight wins en route to the state title.

Some of the club’s biggest adversities came from its players. Before the year began, two potential starters were declared academically ineligible. On the floor, Landreaux complained all season that the team was his worst at executing his offense.

Many times the team seemed bent on self-destruction. In the championship game against Columbia, the Warriors trailed by as many as 10 points and the layups they missed were mostly uncontested. Somehow they opened a four-point lead late in the game and hung on.

“They never quit,” Landreaux said.

Down the stretch, it was Landreaux’s characteristically sound defensive coaching that won it. Columbia had the ball with 27 seconds to go but could not get off a good shot. No one could get close to the key as the Warriors shut off the passing lanes. A desperation 25-foot lob with two seconds left by Dwight Myvett did not draw iron.

At one point in the season, it looked like most of the team had agone AWOL.

Star forward Charles White and guard Arlandis Rush started a fight in the waning minutes of a game with Pasadena. Landreaux, a noted disciplinarian, was incensed. He kicked both off the team, accusing White of having a “ghetto mentality,” a charge that White said offended his mother. The story made big headlines.

White and Rush apologized a day later. Landreaux allowed them to return to the team. White, an all-tournament choice, scored the basket that broke Columbia’s back, an uncontested layup off an assist from Kirkland Howling with 27 seconds remaining in the game.

Soon after Rush and White were reinstated, forward/center David Lee turned up missing. Lee, who was named the most valuable player of the state tournament with 48 points and 39 rebounds, had eligibility problems, then failed to enroll in classes on time.

Landreaux stood in El Camino’s North Gymnasium one afternoon and lamented: “I don’t know if he’ll ever be back.”

Lee enrolled at the last second. He returned with a passion as a driving force in the state tournament. He grabbed key rebounds and side-stepped opponents under the basket for much-needed points at crucial times.

“I came to play,” Lee said, a net draped around his neck at the conclusion of the championship game.

Lee, criticized for not cracking the school books hard enough, credited watching a lot of TV with his success. In his room at the Santa Clara Hilton, he barricaded himself, glued to the tube, watching day after day of college basketball on ESPN.

“That got me pumped,” he said.

When Lee fouled out of the championship game with 39 seconds remaining, he showed how pumped he was. He thought he had made a clean block of a base-line shot by Columbia’s Shawn Graham. When Lee was called for reaching, he flung the basketball over his head. It travelled high into the air and the length of the court, coming to rest in the stands behind the El Camino bench.

Landreaux put his hands to his head, and from across the gym you could read his lips: “Oh, no.” Columbia Coach Denny Aye jumped off his bench and screamed for a technical foul. The 1,000 or so Columbia fans in attendance shouted “T, T.”

But White quickly confronted an official and Lee did the same. They said the ball had slipped. No call was made for unsportsmanlike conduct.

El Camino led at the time by just a basket and Graham’s ensuing pair of free throws tied the game at 56, which set the stage for White’s final layup five seconds later.

Lost in all the turmoil was the play of Rush, another all-tournament choice. All year, Rush never seemed to satisfy Landreaux with his execution of the Warrior offense. After the bruising semifinal win over Merced, Landreaux said to reporters: “I don’t think (Rush) will ever understand what we want in the point guard position.”

That didn’t seem to matter to the 6-2 sophomore. Despite 16 tournament turnovers, he came through with at least one key three-point shot a night. Each brought the Warriors out of the doldrums.

El Camino played just seven men in the tournament. Eric Dunn and Stacey Joyce shared the post with Lee. They combined for 13 points each of the final two nights.

Seventh-man Darron Jackson put in nine minutes of relief in the win over West Valley, which allowed Landreaux to rest Rush or Howling, a luxury he seldom had during the year.

When the championship game was over, the scene on the floor at Toso Pavilion was one of stark contrasts. El Camino players, hands upraised, signaled with index fingers in the air that they were No. 1. They hugged at center court.

The team had made the trip without a bevy of fans or their cheerleaders, but at the moment they didn’t seem to mind. Landreaux thrust his finger into the air. He made his way onto the floor and then shouted rhythmically: “Oh, yes! Oh, yes!”

Disappointed Claim Jumper fans filed out in a sea of red and gold jackets behind the El Camino bench. They had come to crown a champion for their small Yosemite Valley school, but now all they could do was watch dejectedly. Several Columbia players were crying.

Landreaux broke into tears soon after a ride on the shoulders of his players. He put his hands to his eyes and then took a seat on the El Camino bench.

When the Warriors were 10 points behind late in the second half, he said that he began to wonder “what time my flight was leaving in the morning and what things I had to pack.”

But he quickly corrected himself: “Each time they had their backs against the wall, they came back.”

A player shouted to him: “We did it, coach,” and Landreaux grinned.

The players stayed long after the tournament awards ceremony had concluded. They cut down the nets. Lee and Rush wore them proudly around their necks. Each player also wore a gold medal.

“This was a dogfight,” White said about the game. “We had to keep our heads in it.”

Landreaux finally said: “Come on, guys. The El Camino team bus is leaving.”