CMC75 Moments: 2012 Men's Basketball Takes Down Sagehens for SCIAC Title
As part of the buildup to the 75th Anniversary celebration for Claremont McKenna College (visit CMC's 75th Anniversary Countdown Page to learn more), we are reliving many of the great moments from CMS athletic department history over the 75-day countdown from April 17 to July 1. If you were a part of this great moment and would like to add to the memories, or if you would like to submit your memories of your own favorite CMS Athletics moments, fill out the form on our main 75th Anniversary page.
Great Moments from 75 Years of Athletics
2012 Men's Basketball: CMS 60, Pomona-Pitzer 54 (SCIAC Finals)
The CMS Men's Basketball team didn't know it was in many ways ending an era when it hosted the 2012 SCIAC Championship game against Pomona-Pitzer at Ducey Gymnasium. It just knew that it had a tough game on its hands … and that the place would be packed.
The Sixth Street Rivalry has always been intense, but that year it reached a fever pitch with two wild finishes in the regular season, as Remy Pinson went coast-to-coast to win at the buzzer at Pomona-Pitzer, and the Sagehens made three foul shots with less than a second left to win at Ducey by one point in the regular season finale. When both teams won their semifinals, it set up the second Sixth Street game at Ducey in four days, and the fourth Pomona-Pitzer vs. CMS championship game in a five-year span. The Sagehens won at home in 2008 by a 55-53 score, while the Stags won in 2009 (56-44) and 2010 (57-53) at Ducey before Redlands broke the Sixth Street stranglehold with the 2011 title.
The 2012 title game was a defensive battle in the first half, with CMS taking a 21-17 lead into the break, and the Stags were able to build a second-half lead and hold off a late Sagehen rally to come up with a 60-54 win and cue a wild court-storming. It would be the last time that Ducey Gym would host a men's basketball championship game, as two years later, the plans for Roberts Pavilion were announced, but the final one added another great chapter in the Sixth Street Rivalry.
Chris Blees was the SCIAC Player of the Year (he played in all four of the above mentioned PP vs. CMS championship games after missing 2011 with an injury), while Tyler Gaffaney led the way in the finals with 16 points on a perfect 5-5 shooting (3-3 from three) and Kevin Sullivan added 10 big points off the bench with three three-pointers.
Tyler Gaffaney:
So many good memories it's hard to pin down. As far as that particular game goes, I remember we had such a short turnaround from our last game against Pomona that the emotions from that loss were still fresh. In the regular season finale, Blees had a monster game and the rest of us struggled to give him any support. Going into the SCIAC finale, I knew we had to give Blees some help on the offensive end. We always knew our defense would show up, but we needed a little boost on offense to compliment what Blees gave us. The fact that we were able to win even while Blees and Mani had off nights showed the growth of that team.
Some great memories of that season:
Remy's coast to coast layup to beat Pomona. Some insider information: Remy completely botched a switch on the defensive end of the floor that allowed Klukas to get an open 3 to tie the game. But then he more than made up for it by going coast-to-coast so I forgive him.
The next game we took our first loss to Whittier but Jack Grodahl (a freshman at the time) had a monster game and kept us in it, making clutch free throws and burying 3's all over the place to send the game to OT.
Joey Anderson was an unsung hero of that team. He played so hard, was such a good defender and was relentless on the glass for us.
Scali, Levi and Fortson did such a great job with our team that year. Blees was coming off his ACL injury and we had to integrate Mani into the team as he came back to school for one year. The year before (when Blees was injured and taking a redshirt year and Mani was gone) we had success running our motion offense and building chemistry in it. However, Blees and Mani are unique offensive talents that don't easily mesh with the motion offense that we had run the year before. Scali was able to take the best of both worlds by continuing to run the motion offense that we had begun the year before while skilfully integrating Mani's and Blees' skillset.
That SCIAC championship game happened to be my last game at Ducey as I injured my knee and redshirted the next season. I loved games at Ducey and I'm so glad I was able to experience them before it was torn down. The atmosphere in Ducey was absolutely electric. It was loud, hot, sweaty and the fans were basically on top of you. Everything was different about Pomona games at Ducey: the floor would get so slippery from the sweat and humidity that it was hard to keep your footing. The basketball became a wet sponge as the game went on. Inbouding the ball on the far side from the team benches meant you literally had fans directly to your left and right who could easily touch you. The chants back and forth between student sections were legendary, extremely specific, and rarely PC. You couldn't hear anything. Even Scali's booming voice from the sideline was swallowed up by the crowd noise.
After graduating, I played overseas for a few years and the fans often brought vuvuzelas and full-sized drums to the games but it never came close to matching the atmosphere of a Pomona game in Ducey gym.
2011-12 Men's Basketball Roster
Head Coach: Ken Scalmanini
Assistant Coaches: Levi Seig, Khris Fortson
Joseph Anderson (Sr., CMC)
Chris Blees (Gr., CMC)
Cameron Cain (Sr., CMC)
Patrick Donnelly (Jr., CMC)
Tyler Gaffaney (So., CMC)
Jack Grodahl (Fr., CMC)
Mani Maceira (Sr., CMC)
Cody Mivshek (Jr., G, CMC)
Christian Mkpado (Fr., CMC)
Demetri Monovoukas (Fr., HMC)
Remy Pinson (So., CMC)
Chis Rama (Fr., CMC)
Tyler Sonnemaker (Fr., CMC)
Kevin Sullivan (Jr., CMC)
Eric Van Wart (So., CMC)