Well, it's settled.
The Crimson Bears cannot fly and play.
For the third straight year, the Juneau men took the 6 a.m. flight to Anchorage on the eve of a big tournament, then lost their pre-tourney game.
On Wednesday, Chugiak's Zach Devine canned a 35-foot three-point bank-shot with four seconds left, helping the Mustangs erase a 13-point fourth quarter deficit to beat Juneau, 49-48.
"We ran a clinic in how to give it away," said Juneau coach George Houston in a telephone interview from his hotel room. "We didn't adjust to the way the game was being called. It was called more like college, pretty physical, fairly consistent. But we were driving into situations where it was too tight, we kept doing that. We have nobody to blame but ourselves."
It was the Crimson Bears' first loss in almost a year - their last blemish came on Jan. 23 of 1998 against East Anchorage. Ironically, the Bears are slated to play East Anchorage again on Saturday - Jan. 23 - in the final round of the T-Bird Classic.
Wednesday's loss took a bit of luster off the anticipated anniversary game. The Bears (9-1, 2-0 region) kicked off the T-Bird Classic today against West Anchorage at 4 p.m.
"The last two years up here, we took the early flight out," said Juneau coach George Houston on the KINY pre-game show. "We lost both. We used that early morning (flight) as kind of an excuse. We wanted to approach this one being ready to attack right away."
The Bears did that, building a 40-27 lead after three quarters, but then they faded in the homestretch. About midway through the quarter, Chugiak had cut Juneau's lead to seven points, but the Bears built it back up to 11 points again.
The pesky Mustangs wouldn't quit. They cut the lead to three points, 46-43, with 2:15 left. A pair of Levi Rollman free throws cut the lead to two points, 48-46 with 35 seconds left.
On its next possession, Juneau was whistled for traveling, turning the ball over to the Mustangs. Rollman missed a shot inside with seven seconds left, and Juneau's Carlos Boozer swatted the loose ball to mid-court.
Devine retrieved it, took about two steps and launched a trey that banged off the glass and into the hoop.
"It's good!" said a shocked Anchorage announcer, Kelly Thompson, broadcasting the game for KINY. "Zach Devine put up a prayer that was answered!"
But Houston disagreed.
"No, it wasn't a prayer. When he took the shot, it looked good a soon as he released it. It was a shot, not a throw," Houston said. "Had he not made that shot and we had won the game, I told the kids I would be just as disappointed with our play in terms of the execution of things."
Juneau had time to run one last play, but there was a mix-up in execution and time ran out without the Bears getting a shot off.
It wasn't the way Juneau wanted to start the trip. An optimist might say that it's better to get a loss out of the way early so that pressure doesn't build on the Bears as the season progresses, but that smacks of sour grapes.
East Anchorage head coach Chuck White, three Anchorage Daily News reporters, three television crews and a raucous crowd were on hand to watch two-time defending state champion Juneau's first trip to Anchorage this year.
The Bears had an 11-6 lead after one quarter and a 24-19 lead at the half. By the time they opened their 13-point lead after three quarters, the game looked like a duplicate of last year's matchup between these two teams in the opening round of the state playoffs.
The only difference was, in that one Juneau increased its 48-35 lead after three into a resounding 71-45 victory.
"It was just disappointing to lose in a game where you had moments of pretty decent play, and then not to be able to sustain yourself," Houston said. "Actually, I didn't think we played that well the entire game. In the stretch run we weren't able to do anything right, but we have to learn and move on. I thought we got out-fought at times - Evan (Tromble) hurt his ankle and that hurt us down the stretch."
After twisting it in the first half and then again in the second, Houston sat Tromble, a strong rebounding foward, for the remainder of the game.
For Juneau, Carlos Boozer led the way with 23 points, Christian Carpeneti had 19, Tromble had 2, Grady Treston had 2, James Wilson had 1 and Mike VanderJack had 1.
Juneau hit 17-of-32 from the floor (53 percent) and had 28 rebounds.
For Chugiak, Jason Erickson and Devine had 12 each to lead the scoring. The Mustangs had 33 rebounds and hit 31 percent from the floor.
"Good teams don't do the things we did down stretch, take bad shots, and it wasn't just one or two guys," Houston said. "We lost as a team making mistakes. In the locker room I told `em there's nobody to blame, just learn from it."
Now, Juneau must try to avoid the slump that plagued the last two JD teams which lost their opening game of this trip. Last year's Bears went 2-4 over a two-week span after losing to East; the 1995-96 team went 5-6 the rest of the season against Alaska competition after losing to Colony.
It's worth mentioning that both JD teams recovered to win state titles.
