Even Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls lost in their first six playoff appearances.

“Right now they’re the old Pistons and we’re the young Bulls,” said head coach Jerome Jenkins after his Hornets’ 74-71 Big Sky quarterfinal loss to Weber State on Saturday night.

To understand the heartbreak and disappointment associated with the men’s basketball team’s gut-wrenching three-point loss — its third straight playoff loss to the Wildcats — is to grasp how far the team has come.

Last year Weber State beat Sac State by six points, 68-62, so this 74-71 victory can be seen as just another step for a once-laughable program in an arduous project.

Weber State coach Joe Cravens has developed an appreciation for Jenkins and his program.”(Jenkins) has a good combination — talented players that play hard for him,” Cravens said. “I feel like Sac State is the most talented team in the conference. Once they get that new facility built, this will be the best basketball job in the Big Sky.”

That future includes Big Sky newcomer-of-the-year Jason Harris, Big Sky honorable mention selection DaShawn Freeman — both will be in their senior seasons — and a core of six freshmen and sophomores whose maturation was key in the Hornets’ second half resurgence this season.

“This program will make the NCAA tournament,” Jenkins said. “The future is bright.”After beginning the season 2-8, the team went 9-4 down the stretch to grab the Big Sky Tournament’s fourth seed.

“This program is a lot better than people give it credit for,” Jenkins said.

It had been 11 years since the program had recorded 10 wins when Jenkins guided the team to a 12-17 record in 2002-03, and the first-ever appearance for the men’s team in the Big Sky Tournament.

Then the team got another first: By upsetting No. 3-seeded Montana, the team advanced to the semifinals. A team that was once the laughing stock of the Big Sky had beaten one of its perennial powerhouses before falling to another, Weber State, in the semifinals in Ogden, Utah.

The elation Jenkins and his team felt that year is what Sac State women’s basketball coach Dan Muscatell and his squad felt a few hours prior to the men’s playoff game Saturday.

Already having clinched its first Big Sky tournament berth in eight years — and just its second ever, by virtue of a Montana State loss — the Hornet women’s basketball team beat third-place Eastern Washington 57-41 to assure there would be no back door entrance to the playoffs.

-“This is the beginning of a vision we saw two years ago when my wife and I first set foot on this campus,” Muscatell said. “The motto this year was ‘change program history.'”

For senior Kristine Knowlton, the win was validation in a career marred by losses. In Knowlton’s freshman season in 2001-02, the team went 0-27 and was the only team in Division I women’s basketball to do so in that year.

“It’s exciting for us,” Knowlton said. “Especially since it hasn’t been so good around here.”

Knowlton, the school’s second all-time shot blocker, had only been on the winning side of four contests before this season — half the amount of wins of this year’s team.

“I’m glad I decided to stick around for three years,” Knowlton said. “It was hard sometimes. Hard to come in and give your best when sometimes you just don’t want to.”

Since Athletic Director Terry Wanless took control of the program in 2002, he has literally had a front row seat to the development of the two programs that had done nothing but lose before his arrival.

“It’s been fun watching the progress of these two teams,” Wanless said. “It takes everybody working together to make things happen, and it’s great to see that the energy we put in is transferring over.”

Wanless said that he sees this as another positive step for the entire athletic program.”We want this sense of accomplishment to be normal from now on,” he said. “We want this to be the minimum expectation in years to come.”

As the campus moves closer to its Destination 2010 goal, Wanless feels that the athletic program’s continued progress is a key component to Sac State getting more recognition from the community.

“The greatest thing an athletic program can do is instill a sense of pride,” Wanless said. “I don’t want to say that attitude has been dead, but it’s definitely been dormant. We want to rip the cover off that dormant attitude and showcase all the great things happening on this campus.”

———————————?????????????????????

John Parker can be reached at [email protected]

var uslide_show_id = “C724C58A-E851-4CC2-B581-B3E19EBAA050”; var slideshowwidth = “468”; var linktext = “Click here for a slide show of the emotional roller coaster of a day at the Hornets Nest”;