He walked out of the locker room like he always does — with a smile on his face to greet the supporters that have accumulated near the entrance.

In baggy shorts and a green practice jersey, Joel Jones couldn’t get two steps out the door before young fans began to beg him to sign their T-shirts.

His team just suffered a 68-62 playoff loss to Weber State in the Hornets’ Nest. His collegiate career had just ended in the span of a 40-minute basketball game. The same supporters who waited outside the locker room after all 13 games this season were there once again to congratulate and console.

Jones surprisingly and fittingly already knew what this season meant with one look of a gym that had just moments before been lined with screaming green and gold students — fans and believers.

“We started a tradition here,” he said.

The tradition continued from last year’s record-breaking season to the 2003-04 team. The Hornets finished with a Div. I record of 13-14 overall and 7-7 in the Big Sky and tied for second in the conference standings. They won two Big Sky games on the road and for the first time ever hosted and sold out a playoff game.

It is the end of the 2003-04 season men’s basketball season and it’s the end of six seniors’ collegiate careers. But for the program, Sac State’s playoff loss is oddly just the beginning.

“I’m happy we got this far,” senior Joseth Dawson said. “Whoever thought we’d be hosting a playoff game in front of a sellout crowd? We’re just building the foundation, especially the seniors. We don’t have a reason to hang our heads down.”

Four years ago head coach Jerome Jenkins took over a Div. I program that had never been to the playoffs, had never won a conference game on the road, had never posted a double-digit win season.

“No one gave me a chance to turn this around,” Jenkins said “Everyone thought (then athletic director) Debby Colberg was crazy for hiring me. I’m coaching for a lot of reasons — for the university, for the pride of Sacramento and for the people who had confidence in me and gave me this job so I could help this program grow and go to the next level.”

Whoever thought Sac State would have scalpers patrolling the front of Yosemite Hall asking if anybody needed tickets to a sold out game?

Whoever thought with 39 seconds left in a game where they trailed by as many as 11 points in the second half, they’d be just two points shy of tying the score?But for the second year in a row, Weber State, the defending Big Sky champs, knocked the Hornets out of the Big Sky tournament.

“I thought we had some motivation for coming back here,” Wildcat coach Joe Cravens said referring to his team’s 64-61 regular season loss in Sacramento on Feb. 19. “I’d like to thank all those knuckleheads out in the parking lot for all the catcalls. It helped us having another chip on our shoulder.”

The “knuckleheads” were part of a crowd of 1,100 that stood for much of the second half, stomped its feet and cheered like no game before at the Hornets’ Nest.

“I was so tired out there,” Jones said, after leading his team with 17 points, eight rebounds, four assists, three steals and two breakaway dunks. “The crowd just kept me going.”

Jones first treated the crowd with a steal that ended with a thunderous two-handed slam and then quickly found rim again with a one handed slam off an outlet pass from Dawson.

Within the span of 30 seconds he brought Sac State to within four points, 44-40, with just over 10 minutes remaining.

The Hornets played aggressive defensively for the full 40 minutes — forcing the Wildcats into 19 turnovers. But Sac State failed to convert those possessions into points.

They dove to the floor in pursuit of loose balls, out-rebounded a team with 6-foot-8 Slobodan Ocokoljic and 6-foot-10 Lance Allred lingering under the hoop and ignited the crowd with breakaway dunks from Jones and Jameel Pugh.

But a 43-second stretch with less than seven minutes left signified the entire game. With the crowd on its feet, E.J. Harris harassed Weber State guards John Hamilton and Brett Cox. He created steals and forced turnovers with his flailing arms and smart positioning, but every time Sac State gained a new possession, the Hornets would give it right back.

“It was anybody’s game,” Jones said. “We didn’t underestimate them at all. We just didn’t capitalize on possessions. We forced them to turn the ball over like three-straight times and we just missed the shot or tuned the ball over.

“We know we didn’t give them our best punch. We kind of chose the wrong time to act like this. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.”

The Hornets shot 31.7 percent from the floor, while the Wildcats shot 52.3 percent, led by Ocokoljic, who finished with 23 points and eight rebounds.

Allred, Ocokoljic’s partner in the paint, had a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

But it was easy for the Wildcats to rebound well.

Shot after shot clanked off the iron for the Hornets. Even lay-ups seemed to pop in and out or roll off the rim as if the ball was somehow frightened of the net.

Dawson, who was named to Big Sky All-Conference team last Thursday, finished with 15 points and made the 3-pointer that brought the score to 62-60 with 39 seconds left.

After Weber State’s Nic Sparrow added two free throws Dawson then missed a 3-point attempt with the arm of Jamaal Jenkins hovering over his face.

“Everybody’s work ethic paid off,” Jones said of his team’s season-long success. “I’m just happy I came here. I’ve built lifelong relationships with everybody out here. We started a tradition here. I know we lost but I’m really not disappointed. This is a time for celebration because we did a lot of things that we never accomplished before.”