Three seconds left in overtime. The score was Mount St. Mary’s College 58, Sacramento State 56. Sacramento had two free throws. First shot goes in. The second shot bounces on the rim. There were ten guys holding their breath, huddled in a circle under the basket. The ball circles the rim once, then circles it again. On the third rotation, it rims out to the floor.

“It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop,” said Paul Smith, former basketball player for the Sac State Hornets.

The Hornets lost the championship by one point to Mount St. Mary’s in 1962, at Evansville, Indiana. It was a day the team said they would never forget.

The entire 1961-62 men’s basketball team and their coach, Everett Shelton, were the first inductees into the Sac State Basketball Hall of Fame. The team was honored in the inaugural induction ceremony at the Alumni Center on Thursday. As members of the 1962 men’s basketball team started to arrive, they walked under an arch of gold and green balloons while Sac State’s cheerleaders performed a cheer as they entered the room.

Hornet men’s basketball coach, Brian Katz, emceed the event. He introduced the men’s team for the 2008-09 season and then introduced the Hall of Fame inductees from the 1961-62 season.

“They should have received this honor a long time ago,” Katz said.

John Hagarty, who played in the final game, said once the basketball team got back home they were all treated like heroes. They were the first team to come within one point of winning a championship.

The only cheerleader able to attend the championship games, Patsy Daulton Daniels, was given the honor of holding the trophy as they departed the plane at Sacramento’s Executive Airport. A thousand Sac State fans were waiting there to greet them.

Daniels got to go to Evansville at the last minute after a local radio station started a campaign to raise money to send her to cheer on the team.

“I remember walking into the Evansville gymnasium with my cheerleading outfit on and not knowing a soul,” Daniels said.

Daniels looked around the gym and saw some kids running around. She said she stopped them and asked if they would help her cheer her team. She explained she was out there from California and her team needs to know she wants them to win. Daniels said back then, California seemed like it was on the other side of the moon to people in Indiana and no one had heard of Sac State. She said the kids helped her cheer and started a cheering section for Sacramento.

Daniels said no one expected Sac State to win any games in the tournament. By the time Sac State was playing the final game, Daniels recalled there were a couple hundred families with homemade signs cheering them on.

“Being a part of the championships was like experiencing a bit of magic in my life,” Daniels said.

Katz said the statistics at the beginning of the season in 1961 did not look good. The team lost its first three games that year. By Christmas, the team had a 2-4 record. They were 6-7 going into the championships. Katz said this was a real testament to their character as a team.

Smith, who was a substitute on the team, said individually there were not any outstanding players, but as a team they were really, really good.

Katz, before introducing the players individually, talked about coach Everett Shelton, the coach that took the 1962 basketball team to the finals. Katz spoke about Shelton’s record as a basketball coach.

According to the National College Athletic Association, Shelton, who passed away April 16, 1974, was best known for coaching the University of Wyoming from 1939 to 1959 and winning the NCAA’s fifth championship in 1943.

“Coach Shelton was a god,” Smith said.

John Shelton, Everett Shelton’s son, accepted the award in his honor. In his memory, Shelton’s plaque will be placed in the newly remodeled Everett Shelton locker room.

“As you age, you look back, the story gets better and better each time you tell it,” former player Howard Thomas said. “Even though it’s wonderful to be acknowledged, now my family knows I wasn’t a superstar, I wasn’t even a star, just a basketball player.”

Sally King can be reached at [email protected]