They’re Ma-KING basketball history in Riverside

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Not even Martin Luther King, Jr. could’ve had a dream that would include this chain of events.

The King boys’ basketball team, representing a school named after the aforementioned civil rights leader, shocked just above everybody outside of Van Buren Blvd. with an 83-82 overtime victory Thursday night over top-seeded Taft in a Southern California Regional Division I semifinal.

Me, I only had the Wolves losing by 15. But I knew this team, I had only read about Taft. I think most others, though, expected King to be down by double-digits by the end of the first quarter. I think we read too much into the Toreadors this winter, and not enough into King.

Don’t blame me, the Inland Empire gopher boy. I wrote a profile on King’s biggest stud, Eric Wise, back in January. It hurts to think we didn’t have the Wolves in our preseason top 25, though (sorry I can’t link to the preseason top 25, the digital version is forever deleted);

Now the Wolves get the chance to redeem themselves against Dominguez in the championship game Saturday night at 8 at the Sports Arena.

If you remember, the Dons defeated King, 68-60, back on Jan. 19 at UCLA, but the Wolves, and specifically 6-foot-7 junior Kawhi Leonard, were hardly in the right frame of mind to play that game after learning the night before that Leonard’s father had been shot to death.

I expect this game to go down to the wire and put an exclamation point on the regionals, as well as another great high school basketball season in Southern California.

-- Dan Arritt

-- Image from www.allposters.com