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Boys’ basketball: King is tops in home atmosphere

Los Angeles Times staff writer Ben Bolch
By Ben Bolch
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You’ve got to love a team whose band leads off with the Beatles’ ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ and whose students wear shirts bearing a large ‘K’ in block print to support the home team.

Riverside King has one of the coolest home atmospheres for a basketball game, and the fans are already packed into the gym with about 20 minutes left before tip-off in tonight’s Southern California Division I regional semifinal between the top-seeded Wolves and fourth-seeded Taft.

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Taft is looking for some payback, having lost to King in overtime on its home floor last year in a regional semifinal when the Toreadors were the top-seeded team. Making the feat all the more difficult will be the fact that guard Desean Johnson will miss his third consecutive game because of headaches, Taft Coach Derrick Taylor said.

--Ben Bolch

Varsity Times Insider
Ben Bolch

Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.

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