Ventura Doubly Excited

Perhaps the only people in town not talking about a double state basketball championship are the two men closest to the quest.

Philip Mathews and Ned Mircetic, close friends, colleagues and the respective coaches of the Ventura College men’s and women’s teams, stand shoulder to shoulder on the precipice of history. No junior college in California has won two state basketball titles in the same season. The Pirates are poised to become the first.

The fans who show up in full--if sometimes belligerent--voice for both ends of Ventura doubleheaders at home and on the road have not been disappointed. They haven’t seen a Pirate loss in nearly three months. The teams have combined to forge a 50-game winning streak. The men’s team is top-ranked in the state, having swept to a 29-0 record. The women are ranked second in California with a 23-1 mark, their only loss a one-point setback Nov. 13 to L.A. Harbor, the defending state champion.

With the playoffs only days away and expectations ratcheting higher, Pirate pandemonium is gathering force. Fans have no doubt that history--and a pair of state championships--awaits their school.

“I don’t think that people think it’s a possibility--many people think it’s an absolute certainty,” said George Lanning, a 63-year-old retired administrator at the school and a fixture in the stands.

“I’m convinced. We can’t lose,” said Louis Bryant, 48, a die-hard Pirates fan. “When we go to someone else’s gym, it becomes VC’s gym. The fans take over first. We talk trash, and the girls win. That’s the first step. Then the boys win, and we give them their gym back. It’s our party.”

Mathews and Mircetic bask in the merriment--but assiduously avoid the double-title talk. As the coaches pass each other in a hectic season, they briefly talk tactics, stealing a moment to dissect an X here and an O there.

“We avoid talking about it. We get enough of that from the community,” Mathews said. “We know we have to do the work on the floor.”

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With a career .747 winning percentage, the women have ranked among the top schools in Southern California since the program’s inception in 1981.

And nearly a half-century ago, the Ventura men ranked not only as the state’s top team but one of the best in the country. When the 1950 team finished second in a national tournament, players were paraded through town in convertibles.

The past notwithstanding, most observers say, Ventura’s success starts with one man--Mathews.

The 44-year-old son of an Air Force warrant officer took Ventura by storm when he was hired 10 years ago. The only thing that speaks louder than his record are the verbal blasts the fiery coach launches during games.

After nine consecutive losing seasons before Mathews, Ventura has won every Western State Conference title since, claimed the state title in 1987 behind Laker Cedric Ceballos and reached the final eight of the state tournament four times, playing in the championship games the past two seasons.

Since 1990, Ventura is 137-15 and has won 58 of its past 59 home games.

Success for the women’s team also is traced to Mathews. Not only do the women credit the men’s success for bringing attention to their season, their coach is a Mathews disciple.

Mircetic, 40, was born in Yugoslavia and raised in Chicago before moving to suburban Los Angeles in time to graduate from La Canada High. After two years at Glendale College, he graduated from UCLA and took a job as a respiratory therapist. His only basketball experience came as a reserve at La Canada.

Bored by his job, he somehow talked St. Bonaventure High in Ventura into hiring him as the boys’ frosh-soph coach in 1982. A year later, he jumped to Oxnard College and worked two seasons for David Carmichael, a longtime friend of Mathews.

When Mathews started building his first staff at Ventura, Carmichael recommended Mircetic, and something about the coach prompted Mathews to hire Mircetic, despite his modest track record. After a five-year apprenticeship under Mathews, Mircetic was hired to coach the women.

“(Mathews) is very demanding,” Mircetic said. “He never accepts less than how he demanded it. I try to follow that.”

The women have adopted the men’s credo: “We play hard,” and Mircetic runs his players through many of the same drills the men navigate. Like the men, the women emphasize quick-strike offense and full-court pressure defense. “Our girls see the intensity of the men’s game and that passes on to them,” Mircetic said.

In the past five seasons, Ventura has lost only two WSC games and seems certain to make this the fourth consecutive season with at least 25 victories.

Academic success also links the teams. Buttressed by the academic support system that Mathews has instituted--including the vigilance of academic adviser Becky Hull--59 of 64 players, including all 11 sophomores last year, have graduated and transferred to four-year schools.

On the women’s side, Mircetic points to his team’s collective 3.23 grade-point average, including 4.0 marks for sophomore forward Amber Magner and freshman forward Gina Cusano. And 17 of the past 19 women who played as sophomores have either graduated or transferred.

Along with the many similarities between the programs at Ventura is an obvious difference. Rarely must Mircetic stray far from campus to find his players. Sophomore forward Julie Hardy, who has a 21.5 scoring average and set a conference record with 49 points against Hancock in January, played at Buena, less than a mile from the college. Of the 14 players on the team, 10 played high school ball in Ventura or Santa Barbara counties.

Mathews, however, jokingly refers to the men as America’s team. Although not everyone appreciates the joke--critics say drawing players from outside the area violates the spirit of community college sports--Mathews has become a magnet for talented players whether they played at Buena like Lance Fay or in New Jersey (freshman forward Hakeem Ward), New York (freshman guard Rafer Alston), Chicago (freshman center Curtis Ganes) or Florida (freshman forward Gerald Zimmerman).

With a national cast and remarkable depth--Mathews employs two units and substitutes them as groups every few minutes--many believe the men have a better chance to claim a state title than the women, who are looking for their first California championship.

Forward is the only gear the Ventura teams seem to know. And as enthusiasm and expectations mount, so does the pressure. At least that’s how Hardy sees it sometimes. Strangers wish her well all over town, and the prospect of spoiling everybody’s fun by losing slips into her thoughts.

“It’ll be a big letdown for a lot of people if we don’t do it,” she said.

But that fear stands little chance to taking root if the coaches have their way. Mathews, in his first year as athletic director, scoffs at the thought of pressure. He’s too busy envisioning a civic outpouring of Gargantuan proportions.

“When I took this job, people told me Ventura was a sleeping giant,” he said. “It was ready for an explosion. For this college to have two state champions in the same season, I can’t even utter the words to say what would happen.”

It didn’t take him long to find the words, however. “This town already has exploded,” he said. “It would blow up. They’d give us a parade down Main Street.”