No. 11 Dougherty Valley pulls of one of the biggest comebacks in California boys basketball history

Less than 24 hours after it happened, Dougherty Valley boys basketball coach Mike Hansen was asked to describe it, which is like trying to recount a tornado or Black Friday at Wal-Mart.

“Madness,” Hansen said. “Insanity.”

Down 27 in the third quarter against a red-hot San Ramon Valley squad, Hansen said he was ready to clear his bench, but decided to stick with his starters one more minute.

One minute turned into a couple more and in eight maddening, insane minutes, the Wildcats (24-3) were actually ahead en route to a truly epic 86-83 East Bay Athletic League tournament semifinal home victory on Thursday night.

The dynamic senior duo of Ryan Beasley and Connor Sevilla were dynamic once more. As laid out here by San Jose Mercury News’ Darren Sabedra and Ethan Kassel of the San Francisco Standard, the USF-signee Beasley, a 6-foot point guard, went for 42 points — 29 in the second half — including a 14-for-14 effort at the foul line in the fourth quarter.

Sevilla, a 6-1 shooting guard, scored 20 of his 29 in the second half, lifting California’s No. 11 team in the SBLive Power 25 to the improbable win against a San Ramon Valley squad (23-6) that won the second division in the Classic at Damien Classic-Laverne in December. 

"Those two kids are special," Hansen said. "They are so supremely competitive. They don't back down from any challenge." 

But this one seemed insurmountable. 

The Wolves made 11 3-pointers and got 22 points from sophomore Luke Isaak, 19 by Mason Thomas and a combined 30 from Seamus Deely and Parker McClaughry.

“I called out every senior on the bench (early in the third quarter) and said ‘this is on you and you and you and you,’ “ Hansen said. “Is this how you want to be remembered? Is this how you want to go out? The seniors just looked at each other and said, ‘let’s go.’

“Then it was a steal, three. Turnover, three. Turnover, bucket. In a minute the game got turned on its side. The energy in the place started going bananas. Our guys coming off the bench were flying around. Our freshman (Rodney Westmoreland) came in and made plays. We started causing more and more turnovers and playing as fast as we could.

“We started hitting and they finally started missing. I was just trying to stay ahead of the madness.”

The madness translated to a 47-13 run and that included a seven-point sequence from Beasley on four straight free throws (two came on a technical foul) and a 3-pointer, which cut the lead to 69-63 with 5:39 to play. “I knew we had it (then),” Beasley told Sabedra.

Within 90 seconds the Wildcats had their first lead and with 44.1 seconds left they had increased it to 80-73 before the Wolves fought back. When Beasley fouled out with 16 seconds to play, two SRV free throws cut the Dougherty Valley lead to 84-83.

Sevilla made two free throws before a last-second 3 from Isaak was straight as a string but a tad long and Dougherty Valley had won an unlikely one.

Hansen, 51, whose dad Tom was a high school coach and who has been around the game all his life said he’s never experienced such a comeback.

Documenting comebacks in history isn’t so simple:

* The NBA’s biggest is the Utah Jazz coming back from a 36-point deficit to beat the Denver Nuggets 107-103 in 1996. That was almost surpassed this season when the Clippers fought back from a 35-point deficit to beat the Wizards 116-115. Both those leads were in the second quarter with more than 24 minutes left to play.

* The largest in NCAA history was Delaware's 85-83 win over Drexel in 2018, fighting back from 34 points down late in the first half.

* The nearest one we could find at the prep level was in Pennsylvania, where Brentwood’s girls trailed Serra Catholic 41-17 in the third quarter, but went on a 27-0 run to win 54-52 in overtime. It was a Class AA WPIAL playoff game.

As far as California comebacks, here's the biggest we could find:  

* Canyon-Anaheim's boys trailed by 22 points going into the fourth quarter and by 28 points in the third, but beat Lawndale 103-98 in double overtime of a Southern Section 2AA championship game in 2015. It was the first 100-point game in Southern Section title-game history. 

“I don’t know where it goes down in history, but I know I’ve never seen anything like it,” Hansen said. “I’ve been a part of some bad losses I can remember.”

Hansen couldn’t pinpoint why the game had two such drastic swings. As the top seed, Dougherty Valley hadn’t played in five days where San Ramon Valley had won two straight games and were fresh from the start.

San Ramon Valley took a double-digit lead in the first meeting between the teams, but Dougherty Valley rallied for a 64-48 win in Danville on Jan. 10. 

“It took us some time to get going,” he said of Thursday's win. “We seemed to have dead legs and no energy but (SRV) was on fire from the jump.”

He kept reminding his team “If you want to be a champion, you have to find a way,” Hansen said.

And winning the EBAL means a great deal this year. The league is extremely strong with seven of the teams ranked among the Top 20 in the San Francisco Bay Area.

With the win, the Wildcats clinched the overall league title. A new formula combining points for round-robin wins (Dougherty Valley went 8-1) and playoff victories determine the champions. Because De La Salle-Concord lost to Granada Thursday, Dougherty Valley clinched the title.

They’ll still host the tournament title game Saturday against Granada-Livermore (21-7), which upset De La Salle 71-67 in overtime on Thursday.

At least four teams from the EBAL will likely enter the North Coast Section Open Division tournament, which will be announced on Sunday.

Hansen said his competitive squad will go all out Saturday, even with the No. 1 seed from its league wrapped up.

“This is a special group with some very special, competitive kids,” Hansen said. “If there’s a scoreboard, a clock and referees, our guys will definitely get out there and get after it.”