BERKELEY, CA — Ivan Rabb had two chances to put the perfect exclamation point on his stellar high school basketball career at Bishop O’Dowd.
The first was nearly an air ball.
The second sent the Dragons bench and the more than 10,000 fans in attendance at Haas Pavilion at Cal into a frenzy when Rabb hit his second free throw with 0.8 seconds left in overtime. Mater Dei’s last-second heave was no good as O’Dowd captured its first state title since 1981 when the Dragons defeated Mater Dei 65-64 in OT Saturday night in the CIF State Open Division championship game.
“It’s definitely sweet, I knew they’ve been on a winning streak,” said Rabb of Mater Dei’s four consecutive state titles. “We could’ve got them last year, they beat us the year before (in state) and in the regular season, too, but we just wanted to beat them, no question about it. (Mater Dei) coach (Gary) McKnight did a great job planning for me last year but (this year) I just did whatever I had to do to help my team win and it ended just how we expected it to.”
Rabb — a 6-foot-11 McDonald’s All-American power forward — finished with a double-double of 19 points, 17 rebounds and added three blocks.
When Rabb hit his second free throw it gave O’Dowd only its second lead of the game with its first coming in overtime when Franklin Longrus made a putback layup to make it 64-63 with 1:13 left.
“We talked about adversity all week,” said O’Dowd coach Lou Richie. “Everyone says how good we are all week and that we were favored. What happens if we get down? All the games this year that we have lost we have gotten down and not handled adversity well. Credit to our seniors; they hung and kept fighting. It's tremendous."
O’Dowd (28-4) forced five ties in the second half but Mater Dei behind some stellar 3-point shooting didn’t allow the Dragons to take the lead.
“Great team and great coaching staff,” said Richie of Mater Dei.
Mater Dei (29-5) held a 26-21 lead over O’Dowd going into halftime.
Leading the way in the second half for O’Dowd wasn’t just Rabb, but its 5-foot-10 Boise State commit point guard Paris Austin.
Austin, who scored only one point in the first half, finished with a game-high 21 points and added seven rebounds and seven steals.
“For us seniors we wanted to leave a legacy,” said Austin. “We knew this was going to be our last game and we just wanted to be great. It feels great; I’m speechless. The last time we won a state championship was 1981 and we got it done this year. This was the perfect way to finish it off for us.”
The Monarchs had a 58-56 lead with 25.6 seconds left in regulation, but Austin Walker’s lone basket of the game came at the biggest of moments when he tied the game 58-58 with a drive to the basket with 10.3 seconds left that sent the game to overtime.
“It was designed that if Paris wasn’t open for him to drive and create and that’s what he did,” said Richie.
Alez Zhao added 10 points and Longrus added eight points for O’Dowd.
Senior Rex Pflueger led the Monarchs with 19 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals. KJ Smith scored 13 points and added nine rebounds, Bailey Stout scored 12 points — all on 3-pointers — La’Vette Parker added 11 points and MJ Cage chipped in with nine points and 13 rebounds in the loss.
Mater Dei missed a point blank tip—in near the end of regulation that would have given it the win. O'Dowd tried to call timeout after the miss with a few seconds left but was not granted the timeout by the officials who apparently did not see the signal by a Dragon player. Had the timeout been called, O'Dowd would have been assessed a technical foul, sending Mater Dei to the free throw line.
Saturday’s loss was the first state title game setback for the Monarchs since Stanley Johnson — now a star player at the University of Arizona — was a freshman at Mater Dei.
For the Dragons, who feature seven seniors on their 14-player roster, winning a state title for the Oakland private school was great but beating the team that beat them last year for the Open Division title is that much sweeter.
That's especially true for the Dragons' Rabb who didn’t want to take away the spotlight from his teammates or coaches by announcing where he would be attending college next year, as some speculated he might.
“Senior year, game-winning free throw, Austin Walker getting us into overtime and Paris Austin carrying us is what it’s about,” said Rabb. “I couldn’t have written it any better, a state championship.”
