A year after a winless Moore League showing in 2008-09, the Cabrillo boys’ basketball program is approaching the school’s single-season wins record in coach Jim Nielsen’s second season at the helm. The best team in Jaguar history won just 12 games, and already this season’s team stands at 10-4 with ten games left to play.  It’s been a long and turbulent growth spurt for Cabrillo—a team that has been through a lot of pain to get to this point of resurgence.

Because in order to learn how to win, you have to learn to lose.

And last season, Cabrillo racked up plenty of losses. A talented but extremely young team, the Jaguars were as raw as unseasoned sushi—and that made for easy pickings in the shark-infested Moore League.  The feisty Cabrillo squad took their lumps and finished without a win during an 0-12 league campaign, all the while planning for their coming out party in 2010.

To start the season off, the Jaguars jumped out to a blazing 9-2 start that no one had predicted, but they began to hit speed bumps yet again as they entered Moore League play.

They opened by hanging tough with Millikan before dropping that one on the road, 56-66, then kept up with a high-octane offense at Compton before falling 53-70.  With painful memories of last season’s struggles still fresh in their minds, the Jaguars could feel their season slipping away. In the locker room after each loss, head coach Jim Nielsen struggled to keep spirits high and remind his players that all was not lost.

And if two taxing losses in one week weren’t enough, Cabrillo had to turn right around after the Compton loss to host Paramount in the Pangos Dream Classic the very next day (click here to read my SLAM magazine article on the Pangos Dream Classic).

The Classic was a perfect opportunity for Cabrillo as a team, and as a program. One of the region’s foremost high school showcases, the day’s five games brought ten of the very best teams in Southern California to the Jaguars’ home gym and put their school on full display in front of swarms of college scouts.  Their match up with Paramount was not the most anticipated game of the day, but as both teams fought tooth and nail and neither could take a lead larger than four, it became one of the most competitive and was all knotted up at the end of regulation.

Heading into overtime, this was the time when Cabrillo would traditionally break down, lose focus for just a second and allow their opponent to take control. 

But a funny thing happened at the Pangos Dream Classic last weekend; the Cabrillo Jaguars got stronger as the game went on.  They did not breakdown defensively as they had at Millikan, they did not run out of gas as they had at Compton, and they did not play erratically as they had through nearly all of last season.

Cabrillo, it seemed, had learned a lot from their losses.

In the overtime period, Cabrillo looked a team of seasoned veterans.  Junior center Javon Pearson controlled the paint defensively and collected three clutch rebounds. Senior guard Christian Verdugo knocked down three of four free throws.  The Jaguars were quick – but not rushed – with the ball, found the open man with crisp passes and played with poise on their home floor, in front of a packed house that included several Division 1 scouts, on the second night of a back-to-back.

In fact, the Jaguars got stronger as the game went on. Cabrillo, it seemed, had learned how to win. 

“That brings our record to 10-4, which exceeds anyone’s expectations – even mine,” laughed Nielsen after the game. “It’s critically important that we get into a close game and win. To come back against that team and get a win after really we should have lost the game, we were fortunate to get the win.”

To those in the crowd, it was an impressive victory over a 9-6 opponent. To those wearing the white and green jerseys, it may have been a turning point in their season – validation of their early season successes in the form of a four-point overtime win, proof that the 9-2 start was not beginner’s luck but the sign of a young team coming of age in West Long Beach.

With a revolving door of fast, tenacious guards led by 5-foot-10 Dametre Mondragon, the floppy mop and smooth stroke of Verdugo roaming the perimeter with physical wingmate Tony Bell, and the explosive athleticism of Pearson patrolling the paint, the Jags have the weapons to make some noise this season. But this team’s legacy may not be their on-court success, but the momentum they created by reinvigorating a flatlined program. Down the line, Nielsen has playoff aspirations in his sights.

“What do we have to do to get to the level of these other teams?” Nielsen asked rhetorically in the Cabrillo High locker room. “I want people to think that Cabrillo basketball can be taken seriously down the road. It’ll take a couple more years to get where we want to go, but we’ll get there.”

In his second year Nielsen has set his program down the right path with the combination of a challenging schedule and positive motivation. The towering coach knows he has fragile souls that still feel the sting of their tailspin last year, so he’s downright joyful that his Jaguars have come together with the strength and resolve that they have. Still, Nielsen always sees room for improvement.

“The only caveat is that we had every chance to blow this team out and we didn’t,” he says, before cracking a wide grin.

“I’m glad we won.”