The Abridged version:
- Let’s cut to the chase: This year’s Hornets basketball team is ripped. With an experienced strength and conditioning director and the coaching prowess of Mike Bibby, the players are pushing into a new era.
- The Hornets started their basketball program in 1948, and they have produced just two winning seasons since 1992.
- Sacramento State has 11 new players, most of them transfers from other Division I programs, and they have an abundance of size, including five checking in at 6-foot-9 or taller. Eyes are on March Madness.
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Al Biancani is the very definition of fitness, with a decades-long focus on strength and conditioning, including a long stretch with the Sacramento Kings.
With any team he works with, Al is the unsung X-factor.
He is in his second season whipping the Sacramento State Hornets into tip-top shape. Before the Hornets began their season of high hopes on campus Monday, inside the cozy Hornet Pavilion, Biancani raved about the conditioning of his guys.
“Look at them,” he said excitedly as they warmed up before defeating Placer County’s Jessup University 90-74. “You can tell by their shoulders.”
There is no flab with this bunch. There is very little body fat but plenty of drive to make this a season to remember.
Shoot, even the head coach is ripped. That’s Mike Bibby, the one-time Kings star guard who has been friends with Biancani for years. Bibby’s first call when he landed the Sac State gig before last season was to Biancani.
“Will you join me?” Bibby asked. The answer was an emphatic yes.
Biancani is a graduate of Sac State. He used to coach sprinters on the track team. This is home for Biancani. He bleeds Hornets green and gold, and his fondness for Bibby made for a unique reunion.
Bibby was a weight-room enthusiast during his Kings time, often under the direction of Biancani. Bibby never stopped lifting. Find another coach anywhere on the basketball circuit who can stand on the sideline with guns hanging out of his sleeves. When he pounds the side of the scorer’s table, everyone hears it.
A fit team means that the outfit can do what they want without getting gassed, and that’s running the floor, defending with purpose and competing as if the players’ very lives depended on it.
It’s not their lives on the line in basketball games for these players who aspire to compete in March Madness, but it is their reputation. Basketball players are as good as their effort. If anyone dogs it in practice, Bibby addresses them. He cuts no corners. Bibby will bark and fume.
Players respect him and fear him, but he can also love them up. His NBA resume and desire to teach the fundamentals of the sport — passing, cutting, shooting, running — has made him a player in the cutthroat game of college recruiting. Who wouldn’t want to play for a guy who made a handsome living in the NBA?
The Hornets have warmups that read “Family,” and Bibby is the head of the family. The burden is his to make Sac State a basketball program of renown, of respectability, but the road is a steep one. Bibby doesn’t flinch. He embraces a challenge, and he’s got a whopper of one. He was tasked to be the difference maker with the Kings, and he had the team on the cusp of reaching the NBA Finals in 2002. No one was more driven to succeed than Bibby. He accepted the Hornets position because he feels he owes Sacramento his time for all of the love and loyalty that they have shown him.
A lot of Hornets basketball suffering
The Hornets started their basketball program in 1948, and despite all the rebounds, free throws and made jumpers, they have produced just two winning seasons since 1992. The 1991-92 campaign ushered in a new era, when the program moved from the NCAA Division II ranks to Division I, where the big boys play.
Sac State has fielded just four winning seasons over the past 50 years. All of those seasons except last year included home games in the cramped confines of The Nest, the 1,000-seat gymnasium on campus with the dark green paint and drab walls that made it the poorest Division I venue in the land. Recruiting players to believe in The Nest was like convincing an impressionable 18-year-old at a used car lot that the 1989 Chevy Impala with no air conditioning and faded paint was not as bad as it looked, and that the blue smoke billowing out of the back was actually cool.
The Pavilion opened for the start of the 2025-26 season and offered a peek at a new era. The venue packed out at some 3,000 fans last season, with Bibby the primary draw as the beloved former King. The Hornets were entertaining but limited. Injuries crushed the team, and length and size in the front court was so thin that opponents took the Hornets to task on the boards and in pounding the ball inside.
Sac State went 10-4 at home and 0-17 on the road, including a first-round exit in the Big Sky Conference tournament.
Hornets have bigs from around the world
Only five Hornets returned for another run this winter. Some departed via the transfer portal, and some were encouraged to move on by Hornet coaches. Roster turnover is the nature of college athletics these days. The Hornets have 11 new players, most of them transfers from other Division I programs, and they have an abundance of size, including five checking in at 6-foot-9 or taller.
The Hornets have a global look with guys from all over. The big guys include the 6-foot-11 Ridvan Tutic of Serbia, the 6-foot-10 Sasa Ciani of Slovenia and Penn State, the 6-foot-10 Jao Das Chagas of Brazil and the University of Alabama-Birmingham, and the 6-foot-9 Giannis Askimakopolous of Greece.
The 6-foot-9 Osiris Grady is from Las Vegas as a transfer from UC Riverside.
The bigs have skills, and they look the part of a fit collection of shooters and runners. Bibby wants them to be more physical, to be bangers on the boards and to crash into bodies if they dare take flight down the lane.
“You can be as big as you want, but if you don’t use that size and you’re not tough out there, it’ll make a difference,” Bibby said. “We need our big guys to go out there and cause a little bit of ruckus. You know, grab rebounds and just knock guys out of the way while doing it.”
Bibby relentlessly stresses effort. You either show effort or you sit next to him on the bench. He also dreads what he calls “bad habits,” meaning not sharing the ball or trying to take on four opponents while there are open shooters. He wants the Hornets to play hard and smart. Those are things players can control.
“Effort will take care of everything,” Bibby said. “Playing hard takes care of a lot of stuff.”
He added that the upside is the team is “really good” and that he has “a great group of guys.”
Having Mike Bibby’s back
Hornets guard Mikey Williams is the top returning scorer, a dynamic guard who can shoot the 3-ball and fly in for thunder dunks. He had 11 rebounds against Jessup, a show of his passion to get involved in the paint. Bibby wants his bigs to have the double-digit rebounds.
Williams and fellow guard Larry Hughes II rave about Bibby’s leadership — and his biceps. Hughes, the son of former NBA player Larry Hughes, led Sac State with 24 points against Jessup.
“He has our back,” Williams said of Bibby.
Said the coach, “I am going to fight for my team. If I don’t like a call (by a referee), you will hear it from me. That’s the way I am. I was like that when I played. Coach (Mike) Woodson with (the Atlanta Hawks) … I got a technical foul, and he got mad, and I said, ‘Well, you get the damn tech!’ He said, ‘OK, you’re right.'”
While the roster has an army of new players, the Hornets basketball staff remained intact. Of the 365 Division I basketball programs in the country, Sac State is one of just 20 that retained its entire staff.
Bibby’s staff includes assistant head coaches Michael Bibby (his son) and Raymond Walcott, and assistants Jason Frazer, Greg Moody II and August Mendes. Michael Warren is the head of basketball operations. The general managers are Shaquille O’Neal, the former NBA great and dreaded Kings rival and foil, and Zach Chappell, the classy former Hornet basketball player who is a Sacramento product to the core.
“I’m with a lot of guys who I have been with my whole coaching career,” said Bibby, linking in his storied high school coaching run in his native Arizona. “Guys I trust, guys who have my back.”
After 29 years in the Big Sky Conference that included rivals in Montana, Washington and Arizona, Sac State is in its first season in the California-heavy Big West Conference. Sac State President Luke Wood said he can see the Hornets competing for the NCAA tournament soon.
For as many hours the Hornets practice and for all of the games they will compete in, players and coaches say the real bonding happens away from the arena.
“I love this group, especially off the floor,” said Williams, the dazzling guard who averaged 17.1 points to lead the Hornets last season. “We’re very close, so I think that plays a part on the court.
Williams has evolved as a player, too. He has long been known as a prolific scorer. He does not have to carry the load, though he is capable. His 11 rebounds against Jessup marked a collegiate career high.
“Coach told me he needs me to rebound the ball, so I just took pride in that,” he said. “Whatever it takes to win.”
