Arizona's exhibition opponent, Chico State, returns to relative normalcy after fire-ravaged 2018

The day before his team was supposed to host a four-team event to open last season, Chico State basketball coach Greg Clink was dropping his three sons off at school on a sunny fall day.

A half-sunny day, that is.

“I just saw this big, dark cloud and I remember saying, ‘What is that?’ I think there’s a storm coming’” Clink said.

Of course, it was not a storm. It the new normal for fall in California: Dry, sunny, windy ... and deadly. Fire season, and Clink was seeing the worst of it.

What became known as Camp Fire was the deadliest in California history: It destroyed nearby Paradise, California, killed 85 people, torched the homes of 200 Chico State employees and delayed the Chico-based Wildcats’ season.

Having built a strong Division II program that has long had Arizona’s respect — the two sets of Wildcats will play an exhibition on Friday for the fifth time in eight seasons — Clink says the fire had nothing to do with his team’s downfall last season, when Chico State sank to 9-14 after a string of five straight 20-win seasons.

But the disruption was indisputable. Chico State had to cancel its early season tournament because of bad air quality, and didn’t practice for eight days while its gym was used as an evacuation center.

Meanwhile, players joined others on campus in volunteering to help those in need.

It was not normal. But it wasn’t life or death.

For them, at least.

“You know, in grand scheme of things, the basketball deal was really not that important compared to what everybody else was going through,” Clink said. “We had some games cancelled, we had some injuries, but I knew last year was going to be a bit of a rebuilding year anyway because we’d lost so much.”

Chico State is expected to revive this season, picked to finish sixth in the 13-team California Collegiate Athletic Association, with nine returning players, including two all-conference picks and a 6-10 starter in senior Justin Briggs who is returning from an ACL tear he suffered midway through last season.

Chico also beat Arizona Christian 84-74 on Wednesday in Glendale before traveling to Tucson.

“Like everybody now, we’re nowhere near where we need to be,” Clink says. “We’re a work in progress but I think we have the talent and character to be pretty good this year.”

Arizona coach Sean Miller probably would not be surprised if they are. UA has a wide choice of interested Division II programs to choose from for its annual exhibition, yet Miller has invited Chico State back four times now, receiving a noteworthy 78-70 scare in 2016-17 before UA went on to tie for the Pac-12 title and reach the Sweet 16.

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“They’ve done a really good job,” Miller said. “We like their style. They’re physical, traditionally they’re a winning program and I know from talking to their coaches over the years, it’s meaningful for them as well to be able to come here. We’ve had a good relationship.”

That relationship with UA began in 2012, after Clink said nearby Division I teams became reluctant to play his Wildcats, who have gone 206-117 over his 11 previous seasons.

“We needed a game, so I told one of my assistants, call everybody in California, the Pac ... Just start calling,” Clink said.

Two days later, UA operations director Ryan Reynolds returned the interest and the Northern California Wildcats were soon invited to McKale Center to play before the 2012-13 season.

They returned in 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2018-19. UA has won all four previous exhibitions by an average of 30 points but both coaches say the games have been beneficial.

The teams’ assistant coaches typically share information beforehand on what their teams have and are working on, so as to make the exhibitions more productive in preparing them for their seasons. Chico State also gets a small boost to its annual fundraising efforts, after covering about $9,000 in travel costs with UA’s $15,000 game payment.

For Arizona, Miller says, the exhibition is an ideal preseason complement to the Red-Blue intrasquad scrimmage and the private scrimmage UA plays against St. Mary’s nearly every October.

“I think that formula for us allows us to be the most prepared for our season opener,” Miller said. “For our guys, allowing them to be comfortable in front of our crowd and get out there is always a good experience.”

For Chico, the experience started Thursday during practice at the Richard Jefferson Gymnasium, a facility Clink says is better than the gyms his team plays games in.

On Friday, the five-figure crowd at McKale will represent at least five times more fans than Chico State players will see all season.

“It’s nothing like they’ve ever experienced before,” Clink said. “It’s exciting.”

Then, when it’s all over, the Chico State Wildcats will return home to a state where, once again this fall, major fires are burning both north and south.

Not in Chico, or Paradise, for now. But you never know.

“Every time you turn on the news … it seems like it’s all the same places all the time, which doesn’t make sense,” Clink says. Earlier in 2018, “we also dealt with the Carr Fire, which was just right up the road in Redding, where hundreds of homes were destroyed.

“And when I first got to Chico, the summer of 2008, we spent the whole summer indoors because the foothills were burning. So it’s just ... it’s every year.”