Ten years ago, it hurt so good for former Cal sharpshooter Richard Midgley.

Starting at point guard for the Bears as a freshman, Midgley hit a game-winning 3-pointer with 3.9 seconds left in overtime on March 20, 2003 to lift Cal to a 76-74 victory over North Carolina State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The shot helped the Bears avoid a painful loss, but Midgley was still ailing afterward. That's because in the ensuing wild celebration, Midgley and teammate Conor Famulener banged heads together. Midgley ended up with blood running down his face and was forced to get four stitches immediately afterward.

"I had no idea I was bleeding," said Midgley, now the head coach at Modesto Christian High School, his alma mater. "I had to get a few stitches on the side of my head, but it was good fun."

Midgley set a Cal freshman record by connecting on 44.9 percent of his 3-point attempts during the 2002-03 season, but no connection was bigger than the one against the Wolfpack. N.C. State took a 74-73 lead on Scooter Sherrill's 3-pointer with 12.8 seconds left in overtime. Cal leading scorer Joe Shipp took the inbounds pass and drove the length of the court, luring multiple N.C. State defenders with him. Midgley, trailing on the play, clapped for the ball. Shipp passed back out to him, and Midgley coolly sunk the pivotal shot.

"Joe was our scorer that year," Midgley said. "The whole defense collapsed to him. Nobody picked me up at all. Joe made a great play."

And did Midgley know it was going in when the shot left his hands?

"It felt good," he said.

The Wolfpack had time to get off one last shot, but Sherrill's attempt from the top off the key missed.

Midgley essentially was attacked by his teammates after the final horn sounded, as a stream of Golden Bears sprinted toward him from the bench and engaged in celebration.

"It didn't hurt me, but it hurt him," said Famulener, who now works in commercial real estate in San Francisco. "We jumped toward each other to hug and Joe kind of accidentally pushed our heads together. I remember seeing blood all over his face. It's something that we laughed about a little bit."

Since Midgley and Famulener still reside in Northern California, they still are able to follow the Cal program closely. And Midgley says his dramatic shot against N.C. State still draws reaction from Cal ffans to this day.

"I was at Dublin High School the other day and a Cal fan mentioned it to me," he said. "Same thing at the Cal-Stanford game. I guess that's how I'll always be remembered."

Cal women's basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb has encouraged her players all season to embrace the moment.

Perhaps that's why the Bears looked like a bubble team that just squeaked its way into the NCAA Tournament when their name was revealed during ESPN's broadcast of the selections on Monday afternoon.

Joined by a large gathering of fans and supporters at the Field Club inside Memorial Stadium, the Bears simply went bonkers when the big screen flashed their name as the No. 2 seed in the Spokane Regional, where they will take on Fresno State in Lubbock, Texas on Saturday at 1:20 p.m. PT. Players jumped out of their chairs and engaged in hugs, yells and dance in a jubilant moment during a benchmark season.

"We were a little more excited than we thought we would be," Cal guard Layshia Clarendon said.

With a 28-3 record, a Pac-12 regular season co-championship, a No. 6 national ranking and an RPI of 9, the Bears knew they were going to be in the tournament and garner a high seed. But they didn't expect to be in the same region as conference rival, and they weren't totally convinced they would receive a No. 2 seed.

The Spokane Regional was the first bracket revealed on the ESPN broadcast, and once Stanford popped up as the No. 1 seed, the Bears figured it would be a little while before their name was called.

"When we saw Stanford, I don't think we were expecting to be in that bracket," Clarendon said. "I didn't think we thought we'd come up that early. We were all kind of hanging out, and then we see No. 2. I think you guys got a pretty genuine reaction of excitement and surprise."

The Bears earned their highest seed ever in what will be the ninth NCAA Tournament appearance in program history. Cal's deepest run came in 2008 when it advanced to the third round.

Should the Bears get by Fresno State (24-8), which won the Mountain West Tournament title to get an automatic bid to the field, they'll face the winner of the first-round game between South Florida and Texas Tech.

"When you reflect on what this team has done, and where this program was years and years ago, I think it's pretty neat that we're on that 2-line," Gottlieb said. "But right now our focus is on Fresno State. I can think about the big picture when all is said and done."

While most pundits seemed sure that Cal's men's basketball team would receive an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament, head coach Mike Montgomery wasn't necessarily himself.

"They can say you are in or you are out, but nobody knows," Montgomery said.

After the first two regions were revealed Sunday afternoon, the Bears hadn't been selected and Oregon, the Pac-12 Tournament champions, received only a No. 12 seed in the Midwest Region.

"It was kind of weird. Oregon wins the Pac-12 Tournament championship and they get a 12, and UCLA gets a 6," Cal star Allen Crabbe said. "But I just felt like we did what we needed to do toward the end of the season. We opened people's eyes. We deserved to be in the tournament."

Crabbe was right. Cal was finally announced as the No. 12 seed in the East Region, and the wait was made even more worth it when it was revealed the Bears would be playing down Interstate 880 at HP Pavilion in San Jose.

Cal's players broke into a wild celebration after watching the team get selected in the Grille Room inside Haas Pavilion.

"We basically have a home game," Cal point guard Justin Cobbs said. "We're playing an opponent that we've already played and probably should have beaten if we get that one rebound. We're blessed to make the tournament."

Should the Bears get past UNLV, they would meet the winner of the first-round matchup between Syracuse and Montana on Saturday.

"You play for five months, you work so hard to earn the right to be in this tournament, and we've done that," Montgomery said. "That's a tribute to the kids. Now, we've just got this opportunity and hopefully we can take advantage of it. This is where you kind of make or break. You can really do some things if you can advance through the tournament."

The Bears began opening eyes with a seven-game win streak late in the season. Cal lost to Stanford in its regular season finale and then in overtime to Utah at the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas.

But Cal's players remain confident heading into the NCAA Tournament, buoyed by the prospect of playing in front of a large contingent of partial fans.

"It's a big opportunity for Cal," Crabbe said. "We can really make a name for ourselves. The tournament is about making or breaking people. We just have to really cherish this moment. We can't let it go to waste. I don't want this season to be over on Thursday."

It wasn't that long ago that Stefan McClure was a budding star. He looked like a strong candidate to continue Cal's legacy of elite cornerbacks, following recent stars such as Daymeion Hughes and Syd'Quan Thompson.

Just four games into his college career in 2011, McClure suddenly found himself on college football's biggest stage when he was forced into a prominent role during a nationally televised Thursday night game at Oregon because of an injury to starter Marc Anthony. The following week, McClure had to match up against USC All-American receiver Robert Woods and was largely responsible for holding him to his second-lowest output of the season (5 catches, 36 yards).

It had Cal fans fantasizing about the lock-down corner McClure could potentially become.

Anthony returned from his injury and McClure spent most of the rest of his freshman season as a backup, but his time would come.

Unfortunately, his time has been delayed.

In the regular-season finale during his freshman year against Arizona State, McClure was running down field on the kickoff coverage team and planted his foot to cut. His foot slipped slightly and his knee buckled.

It was the worst possible result. McClure had a torn anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and meniscus.

"At first, I didn't know how serious it was," said McClure, who is close to being fully healthy again and going through spring practices with the Bears. "I thought I just dislocated my kneecap; nothing serious that would require surgery. But when I got into the locker room, I realized it was a little more severe than I thought."

The original prognosis had McClure returning in 6-9 months, meaning he would be good to go for the start of the 2012 season. But it was later determined he would need microfracture surgery. That put him out of the 2012 season completely.

"It drives you crazy," McClure said. "All the hits and collisions I've been involved in, and to do it just running on special teams. It's the nature of the beast. I'm just glad that I could come back."

So are the Bears. With Anthony and fellow starter Steve Williams now gone, Cal hopes McClure can continue what he started in 2011 before the injury.

"After seeing him the first seven, eight, nine days, I think he's back full-go from his injury," Cal defensive backs coach Randy Stewart said. "There are no lingering effects. It's not going to inhibit his ability."

The injury was even harder for McClure to swallow because his performance as a true freshman had him set up nicely to become even more of a factor in 2012.

"It makes it that much harder because I had a chance to contribute even more," he said. "There would have been tremendous growth from my freshman to sophomore year. It's just a blessing to be back out here. There's still going to be growth. I have to get bigger, stronger, faster. It will still be good to see that growth from my freshman year."

McClure says he feels about 90 percent healthy. But we're just in the spring. With the whole summer and fall camp to continue to get healthy and sharp, it looks as though he will be in position to be an impact player for the Bears in 2013.

"Missing so much time, that fire is just burning that much more to just get back out there and show you can play at this level and you can compete," McClure said. "I've been out for awhile and there are new guys here that don't even know if I can play. I'm out here proving myself to a lot of people, to get back better to what I was before."

Ana Cyr doesn't enjoy being the center of attention. But for one inspirational moment last week, she could live with it.

Fifteen months after undergoing an intrusive back surgery that left her playing career in limbo, Cyr trotted on to the field at Memorial Stadium to participate in a lacrosse game for the first time in almost two years. It was late in the game in which the Bears were beating Saint Mary's handily, but that didn't prevent her teammates from getting a little rowdy on the bench.

"Everyone was cheering and yelling my name," Cyr said. "That's not my style."

Cyr's style evidently is one of determination and patience. Faced with back and nerve pain so severe it left her in tears every night, she finally relented to undergoing surgery in December of 2011. The complex procedure wasn't so much to resurrect her lacrosse career. It was simply to ensure Cyr could live a normal, healthy life.

Because of a pronounced arch in her low back, Cyr was putting excessive stress on her spine. Eventually, her spine started to erode. She ended up with two fractured vertebrae, which started slipping. That put pressure on her discs as well as the nerves that go all the way down her legs. The result was a constant pain from her spine all the way down to her feet.

"I couldn't walk or sit or lay down, I was in so much pain," Cyr said. "I'd come home crying every day after practice there was so much pain."

Initially, Cyr tried to alleviate the pain through injections, but she said that worked for about a week. She finally consulted a surgeon, who told her she needed to have an operation to avoid compromising her ability to live a healthy life.

Four days after she took her last final of the fall semester in 2011, Cyr was on the operating table. The 6½-hour procedure required a vascular surgeon to move Cyr's aorta and vena cava to the side to make room for the orthopedic surgeon to work on her spine. Cyr had her injured vertebrae fused together to stop them from slipping and had a disc replaced as well.

"She's actually gotten taller," said Cal athletic trainer Dave Walden, who worked closely with Cyr during her recovery and was in the operating room or her surgery. "It's allowed her to stand more upright. It's allowed her to move without constant nerve pain."

The immediate aftermath of the surgery had Cyr simply learning to negotiate daily life again. She had to practice walking, sitting, getting out of bed. It was months before she could walk comfortably again.

"I had to learn how to stand again," Cyr said. "It was really like starting over. I couldn't put my socks on. You had to walk up a flight of stairs before you were allowed to leave the hospital.

"It took months before I could walk comfortably. I could only walk for so long and I would be exhausted. For the first three months, my exercise was walking to my classes. I had to stand up every 30 minutes. I'd sit in the back of the classroom and be standing up and sitting down."

Eventually, Cyr began resembling a healthy human being again. She attended practices and games as a spectator. And Walden recalls an afternoon in February of last year when he realized Cyr may make it back on the field someday.

"We were at Saint Mary's and she was standing up on the bench, and she jumped from the bench to the ground," Walden said. "At that point, I thought she was going to be fine. Our original goal was not to get her to be able to play lacrosse again. It was to have her be a healthy human being who could graduate from college and pick up her kids someday. Once we got to that place, then we started thinking about lacrosse. When she jumped off that bench, I knew she was going to be OK."

Finally, in January, Cyr was cleared to practice again. She didn't play in the Bears' two-game road trip to open the season but finally got back on the field in the home opener against the Gaels. She's played in the next two games as well.

Walden, who has been with Cyr as she overcame every hardship, was there on the field to embrace her after the game ended against Saint Mary's.

"I choked up a little bit," Walden said. "It was really magical. She's obviously one of the most determined athletes I've ever worked with. A lot of the credit goes to the procedure, the surgeon and all the trainers, but by and large most of the credit should go to her. Her determination, her willingness to do what's asked of her - she competed in the largest sense of the word."