Two decades ago, J.R. Sakuragi — well, J.R. Henderson, as he was known then — achieved the best accomplishment of his basketball career as his UCLA Bruins captured the NCAA championship with a 89-78 victory over Arkansas in the final at Seattle's Kingdome during his freshman year.
All his teammates from the 1995 title-winning squad have hung up their kicks by now, but Sakuragi is still going strong as a crafty veteran center for the NBL's Aisin SeaHorses in Japan.
"Last man standing," Sakuragi, 39, said with a laugh on Friday, one day before the first game of the best-of-five NBL Finals, in which his SeaHorses will look to defend their title against the Toshiba Brave Thunders. "That's unbelievable because there were a lot of guys that were highly recruited and highly sought-after, big-name guys."