As they took their trademark warm-up sprint around the Neff gymnasium, lyrics from DMX’s “We In Here” shook the gym. After an uncharacteristically successful pre-season campaign turned heads around the Bay Area in ’06, the Cardinals were out to announce their presence all over again. And so they did, soundly winning their opener 56-48, sparking an eight-game winning streak. After collecting two tournament championships and making a splash on The Chronicle’s Bay Area top 20 list en route to a robust 11-2 record, in their first chapter of the season, they certainly got it started again.

“We gon’ get it, get it started, get it started again, WE IN HERE!”

Fast-forward to Jan. 3. The team streaks around the Neff Gymnasium like an organized swarm of Cardinal-red hornets. This time, they’re warming up for the Wallenberg Bulldogs, their top league competition. Junior guard Travis Hom was the game’s high-scorer with 15 points as Lowell cruised to an emphatic 48-32 victory. The only first-team all-leaguer as a sophomore, Hom opened up his junior campaign with a bang. By now, the team hadn’t merely gotten it started again; they were plowing through their schedule with a full head of steam.

Throughout this storybook season, Hom would prove a fearless conductor of the Lowell basketball train, often taking over in dramatic fashion at the end of games. By the season’s conclusion, his gravity-defying game-winning lay-ups became commonplace. When the ’07 all-league results came out, nobody wondered why Travis Hom was named co-MVP of the league in only his junior season.

“We gon’ get it, get it poppin’, get it poppin’ again…”

Lowell’s Sixth Man is lined up along the sidelines at Kezar Pavilion on Feb. 28, some dancing furiously to DMX’s booming words, others bouncing up and down with excited ear-to-ear grins, all eagerly awaiting the arrival of their beloved Cardinals. Senior small forward Jordan Wong bolts out of the locker room and leads his teammates in a ritual warm-up sprint around the court, slapping hands with frantic fans along the way. Arguably the league’s best outside shooter, Wong was unexplainably left off the all-city roster in ’06. Opposing teams wound up regretting this oversight; Wong played his whole senior season with something to prove, torching opponent after opponent along the way. On that chilly Wednesday night on the city’s most fabled court, Lowell faced off against Wallenberg once again, this time in the semi-final playoff round.

“FOLLOW ME NOW!”

DMX’s voice booms throughout the stadium. With just over 30 seconds left, the Cardinals found themselves trailing 39-38. Their season could come to a sickening close. But after a missed lay-up, senior big man Pat Schock came down with a crucial offensive rebound, breathing life back into his team.

After a timeout, the game would ultimately fall into Wong’s hands. With just 12 seconds left, the senior sharpshooter confidently stroked home a game-winning three pointer, the crowd exploding as his shot sank through the bottom of the net. Wong’s teammates mobbed him wildly; after all, they would now follow him to the championship game.

“We in here!”

On March 2, the Cardinals found themselves in Kezar Pavilion again, facing off against the Mission Bears seeking their second straight championship title, their third in just four years. That’s Lowell High School, the magnet school, alma mater of multiple Nobel Prize winners. The school that offers more AP courses than just about every other high school in the nation. When and how did they become a basketball powerhouse?

That would be 2003, when current head coach Robert Ray permanently took over the reigns of the program. At the time, Lowell hadn’t won a city championship since 1953 — almost a decade before he was born. Ray broke the half-century drought in 2004, teaching his team a new style of basketball, the one Lowell fans still enjoyed this season.

“He's an offensive genius,” Schock said of Ray. The current offense relies on crisp passing, quick cuts, constant communication and sharp outside shooting. Ray’s style of play has helped negate the Cardinal’s severe size disadvantage. He implores his players to “out-hustle and outsmart the opponents,” according to Wong.

But now Ray’s Cardinals encountered a speed bump on their road to a true dynasty. Against all odds, Mission had come back from a 14-point halftime deficit to force overtime. What’s worse, Lowell’s top three players, Hom, Wong and senior power forward Arthur Jones were all limping around the court with various maladies. Hom and Wong’s legs had begun cramping up terribly since the start of the fouth quarter; overtime seemed far too much to ask. Jones landed awkwardly after one of his high-flying drives in the first half, sustaining a debilitating groin pull. He missed much of the second and third quarters, but with the clock running out on his AAA career, Jones re-entered the game for the fourth quarter and overtime. Now, with the Cardinals’ three-headed monster barely capable of jogging and all five Mission Bears at full strength, that third championship in four years suddenly seemed like a longshot.

Yet in the all-important overtime period, Ray’s offense still proved too much to overcome. After a series of quick passes, the ball wound up in the hands of wide open junior guard Alex McNabb. Never one to shy away from taking the big shot, McNabb buried his biggest attempt of the season, giving Lowell a 68-63 lead with just over two minutes to go. In the final two minutes, the game came down to free throws, the Cardinals sinking eight of their ten attempts on the way to a 72-69 win.

It was fitting that their championship was won at the free throw line, the very place Ray had them begin their season. At one of the team’s biggest fundraisers, the “free-throw-a-thon” at the start of the season, each player shoots 500 foul shots.

Since permanently taking over in ’03, Ray’s teams have made the title bout in all four of his seasons, taking home the trophy in three of them. Far from the mediocre team they were before ’04, the Cardinals could now say “We in here” with the finest dynasties in the league’s history.

“WE IN HERE, WE IN HERE!”

The speakers blare at Kezar once again, as the Cardinals prepare to open up the Northern California championship tournament versus last year’s state champions — the De La Salle Spartans.

Few people thought the urban academic public high school had a breath of a chance against the premier athletic academy in Northern California, with a roster boasting four players 6’ 4” or taller. In some defensive sets, the 6 ft. Jones would have to play center. But the Cardinals had been in this sort of situation before.

Last spring, they traveled to San Mateo to face Serra High School in the opening round of the NorCal playoffs. Serra, with alumni including Barry Bonds and Tom Brady, had one of the best prep players in the nation, forward Decensae White, who earned a full scholarship to play for legendary coach Bobby Knight at Texas Tech. Nobody gave Lowell a chance in that contest either, yet they led in the third quarter before losing their grip. Still, a precedent had been set: these weren’t completely uncharted waters.

“Those were the two biggest games we’ve ever played in,” coach Ray said of the Serra and De La Salle contests.

So De La Salle, the defending state champions, faced unheralded Lowell. In the first quarter, however, Jones let the champs know that this contest would be no cakewalk. In just eight minutes, the incredibly athletic senior blocked an astounding six shot attempts, from considerably taller Spartans. It became almost comical: one after another, a player in green and white would rumble into the lane and fire up a shot — only to have it blasted out of bounds by the quicker and more aggressive Jones. For the first half, Lowell not only hung with the champions, they were thoroughly beating them. After Wong drilled the first shot of the third quarter, the Cardinals were up by six points.

Though they lost momentum and went on to lose the contest, Lowell had once again sent a message to the rest of the Bay Area. Mighty De La Salle had been humbled in that first half — scared even. Their coaches screaming in agony on the bench, the Spartans looked wide-eyed and shocked while the high-flying Cardinals made a name for themselves.

After over 50 years without even a city championship, the Lowell Cardinals are now a force to be reckoned with. They have a swagger, a reputation, and footsteps to follow in.

And they can finally say, when pitted against the best teams in the Bay Area, “WE IN HERE!”

MVP

After their sophomore seasons on JV, Arthur Jones and Wong earned the co-MVPs picks for their championship team. Two years later, it’s déjà vu: The two senior leaders are once again The Lowell’s co-MVP picks for a championship squad. In addition to their considerable talents on the court, the two will be sorely missed as team leaders on and off the court.

“There is no substitution for senior leadership, and you can’t coach it,” coach Ray said. “It’s something that comes naturally, and it certainly came naturally to those two.”