It was like watching a fast-break drill the way Santa Barbara High’s boys basketball team was moving the ball Tuesday night in its Senior Night game against Buena.
The Dons filled the passing lanes and sprinted to several easy baskets in an 84-53 blowout at JR Richards Gym. The Channel League champions and No. 4-ranked team in CIF Division 3A improve to 11-0 in league play and 21-2 overall heading into the regular-season finale at San Marcos on Thursday night.
All 11 players on the Santa Barbara roster scored, led by Jack Baker’s 16 points. Ben Clay had a career-high 13 points as did Bolden Brace. David Trujillo and Noah Burke each scored 10 points and Isaiah Tapia added nine.
The most impressive statistic of the night, though, was the 25 assists by the Dons.
“The kids share the ball; they’re a very unselfish team,” Santa Barbara coach Dave Bregante said. “They play well together and they have great court vision.”
Chris Wagonhurst led the team with seven assists while Burke added six. Many of the passes were dazzling.
Bregante said the team runs a drill in practice that emphasizes passing the ball and moving down court quickly. “We run that drill fairly often; it’s a very fast drill and there’s not a whole lot of dribbling,” he explained. They have to pass the ball and the guys have to come to the ball. We work on that quite a bit.”
The great ball distribution led to a sterling night shooting. Santa Barbara shot 76 percent on two-pointers, making 32 of 42.
The Dons seldom had to run its half-court offense. They forced several turnovers and raced out to a 15-0 lead. Buena scored its first basket at the 2:15 mark of the first quarter.
The lead reached 20 points (33-13) after a Brace putback at 3:31 of the second quarter.
