Chino Hills brings the best basketball entertainment in Southern California

These are unprecedented times at Chino Hills High School, home to the No. 1-ranked basketball team in America. Games are selling out faster than a Taylor Swift concert. The 30-0 Huskies, led by the Ball brothers, have become so popular that the school receptionist, Lucy Meneses, said she has been answering more than 100 phone calls a day with basketball-related questions.

Tickets were so scarce for last week’s semifinal playoff game against Santa Ana Mater Dei that Meneses said, “I had a grandfather call me and he was desperate for a ticket. ‘You know it could be my last basketball game of my life. I’d love to see it. Is there anything you can do?’ I said, ‘I wish there was something. If I found a ticket on the ground, I’d turn it over.’”

For once, there won’t be any trouble getting tickets to a Huskies game. They next play on Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. against Chatsworth Sierra Canyon for the Southern Section Open Division championship. The site will be Honda Center, which has a seating capacity of 18,336.

The Huskies are not just an unbeaten team — they are providing the best basketball entertainment in Southern California.

From dunks to blocked shots to behind-the-back passes to scoring 100 or more points in 16 games this season, there’s something for everybody to get excited about.

It was last April, before the hoopla had begun, that an astute sportswriter observed, “‘The circus is coming’ might be the appropriate way to introduce the Chino Hills Huskies basketball team next season considering the amount of interest the team is going to generate from fans and media.”

Everything has come to fruition and more. During pregame introductions last week, there were so many cellphones and video cameras trying to get shots of players jogging onto the court that a red carpet similar to the Academy Awards would have been appropriate.

The line to enter the gym stretched into the Ayala High parking lot, and if you had a ticket but still didn’t get in line by 6 p.m., you didn’t make it into the gym.

What’s driving this fan frenzy is the Huskies’ style of play. They shoot from anywhere, they trap on defense and they never stop entertaining.

“Steph Curry has changed the way the NBA is played and it’s almost like Chino Hills has picked up on that,’’ Sierra Canyon Coach Ty Nichols said. “A 35-foot shot is now a good shot. People are mesmerized by it, and the thing that makes it work is you really have good players doing it.”

As the fan adulation and media attention grow, they’re hardly proving to be a distraction to the Huskies’ Ball brothers. Lonzo, a senior who signed with UCLA, LiAngelo, a junior, and LaMelo, a freshman, have embraced their celebrity status.

“Basketball is a game, man,” Lonzo said. “You’re supposed to have fun when you play. And that’s what we’re doing, having fun. We’ve been playing our whole life, got the chemistry, so why not get up and down and have fun.”

As their father, LaVar, a jovial man with not a shy gene in his body, said, “The brighter the lights, the better my boys play.”

Adding to the intrigue is that LaMelo, the youngest player on the court at 14 years old, is as fearless as his older brothers.

“I love it when the atmosphere is packed,” he said. “It gets me hyped up.”

Chino Hills could be playing through March 26, the day of the state championship game in Sacramento. Basketball fans entertained by dunks, 35-foot shots and games that surpass 100 points would be very happy.

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATSondheimer