A Change of Fortune Comes to Gardena : Team Posts 15-3 Mark in Spring, Summer Competition After Dismal 1987-88 Season

Ask Coach Bill Hughes about Gardena High School’s summer basketball season of a year ago, and you’ll get a brief answer:

“We had one game in the L. A. Games and lost. Then I told the players: ‘Have a good summer, see you in September.’ ”

Because Hughes was hired near the end of the school year, he did not have time to schedule Gardena in other summer leagues or tournaments. The lack of off-season competition stunted the development of a young, inexperienced team with a new coach. Gardena felt the effects in the regular season, finishing last out of six teams in the Marine League with a 1-9 record.

This summer, however, the Mohicans are making up for lost time. Hughes says Gardena will play between 35 and 40 games before the school year starts.

Already, the busy schedule seems to be paying off.

Led by four returning starters, Gardena reached the quarterfinals of the 128-team L. A. Games tournament before losing in overtime Saturday to Granada Hills, 66-63. The Mohicans’ 4-1 record in the Games--including a first-round upset over eighth-seeded St. Bernard--may have come as a surprise to some, but not to Hughes and his players.

“Everybody called it an upset,” said senior guard Darryl McMillan. “But I wouldn’t call it an upset. After the season we had, everyone feels we can do better.”

McMillan, a wiry 6-footer with catlike quickness, says Hughes deserves much of the credit for the Mohicans’ resurgence. After Saturday’s loss, they were 15-3 in spring and summer games compared with a 6-17 record in the regular season.

“He’s a good coach for us,” McMillan said. “He stresses defense. He’s a player’s coach.”

Said senior point guard Chris Thompson: “Coach expects a lot out of us. He makes us work harder.”

Hughes takes pride in coaching with a burning intensity. He’s not quite the three-alarm fire he once was, but he can still get hot under the collar.

“I’m not as crazy a coach as I used to be,” he said. “I have children now. They probably have made the biggest difference in me. I’m still intense, but I’ve mellowed a lot.”

During his six years as coach at Reseda High, where he guided the Regents to back-to-back L. A. City 3-A championships in 1983 and ‘84, Hughes earned a reputation for a quick temper.

He was once thrown out of a game after drawing three technical fouls, and one newspaper dubbed him “Wild Bill Hughes.”

The 35-year-old coach says those days are long gone.

“Winning is still important, but it’s not life or death,” he said. “At Reseda, it was life or death. Technicals were part of my game. I was as intense as any player on the court.”

Hughes tries to keep his cool these days. Occasionally he’ll rise from his seat at the head of Gardena’s bench to yell at an official or a player, but most of the time he’s under control.

He expects his players to perform that way, too. Of course, he also expects them to play in-your-face defense and dive for loose balls.

“Inexperience killed us last season,” he said. “We made turnover after turnover. We couldn’t handle the pressure.

“We’re playing better now. If I can get them to play even more unselfishly and more patiently on offense, we should be all right.”

Thompson, the Mohicans’ 5-8 captain and a deadly long-range shooter, is confident Gardena will be among the top teams in the L. A. City Section next season.

“I always felt that we could win,” he said. “Now that we’re seniors, I feel we can dominate. It’s our time to prove to everyone that we can play basketball. All we really want is respect.”

Gardena’s impressive showing in the L. A. Games started with a 64-59 victory over St. Bernard. Almost to a man, the Mohicans said the critical factor was holding Ed Stokes, St. Bernard’s highly regarded 6-10 center, to six points.

“We knew we had to stop Stokes,” McMillan said. “We took care of him and the rest was history.”

Said Hughes: “Once I found out we held their big guy (Stokes) to only six points, it didn’t surprise me that we beat them.”

Gardena went on to defeat L. A. Washington in overtime, 57-56, Buena of Ventura, 52-50, and Artesia, 50-44, in the Games. Artesia is led by 6-8 junior Ed O’Bannon, considered the No. 1 college prospect on the West Coast.

Although Hughes says McMillan (14 points and 6 rebounds a game last season) has Division I potential, he conceded that Gardena has no players rated among “the top 200” in the state.

“We have no stars,” he said. “You can’t key on anyone of our guys because we have no one to key on. It’s equal opportunity.”

The Mohicans’ balanced attack is headed by the steady back court of McMillan, Thompson and 6-4 senior forwards Curtis Green and Kevin Sanders. Gardena has seven lettermen returning.

“We have good athletes,” said Hughes, who left Reseda in 1986 because he wanted to work closer to his home in Cerritos. “They know if they do what I want them to do, good things will happen.

“My ultimate goal is to see these kids make it to the Sports Arena and play for the 4-A City championship. I don’t know if we’re at that level yet. I’ll just be happy if we get a successful program going.”

Going from last place in the Marine League to the Sports Arena in one year might be shooting a little too high. Or is it?

“They can call us crazy,” McMillan said. “But we can do it if we work hard enough.”