Buggs Retooled Poly for Success

Carl Buggs must know what he’s doing. He was The Times’ Coach of the Year last season but lost his best player to Lynwood and two other of his top four scorers graduated.

So what happened?

Buggs did an even better job of coaching this season as Long Beach Poly put together a 25-game winning streak that ended with a 69-63 loss to Lynwood in the Southern Section Division I-AA championship. Another of Poly’s losses was to Lynwood in the Southern California Regional semifinals, 51-44.

A year earlier, Poly had lost to Lynwood in the section title game, 53-50. Despite several outstanding candidates, it was Buggs who seemed to pull a rabbit out of his hat.

“This team executed game plans much better than last year’s,” Buggs said of his 29-4 club that had little offensive punch but forced about 28 turnovers a game by pressuring opponents full court. “We had to dig, fight, scratch and claw, and we really focused a lot on defense.”

-- Martin Henderson