Column: Chino Hills approaches state scoring record

Chino Hills is on the verge of setting a state record for the most times scoring 100 or more points during a basketball season.

Heading into their first-round Open Division Southern California Regionals game Friday night against Reedley Immanuel, the Huskies (31-0) have accomplished that feat 17 times, one shy of the state record set in 1995-96 by San Francisco Balboa.

Chino Hills’ offensive outbursts are prompting old-timers to wax nostalgic. It was 50 years ago when the highest-scoring basketball game in City Section championship history was played at UCLA’s new Pauley Pavilion. Los Angeles Jordan defeated Los Angeles Jefferson, 101-100, in overtime on Jan. 26, 1966.

“The game was so intense that when I finished watching, I needed to go take a shower because I sweated so much watching from the stands,” said Steve Miller, who was 21 at the time and would go on to coach three City Section title teams at Fairfax and North Hollywood. “It was like watching Chino Hills play Chino Hills.”

Jefferson averaged 110.9 points a game that season, when there was no shot clock and no three-point line. The team’s coach, Larry Hanson, used a system that rotated 15 players in and out, according to Richard Wells, who played on the team and is now coach at Los Angeles Trade Tech College.

“The first 10 points you gave up, you came out,” Wells said. “Then it was eight, then six. If you wanted to stay on the court, you had to play defense.”

Wells said he was the smallest player at 6 feet 2. Jefferson had two 6-7 starters, including Sam Robinson, a two-time City Section player of the year who went on to Long Beach State and played in the American Basketball Assn.

Jefferson scored 417 points in four playoff games and 100 or more points in 11 of its 18 games. Its high was 147 points against Washington, according to the CalHiSports record book. But it couldn’t beat Jordan, losing twice to the Bulldogs.

The City final came months after the Watts riots, in August 1965.

“There was a tenseness about it,” Wells said.

It was a game that reminded everyone that the best basketball players in Southern California were living in South Los Angeles. The top teams used full-court presses, trapped and ran nonstop.

“Athletes galore,” Miller said. “South L.A. was the basketball capital of the world. No busing, bigger enrollment and kids knew each other from playing against each other on the playground.”

Earlier this month, Wells went to see Chino Hills play. The Huskies usually rely on five or six players and shoot from anywhere on the court.

“It’s completely different,” Wells said. “They’ve got a new system. We were so big and fast.”

Asked whether his Jefferson team could beat Chino Hills, Wells said, “Absolutely. They’d be like little kids to us.”

Miller also has seen Chino Hills.

“Everything has changed, but nothing has changed,” he said of the comparison, adding of the Jefferson-Jordan game: “That’s the greatest single high school game I’ve ever seen. It was Chino Hills squared.”

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATSondheimer