Pasadena's Bulldogs Crush Trabuco Hills in First Round of Playoffs

The Pasadena boys basketball team’s pressure defense has suffocated other squads' offenses throughout the regular season. Teams that have had their full stable of ball-handlers have struggled to deal with the constant in-your-face D and the ubiquitous traps the Bulldogs deploy in the half court.

Given all that, a team sans both its starting and back up point guards is a recipe for disaster. And that’s exactly what happened Wednesday night in the first round of the CIF-Southern Section Division 1AA playoffs as No. 6 Pasadena routed Trabuco Hills for a 63-34 win.

The Mustangs (16-11) were without senior Kyle Wilson and junior Chad Shelley, who both went down with injuries at the end of the season.

“Their best player (Wilson) is hurt,” said Pasadena coach Tim Tucker, whose team plays at No. 11 Upland in Friday’s second round. “So it turns out to be a breeze game, and sometimes you need a breeze game in the first one to get the jitters out, and to do what you need to do. We’ll take the win.”

The loss of Wilson and Shelley left the Mustangs ill equipped to handle the Bulldogs’ defensive pressure. While Trabuco Hills succeeded in beating Pasadena’s full-court press throughout the game, it was evident from the get go that the Mustangs couldn’t execute in the half court.

The first possession saw Trabuco Hills force up a jumper in the final seconds of the shot clock. That sequence would become a trend throughout the first half as the Mustangs never were able to settle into an offensive rhythm and were in constant danger of committing a shot-clock violation.

“We knew coming in we were in deep trouble,” Trabuco Hills coach Tom McCluskey said.

On the other end of the floor, the Bulldogs were able to exploit their edge in quickness and athleticism to repeatedly drive the basket and crash the offensive glass. Pasadena outrebounded Trabuco Hills 26 to nine. 

“We couldn’t rebound and we knew coming in that was going to be the key," McCluskey said. "So they just played ping-pong on the boards." 

Pasadena (21-6) jumped out to a 14-4 lead, forcing McCluskey to call a time out at the 2:52 mark of the first quarter. After the Mustangs cut their deficit to 16-11 at the end of the quarter, the Bulldogs scored the first eight points of the second quarter to take a 13-point lead.

The Mustangs would get no closer than 11 points the rest of the way, and Pasadena pushed its lead past 20 early in the third quarter behind the play of guard Austin Daniels and forward Nick Holden.

Daniels finished the game with 11 points, while Holden scored a team-high of 12. Andrew Smith led Trabuco Hills with 12 points.

While the Bulldogs cruised to an easy win, there definitely are some things they need to work on if they hope to make a deep run in the playoffs. Pasadena struggled against the Mustangs’ zone for much of the game and was unable to knock down open jumpers to loosen up the defense.

Pasadena went 3-for-12 from beyond the arc, and those three makes came during garbage time.

“We gotta get some shots up in practice,” Tucker said. “We’re not shooting the ball well from the outside, and teams are going to zone us.

“I think we’re too good on the man-to-man offense — we’re too quick. You man us up, and you allow (Daniels) and John (Hayward) to get to the basket real easy. So they’re going to zone us, and we’ve got to find a way to knock down those shots.”