The Eldorado girls basketball team doesn't slow down for anybody.
Courtesy photo
Even though there is no shot clock in the high school girls basketball game in New Mexico, it doesn't prevent longtime
Eldorado (Albuquerque) coach Michael Huston from speeding up the pace this season.
The Eagles (20-5) have literally ran some opponents out of the gym this season. Utilizing his entire 14-player roster in almost every game, Huston substitutes liberally, swapping in three to four girls at a time every couple of minutes — sooner if he feels a girl is not giving the maximum effort.
"Our motto is to play as hard as you can when you're in, and if you don't, you're going to get pulled out," senior shooting guard
Kylie Coffman said. "Fortunately, we don't have a big problem with effort because we know what coach expects out of us."
The 2012-13 season had barely reached its conclusion when Huston began to ponder what was in store for this year, his 12th season as Eldorado's coach. Huston knew he would be returning four starters, along with several other players who saw significant minutes.
Knowing the team had a lot of good players but lacking a dominant one, Huston decided to implement an offense run by Grinnell College, a Division III program in Iowa, and the Loyola Marymount teams that were coached by Paul Westhead in the late 1980s.
Both programs ran "The System," which incorporates a continual full-court press, a fast-paced offense that sees players take shots within 10 to 15 seconds of gaining possession, and mass substitutions every minute.
Huston, who had spoken with Westhead previously at a couple of coaching clinics, read books, studied video and even called Grinnell coach Dave Arsenault before deciding to implement a hybrid of "The System" at Eldorado.
"It's a hybrid because we're not substituting five players at a time, every minute," Huston said. "But the concepts and principles are the same in that we're trying to get good shots in the first 12 seconds to get more explosive offensively."
And that's exactly what the Eagles have become — downright high-octane. Despite seeing more and more teams slowing down the pace — remember, there is no shot clock in the girls game in New Mexico — Eldorado is still averaging a whopping 70 points per game, one of the top marks in the state.
"In girls basketball, that's a really high number," Huston said.
Despite the team's success, Huston didn't know how the new offense would work out in its first year.
"To be honest with you, I had to be convinced it would be a good style for us," Huston said. "(In the end) everyone convinced me you don't have to have the best athletes to run this system."
The Eagles take pride in the fact that everyone contributes — literally. With no one player carrying the load, Eldorado is the very definition of what it means to have a balanced scoring attack. The Eagles don't have a single player who is scoring in double figures — Coffman is closest at 9.6 points per game — but several players are right there with her, including senior guard
Gabby Pacheco (8.8), senior guard
Caitlin Duree (8.1), senior forward
Jessica DePoy (7.0), senior forward
Abby Roney (6.6) and sophomore forward
Arianna Baca (6.6).
In addition, freshman guard
Sydney Candelaria has surprised Huston with her precocious play and ability to get to the basket off dribble penetration. In order to play at such a frenetic pace, players have to be in tip-top condition.
"We're in really good shape," Coffman said. "We have to be because we're sprinting from the moment the game starts."
Beyond the substitutions and the timeouts, Huston said he's definitely not a controlling type when it comes to calling out plays.
"We try not to control too many possessions," he said. "We teach the kids how to play, we run some offensive sets and we have a couple of plays in our repertoire. But our main objectives are to screen for shooters, hit the boards hard and isolate our post players underneath for high-percentage shots. We give them freedom to play. That's our whole strategy."
It seems to be working.
Under Huston, Eldorado has always been tough defensively with its suffocating, pressure style. Now the Eagles are flying high with an offense to match. When the state tournament begins next week, Eldorado will be seeking its first 5A championship since 1995 ranked as the
No. 6 team in 5A in the MaxPreps Computer Rankings.
The Eagles have been runner-up four times since then, most recently in 2012. Coffman, who was a sophomore that season, vividly remembers walking out of The Pit with a feeling of despair.
"It was one of the worst feelings ever," she said. "I couldn't believe it. We were the No. 1 seed, and we were just in shock. That's the last thing I want to happen this year. I think this year's team has the ability and athletes to get us there and win it all. It comes down to everyone wanting it so bad that on every possession they'll go all out, until they can't go on any longer."
The Eagles seem to have that concept down pat.
