In his fifth year as head basketball coach at Allan Hancock College, Ralph Gorton is on a mission to change the culture of the program—and the philosophy is producing results.
“We call it the new Allan Hancock,” Gorton said. “You can turn it around pretty quickly at a two-year school, and that’s what’s happening.”
Hancock is coming off its best season in a decade; the team went 9-3 in the conference and won the league title outright for the first time in 37 years. After dropping their first seven games, the Bulldogs went on a tear, winning nine of their last 10 before dropping their opening round playoff game to L.A. Harbor.
Gorton said the breakthrough season has allowed him to focus efforts on bringing in players from all over the world, not only to perform on the court, but in the classroom as well.
“Success breeds success, and a byproduct of us winning last year was better recruiting opportunities for me,” he said. “Everybody wants to come here now.”
Last season’s Western State Conference Coach of the Year, Gorton came into this winter with three goals: winning a tournament, winning 20 games, and defending the league title. The Bulldogs have accomplished the first milestone already, and are more than halfway to the second, flying out of the gates with the best preseason start in recent memory. As of Dec. 20, Hancock stood at 10-4, including taking the Santa Barbara City Classic tournament for the first time in years.
Hancock’s leading scorer, sophomore guard Jordan O’Byrne, played well as a freshman, but is showing signs of being even better this year. He’s currently second in the conference in scoring at 22 points per game, shooting a blistering 54 percent from the field.
“The pieces are starting to bond quicker than last year,” O’Byrne said. “Everybody’s playing really well off each other’s game. We still haven’t even reached our full potential yet, so when we do that, I think it’s going to be a really good thing.”
A product of Lompoc High, O’Byrne said the preseason has been indicative of the hard work the players put in over the summer and has the team believing they have a legitimate shot at a state title.
“We feel like if we play our best, and we play defense, that we can be up there with the top contenders,” he said. “It’s a great group, and I think if we gel and come together as one, we can go pretty far.”
O’Byrne pointed to one of the Bulldogs’ tournament losses—to defending state champions San Francisco on Nov. 19—as evidence of the team’s potential. The Bulldogs led that game at halftime, and although they ended up on the short end 80-63, O’Byrne and other players said it gave them the confidence they could stick with anybody.
Hancock played that game without key forward/center Taylor Pruett, who’s helping to fill the shoes left by last year’s leading scorer and conference MVP Ali Langford, who now plays for the University of Niagara. Pruett, a 6-foot-8 sophomore from Arroyo Grande High, is more of an outside scoring threat than Langford, who played mostly in the paint. He’s currently third on the team in scoring at 13.4 points per game, and he leads the conference in rebounding at 14.3 per game.
“Everybody’s just meshing,” Pruett said. “I couldn’t ask for much more. It’s a good group of guys, and everybody has the common goal of winning, so it’s all coming together.”
Pruett, still recovering from a hip injury, is playing for the first time in three years. He decided to return to Hancock to pursue a scholarship and said he’s excited to play teams he hasn’t faced before. Overall, he said, the team has high expectations for the rest of the season.
“We want to win all our league games, be it at home or away,” he said. “We’ve got off to a great record early on, so we just want to keep building on that.”
Alongside Pruett on the frontline is versatile sophomore Abe Millsap, who has professional basketball in his blood. His older brother Paul is enjoying a successful NBA career with the Utah Jazz, while another brother, Elijah, is currently in training camp trying to catch on with the Los Angeles Lakers. A third brother, John, plays professional ball in Mexico.
“I’ve just got a big basketball family, so I’m the last of the clan,” Millsap said. “I got a chance to play on the same team with my brothers for two years, so a lot of the stuff that I know is basically from them coming to the games and teaching me and breaking down game film with me.”
A classmate of Langford’s at Brighton High in Salt Lake City, Millsap played a season at St. Thomas More Prep School in Connecticut before coming to Hancock. As a freshman, Millsap suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in the first game of season, which took 15 months to recover from. Finally back on the court, Millsap is averaging 14.4 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 5.2 assists through the season’s first 11 games.
An all-around player, Millsap said he’s just fitting in where the coaches need him and credited the Bulldogs’ winning ways to his teammates knowing their roles and developing a strong chemistry in practices.
“We have a lot of talent. Our third-string guys actually can go other places and start on other teams,” he said. “If one guy’s not having a good game, we can go to other guys and allow them to contribute.”
According to Gorton, depth is one of the team’s biggest strengths. In a tournament game on Dec. 8 against Victor Valley, the coach noted, the Bulldogs started off down 18-0 before the team’s third-string players went on a 21-2 run to take the lead. Hancock eventually won the game handily, 101-75.
Overall, the Bulldogs roster is a mature group, featuring 11 sophomores. The team is improved at point guard in freshman Alex MacNeil, Gorton said, and is enjoying depth at center with a couple of international freshmen: Zach Eerikinharju from Helsinki, Finland, and Yasin Vernasa, from Ecuador.
Hancock faced its most recent test at the College of Sequoias tournament Dec. 16 to 18, where they topped the host college 71-66 in the first round. They followed that performance with a 67-59 win over Riverside in the semifinals, before losing to Fresno City 78-60 in the championship game. Coming up, Hancock will be host to a holiday tournament of its own Dec. 28 to 30, followed by the start of the league schedule at home against Moorpark College on Jan. 4.
The road to another league title will have to go through Ventura College, which is coming off athletic probation this year, Gorton said. Surpassing the standard set last year, he said, will take a combination of continued hard work in practice, staying humble, and taking it one game at a time.
“If we stay healthy, there’s no way we can’t win the state championship,” Gorton said. “The sky’s the limit for them.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas likes to stay healthy. Contact him at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 22-29, 2011.
