One thing is pretty unanimous around the Pasadena High School boys basketball team. The Bulldogs would not be on their current run if it weren’t for point guard Darius Brown II.
Brown isn’t often Pasadena’s leading scorer. That role usually goes to talented Bryce Hamilton. But Brown is the guy who makes it all happen. And he’s often not far behind Hamilton when it comes to point totals.
“He’s the catalyst for the team,” coach Tony Brooks said. “What he’s done such a great job of is giving the team what it needed at that time. There are times where Darius has 11 or 12 assists in a game because that’s what was needed. There are also times where he has scored.
“He’s got a very good feel of what is needed at that time.”
The latest example of what Brooks said came in Pasadena’s win over Harvard-Westlake on Tuesday night. The Wolverines were threatening to put the Bulldogs in an early hole, but Brown made a series of big shots to keep that from happening. Eventually, Hamilton got going and the game was history.
On Saturday night at 6 p.m., Pasadena goes for the CIF State Division II Southern California Regional championship against host Esperanza. Brown will be needed, once again, to keep his team off the ropes and get them flowing in crunch time. It’s a role he embraces.
“My role is to lead the team to victories, score when necessary, pass when necessary and be the extension of coach Brooks on the court,” Brown said.
It sounds easy enough, but doing it at the level Brown has been doing it all season is quite difficult. Brown is only a junior, but he’s arguably the most grown up underclassmen on a team full of underclassmen who play with a poise far beyond their age.
Brown is a hometown product who grew up playing with his current teammates. That’s probably why the Bulldogs have such strong cohesion. Brown is Pasadena’s second-leading scorer with 18 points per game and leads the team in assists with eight a game.
It certainly helps that Brown has a top-shelf talent such as Hamilton to feed the ball to. Hamilton is considered to be one of the top recruits on the West Coast for the class of 2018. And naturally, he garners most of the headlines. But it doesn’t take long for those in attendance at a Pasadena game to see who stirs the Bulldogs’ drink.
“There’s times where I have to distribute the ball and find the open man,” Brown said. “And there’s times where I need to score. I do everything that’s necessary for the team at the right time. Sometimes, when they key in on Bryce, it opens up things for me.”
Although Brown has plenty of games left in his career at Pasadena, he’s already thinking about a legacy and what games like Saturday’s mean long-term.
“To know that we left a mark on this school; we’re aiming for that,” Brown said. “We’re aiming for that state championship. We still have two more games to go.”
