Brian Peabody’s basketball team averages 103 points per game, the highest in junior college basketball. It works. The Pima College Aztecs are 28-4 and have been ranked as high as No. 3 in the NJCAA.
Yet twice this season Peabody’s Aztecs lost to Phoenix College and scored but 77 points in both games. Peabody got the message: In the region championship game on Friday night — on Phoenix College’s court — Peabody preached defense.
The Aztecs won 73-70 and celebrated all the way home. They will play in the NJCAA Division II’s equivalent of the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 for the second consecutive year.
“We are known for being an offensive team, but tonight we guarded,” said Peabody, a longtime coach at Salpointe Catholic and Ironwood Ridge high schools.
Three weeks ago, I watched as Pima lost to Phoenix College in Tucson. One thing was missing: Sophomore Keven Biggs, a Cienega High School grad and the Aztecs’ leading scorer, sat on the bench. His right ankle was in a protective boot.
Pima lost two of the seven games Biggs missed.
But he was back on the court Friday and scored a game-high 26 points. He swished six 3-pointers. Big game. Big time.
The next question is one that Peabody has worked five years to create: Can the Aztecs win the national championship? It wouldn’t be a shock, given a team loaded with six double-figure scorers: Abram Carrasco, Isaiah Murphy, Alize Travis, Jeremiah Bailey and Ilunga Moise.
When Peabody left a state championship program at Ironwood Ridge to take over at PCC in the spring of 2013, the Aztecs were coming off a 6-24 season. The rebuilding job was hard labor.
Pima went 15-16 in his first season, followed by 18-13, 17-14 and 22-13 last year, when PCC won the region title and reached the Elite Eight.
This year, the Aztecs have a higher goal.