SANTA CLARA – With every smothering defensive sequence, every tough basket, every nifty pass on the Leavey Center floor on Friday night, Archbishop Riordan put on a dominant display during the Central Coast Section Open Division boys championship game.
The result was a 64-38 victory for the San Francisco powerhouse over crosstown rival St. Ignatius at Santa Clara University, the latest in a long line of lopsided wins over the cream of the section’s crop.
The 26-point rout was the largest in Open Division championship game history, which dates back to 2013, and put a stamp on an all-time great run within the section.
So is Riordan, which beat its 14 West Catholic Athletic League opponents by an average of 38 points during league play, the best team in section history?
“I think so, and I’ve been around the section a long time and around the league a long time,” Riordan coach Joey Curtin said. “And I think the consistency and the dominance, as you can see, just what we do to teams with our style of play, I can’t think of anyone better, to be honest.”
There have been other great teams through the decades, most recently Aaron Gordon’s Mitty squads of the early-2010s. Curtin himself mentioned the St. Francis teams that had the Johnson brothers — Tyler and later Logan — as another worthy candidate.
But he wouldn’t take any of them over his Crusaders.
“I think we’re the best team in WCAL history,” Curtin said.
With how dominant Riordan was on Friday, it’s hard to argue.
The Crusaders led 17-4 after the first quarter, 34-16 at halftime and 51-29 after 24 minutes.
Andrew Hilman had a team-high 16, Nes Emeneke added 13 while also anchoring Riordan’s defense and Kirby Seals had 10.
And there’s a whole mountain of additional evidence in Curtin’s favor when taking the entire season into account.
Riordan (27-1) beat reigning NorCal Open champion Salesian and completed an unblemished run through the WCAL, long considered the toughest collection of teams in the section.
So overwhelming was the San Francisco private school that defeating rival Archbishop Mitty by only 14 points in the first game of the Open playoffs raised eyebrows.
Riordan routed Menlo-Atherton 79-29 and Valley Christian 75-45 in the next playoff rounds to reassert its dominance as the Crusaders went on to capture a second consecutive Open title.
The win over SI (20-8) was almost a foregone conclusion, with Riordan defeating its crosstown rivals by 28 and 43 during the regular season. In previous seasons, the Wildcats could find a weak spot or two in gifted Crusader rosters.
Not this season, even when St. Ignatius kept Riordan’s high-flyers mired in the half-court. That just gave the Crusaders’ enthusiastic defenders a chance to lock down the Wildcats.
“We’ve played them when they’ve had talent before and been able to really do things, but these guys are cohesive and disciplined on defense,” said St. Ignatius coach Jason Greenfield, whose team will play in NorCal next week.
The Crusaders are no strangers to winning the section’s toughest gauntlet.
The San Francisco powerhouse added its third CCS Open title to its trophy case — all in the past four seasons — and its 17th overall.
Friday also marked the fifth time the Crusaders had repeated as section champs, a feat they had not accomplished since winning Division III in 1998 and 1999.
Back then, the team was coached by Curtin’s mentor Rich Forslund, who did not mince words when assessing this current Riordan team.
“That’s the most talent Riordan has ever had on one team,” Forslund told this news organization on Friday night.
With all of that talent, there’s only one mountain left to climb.
The program’s first state championship at the Open Division level.
“Last year, the objective was to get to state, and this year is the same,” Emeneke said. “It’s beautiful to win back to back, but we have better and bigger goals.”
