Chino Hills basketball coach Steve Baik resigns after storybook season

After leading the Chino Hills boys basketball team to a 35-0 record and No. 1 national ranking, head coach Steve Baik has resigned.

This was Baik’s ninth year with the program, the last six as head coach. The showing by the Huskies this season netted him Naismith National Coach of the Year honors as well as USA Today Coach of the Year accolades.

Baik, 37, cited his family as the biggest factor in his decision.

“This decision will allow me to prioritize my family and to be more present as a husband and father, specifically in the lives of my two young boys. Therefore, I am pursuing options that will allow me to work closer to home,” he said in a prepared statement. “This is the most difficult decision that I have ever had to make in my coaching career. Although the timing may be questioned, my reasons are completely related to my personal life.”

The news will surely stun basketball enthusiasts around the nation. The Huskies are coming off a national championship run that ranks them among the best high school teams ever assembled.

• Photos: Chino Hills High School basketball coach resigns

The Huskies won eight playoff games by an average margin of 29 points. Their 70-50 victory over Concord De La Salle in the Open Division state championship game in Sacramento was their closest contest.

Among those wins was a 48-point win over pereial national title contender Mater Dei which had been ranked as high as sixth in the country.

Over the course of the season Chino Hills, won 11 games against teams that were nationally ranked, the most noteworthy over Montverde Academy (Florida), which had won three of the last four national championships and was ranked No. 1 this season before losing to the Huskies. That win came in a quarterfinal game of the City of Palms Classic, won by the Huskies in December.

The Huskies beat teams from nine different states with two wins coming over teams that won their state championship and two others coming over teams that were a state ruer-up.

The other factor that makes the resignation surprising is that virtually the entire team will be retuing. The only senior on the team is the much heralded Lonzo Ball, named national player of the year by four media outlets. He’s headed to UCLA.

The rest of the starting core includes the other two Ball brothers — junior LiAngelo and freshman LaMelo. The other two starters are freshman Onyeka Okongwu and junior Eli Scott, both of whom have multiple Division I offers already.

“I am confident this group will continue to have great success. I am so proud of all that was accomplished and I will be forever grateful for my time at Chino Hills High,” the statement also read.

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Baik, 37, also teaches physical education at Chino Hills and will remain there in that capacity, at least for now.

The resignation of Baik is the latest in a line of successful coaches leaving their positions at the school. Football coach Matt Bechtel resigned in December after leading his team to a league title and the CIF semifinals despite not having a Division I player. He was the Daily Bulletin’s Inland Valley Coach of the Year.

Volleyball coach Dana Buzzerio also resigned in the fall after the season ended.

Baseball coach Kyle Billingsley was fired two years ago, just days after being named Coach of the Year as well.