Overview:
Luke Zuffelato is on pace to break the Santa Barbara High School boys’ basketball scoring record with a 25.4-point average
The ball doesn’t fall far from the Zuffelato family tree.
Emma Zuffelato gave Santa Barbara High School a nice bump in volleyball with her mother, Kim, who was an assistant coach when they won the CIF-Southern Section Division 6 championship together in 2021.
Her brother, Luke, is now shooting his way into the school’s basketball record books with a new but familiar head coach: his father, Greg.
“It’s been great,” Luke told Noozhawk after averaging 31 points in four games at last week’s Santa Barbara Holiday Classic.
“All the things that we had expectations for and hoped and wished for have been exceeded with my dad as head coach.”
The family that plays together does indeed stay together.
Greg Zuffelato took over for Corey Adam this year as Santa Barbara’s head basketball coach, after having served as his assistant for the previous four seasons.
Chris Hantgin, a former head coach at both Santa Barbara and San Marcos, is helping him out by running the Dons’ defense.
Zuffelato also teaches kinesiology at the school. Kim teaches online for the California Virtual Academies (CAVA).
“Looking at it from the outside, you’d think we forced our kids into doing what we love, but we just gave them a lot of opportunities when they were young,” Greg said. “You know, just activities.
“We had Luke in gymnastics when he was 3 years old — we had him doing everything — but he fell in love with basketball at a very young age.
“He’d shoot at a little mini hoop as a little kid when he could barely walk.”
Emma, he added, was in love with volleyball by the time she reached third grade.
“She just enjoyed it more than anything else,” her father said.
The family’s athletic roots run even deeper. Grandpa Bob Zuffelato, 86, will text advice from his home in Rhode Island after nearly every Dons’ basketball game.
He coached for more than a half-century, which included three decades as an NBA assistant for the Toronto Raptors, Dallas Mavericks, Minnesota Timberwolves and Golden State Warriors.
Grandpa Bob also served as the head coach at Boston College, which he took to both the 1974 NIT Final Four and the 1975 NCAA Regional Semifinals, and Marshall University.
“Dad worked all the way up until he was 78 — he’s a basketball junkie,” Greg said. “He was a graduate assistant at Michigan in his first year out of college and he never did anything else.
“This was his whole life.
“He watches our games as much as he can on NFHS (Network), if he can get it online.
“He gives Luke and I long, long — each separately — text messages with his feedback, which is fantastic.”
Sunbirds of Happiness
Greg and Kim met while playing their respective sports at Fresno Pacific University.
Greg was selected in 1994 as the “Sunbird of the Year,” an award that honors the Fresno Pacific athlete who best combines athletic and academic excellence, leadership and “strong Christian witness.”
He transferred after three seasons to Fresno State, but injuries sidelined him during his last two years of college.
His wife, nee Kim McCann during her collegiate days, earned NAIA All-America volleyball honors at Fresno Pacific in 1992. She also played for five years on the Association of Volleyball Professionals Tour.
“Kim’s college coach was an AVP ref and she told her, ‘You are perfect for the beach … You’re 6-feet tall, you’re very athletic, and you have skills,’” Greg pointed out.
“We originally moved here so she could start training for beach volleyball.”
She began assisting coach Kristin Hempy’s indoor and beach volleyball programs at Santa Barbara High as soon as Emma walked through the door at J.R. Richards Gym.
Emma continued her own beach volleyball career at Cal Poly and is about to enter her sophomore season.
Two decades ago, Greg served for three seasons as the head basketball coach at Santa Ynez Valley Union High School and then for one more as an assistant at Cal Poly while his wife trained on the beach.
He returned to the Central Valley to coach for four seasons at Caruthers High School, in Fresno County, when Kim became pregnant with Emma.
“Her family is in the Fresno-Clovis area, so we moved back,” Greg said. “But pretty quickly, we were like, ‘Why did we move away?’
“We just missed Santa Barbara quite a bit, so we went back. I had my own nutrition business at the time, so we were pretty mobile.
“Luke was in second grade and Emma was going into fifth. We really wanted to do it while they were still young.”
Luke wasn’t happy about the move at first.
“Growing up in Fresno was a great experience,” he said. “We had a great house that was very close to my elementary school.
“We had great family friends that we still know to this day. It was hard as a young kid to be moving.
“But looking back, it was probably best for me.”
Youth Movement
His dad kept his hand in coaching by joining Donovan Green’s staff in the Santa Barbara Magic club basketball program.
It later morphed into the Santa Barbara House of Hustle club, which Tyler and Tori Shyrock organized two years ago.
Luke has been playing for his dad — and with the Shyrocks’ son, Tobin — ever since those earliest days of club basketball.
Zuffelato and Shyrock are now the playmakers for a Santa Barbara High team that has posted win-loss records of 11-7 overall and 3-1 in the Channel League so far this season.
“In the second grade, I wasn’t good at all,” Zuffelato recalled. “I was shooting with two hands, just throwing the ball at the rim.
“But my grandpa worked with me and developed my left hand when I was in the third grade. He helped me with my form. I was pretty good for my age by the time I got to the fourth grade.”
He spent countless hours shooting on a rudimentary basketball court in the alley next to their home.
“There’s no top of the key, and the alley is slanted, so it’s never been the best,” he pointed out. “The backboard was plastic, so I don’t know how regulation it was.
“But that’s where I grew up and developed my shot, so it wasn’t terrible. Definitely in elementary through middle school, it was all there.”
Luke figures those years in the alleyway turned the wing and corner into his “hot spots” for shooting.
“I get most of my shots at the top of the key because I’m always up there,” he said. “But when I get to the corners or the wings, it’s mostly my higher-percentage shots.”
He torched Chatsworth with 10 three-pointers during last week’s Holiday Classic to break the school record of eight set by Bolden Brace in 2015.
Zuffelato, a 6-foot-5 junior, flirted with Santa Barbara’s single-game scoring record in that game with a 41-point performance.
The only Dons to ever score more were Roberto Nelson (45 against Righetti in 2007 and 43 against Newport Harbor in 2006) and Victor Bartolome (44 against Oxnard in 1966).
His outburst helped Santa Barbara overcome a 44-point effort by 6-foot-6 Alijah Arenas, son of former NBA all-star Gilbert Arenas, to defeat Chatsworth 99-78. Zuffelato scored his 41 on 14-of-23 shooting.
“I’m not supposed to be up there with him, rankings-wise, so it was a great confidence boost … and a great feeling,” he said.
“I had 40 last year (against Buena), but this one felt a lot different.”
Zuffelato, who averaged 11.3 points and 4.9 rebounds as a freshman, made the CIF’s All-Southern Section Division 4AA team last year by increasing those averages to 23.2 and 7.2, respectively.
He’s at 25.4 points, 8.0 rebounds and 3.6 assists so far this season.
Hot Prospect
Zuffelato’s progress is being monitored by several NCAA Division 1 schools, including UC Santa Barbara, which sent scouts as recently as Friday for his game against Oxnard.
“Recruiting in high school is so different now because of the transfer portal,” his father said. “Everything has been moved very late.
“Players used to get offered during their sophomore and junior years, but now it’s as seniors.
“He’s most likely going to be playing this spring for Dream Vision, which is one of the top club teams in California. He’ll be seen every weekend by 300-plus Division I coaches, so things should really pick up in the spring.”
Luke will continue to rewrite Santa Barbara High’s record book in the meantime.
His current average of 25.4 points per game is slightly ahead of the single-season mark of 25.0 set by Don Ford in 1971. He’s scored 458 points in 18 games, which also puts him within range of the record of 864 set by Paul Johnson in 1988.
Zuffelato is also approaching several of the Dons’ career marks despite being only a junior. His 184 three-pointers have brought him within 32 of the record of 216 that Brace set in 2016.
He moved into fourth place on the school’s all-time scoring list last week, passing Taylor Rochestie from the class of 2004. He enters Monday night’s game at Ventura with 1,413 career points.
Roberto Nelson set the school record of 1,935 in 2009. Mike Garrett, Class of 1996, is in second place at 1,806, while Brace completed his prep career as the Dons’ No. 3 all-time scorer with 1,695 in 2016.
Zuffelato matched up against Brace, who also starred at Northeastern University, in a Santa Barbara High alumni game two years ago.
“He got the better of me most of the time, but I wasn’t the strongest guy that freshman year,” Zuffelato said. “He just bullied me down.”
Luke did beat his dad in a game of one-on-one two years before that.
“In my defense, I did have a knee replacement — I was a little slow,” Greg said with a laugh. “But Luke has been beating me for a long time. I got out of playing a lot when he was young.
“I’ve been his rebounder and coach, mainly.”
Wins of the Father
Greg’s own father remains a strong influence in his coaching career.
“He comes to our training camp and then he comes back out for the end of the year, too,” he said of the elder Zuffelato. “Both my mom (Donna) and dad travel, are out walking every day, and are super-healthy.”
Greg has tapped into the expertise of each of his own coaches, beginning with Tom Hansen at Pleasanton’s Foothill High School. Zuffelato won All-State honors for the Falcons in 1989.
“I had injury after injury in college — it was just a mess — but I also learned so much from all five of the men who coached me there,” he said.
“All five are outstanding people … I had a lot of good role models.”
They included former Westmont College coach John Moore, who got his first head job at Fresno Pacific. Moore is now assisting Steve Lavin at the University of San Diego.
“A great mentor, a great man,” Greg Zuffelato said. “We’ve stayed in contact.
“He texted me the morning after Luke scored 41 points against Chatsworth. He’s obviously a great coach, but he’s also just a great person.”
Personal relationships rate highest in the home of Kim and Greg Zuffelato.
“We try to have as many family games and dinners as possible,” Luke said. “It used to be a lot easier with Emma around, but she still comes home a good amount of the time.”
They do dabble in each other’s sports. Luke plays on the Dons’ indoor volleyball team while Emma used to mix it up with her brother on the basketball court.
“We used to play each other in a lot of knockout and random shooting drills,” Luke said. “We went to the Westmont Camp together … She was the only girl there.
“But there was never a rivalry. I’ve always been cheering for her stuff and she’s always come out to my games. It’s always been a lot of high praise for each other.”
And he’s been able to court plenty of quality time with Dad.
“It’s been phenomenal for me because he’s not just a great player, but he’s the hardest worker … very coachable,” Greg Zuffelato said. “The other coaches love him because he listens.
“The dynamics could be very difficult. But credit to Luke, he makes it real easy.”
Mom, meanwhile, left it up to Luke to pick his No. 1 sport.
“She never pushed me to play volleyball,” he said, although adding with a laugh, “she does like to show us their CIF ring.”
The males of the species are planning to duplicate that Zuffelato family heirloom soon enough.
