High School Hoops nirvana tonight in Cali

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LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The regional semifinals in the California State Championships are being played tonight and there should plenty of dandy showdowns.

There are four of them in the new-fangled “Open Division”.

In South it will be Long Beach Poly at Santa Ana Mater Dei and L.A. Westchester at Etiwanda (both with 7 o’clock tip-offs).

Poly and Mater Dei, of course, first met in Southern Section title games in 1983 and ’84, with Gary McKnight – in his first season of what has evolved into a legendary coaching career – picking up his first championship and the Ron Palmer-coached LBP Jackrabbits returning the favor the following season, en route to a state title.

McKnight’s Monarchs and the Jackrabbits, now coached by a Palmer protégé, Sharrief Metoyer, hooked up in last season’s Southern Section 1AA finale with Mater Dei prevailing, 63-59.

Many of the participants return for this go-around, most notably Stanley Johnson, Jordan Strawberry and Elijah Brown of Mater Dei and Roschon Prince and Jordan Bell of Poly.

The team that knocked off both Poly (semifinal) and Mater Dei (final) en route to a CIF 1AA championship two weeks ago, Etiwanda, figures to be severely challenged by Westchester, the most dominant program in the L.A. City ranks under Ed Azzam.

The North’s counterparts in the Open Division have No. 1 seed Richmond Salesian (with three future NCAA DI, including McDonald’s All-American and Cal-bound Jabari Bird) against Sacramento Sheldon (and its three DI signees, including San Diego State-bound Dakarai Allen).

Newark Memorial (which upset Oakland Bishop O’Dowd and terrific sophomore forward Ivan Rabb last week) and will try to take down another formidable team – and player – tonight by way of San Jose State and Aaron Gordon, the best player and prospect in California.

As you can tell by the dateline – Las Vegas, where I am watching WCC, Pac 12 and MWC tournament action – I won’t be at any of those games tonight.

So I’m relying on all of my buddies on Twitter (I’m @FrankieBur) to give me up-to-the moments on all of the high school action tonight!