LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – The identity of the 2016-17 BurlisonOnBasketball Southern California Most Outstanding Junior shouldn’t exactly come as any kind of seismographic shock to anyone who follows high school hoops anywhere it’s played.
Marvin Bagley III’s dazzling play helped lead Chatsworth Sierra Canyon High to the No. 1 seed in the CIF Southern Section’s Open Division playoff bracket and a Top 5 or so national ranking for much of the season.
Sierra’s Canyon’s season ended well short of the expectations that had been set in place for it going into a campaign in which the Trailblazers returned four starters (Bagley was ineligible after transferring to the school in January of 2016) from a team that lost to Chino Hills in the 2016 CIF Southern Section Open championship game.
Sierra Canyon was upset by eventual state champion Torrance Bishop Montgomery in the semifinals of the CIF SS Open semifinals. And then it was stunned in the first round of the State Open Regional competition, at home, by San Diego St. Augustine.
But those stumbles didn’t negate from the superb junior season turned in by the multi-skilled Bagley.
As was the case with my all-freshman and all-sophomore selections, players from the CIF Southern, L.A. City and San Diego Sections were eligible for the “all” selections, and each player should have been a starter or at least, if a reserve, often played something approaching “starters’ minutes”.
And players were selected based upon their individual accomplishments coupled with their teams’ successes – not on “college potential” or “how many scholarships offers” they may have received at this point of their prep careers.
One notable absence: 7-foot-2 Bol Bol was not placed on any of the teams listed below because he played less than half of Santa Ana Mater Dei’s games after transferring to the school from Kansas City in January.
Bol Bol, who played in 15 of Mater Dei’s 36 games, would have likely been a first team selection he had played in three more games.
The “Junior” selections follow:
Player of the Year
Marvin Bagley III 6-9 Chatsworth Sierra Canyon
First Team
Matt Bradley 6-4 San Bernardino
Taeshon Cherry 6-8 San Diego St. Augustine
Devonaire Doutrive 6-5 Lake Balboa Birmingham
Spencer Freedman 6-1 Santa Ana Mater Dei
David Singleton 6-4 Torrance Bishop Montgomery
Second Team
Riley Battin 6-8 Oak Park
Jules Bernard 6-5 Los Angeles Windward
Kessler Edwards 6-6 Etiwanda
Bryce Hamilton 6-4 Pasadena
Taurus Samuels 6-1 Vista
Third Team
Kihei Clark 5-8 Woodland Hills Taft
Jamal Hartwell 6-1 Los Angeles Fairfax
D.J. McDonald 6-0 Mission Hills Alemany
Miles Norris 6-9 La Mesa Helix
Fletcher Tynen 6-6 Torrance Bishop Montgomery
Fourth Team
De’Sean Allen-Eikens 6-6 Santa Monica
Wayne Arnold 6-3 Compton Dominguez
Jordan Guest 6-8 RSM Santa Margarita
Joel Mensah 6-9 San Juan Capistrano JSerra
Cameron Shelton 6-2 La Verne Damien
Fifth Team
Dawson Baker 6-2 Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley
Jacob Eyman 6-7 Los Alamitos
Fred Odhiambo 6-11 Mission Hills Alemany
Darryl Polk Jr. 5-9 Long Beach Poly
Dezmond Washington 6-6 Pasadena Blair
Sixth Team
Trey Anderson 6-6 Chula Vista Mater Dei Catholic
Harrison Butler 6-4 Santa Ana Mater Dei
Mehkel Harvey 6-8 Huntington Beach Ocean View
Antwan January 6-8 Woodland Hills Taft
Wes Slajchert 6-4 Oak Park
Seventh Team
Jeremiah Martin 6-5 San Bernardino Cajon
Eli McCullough 6-2 La Verne Damien
Michael Wang 6-8 Santa Ana Mater Dei
Ofure Ujadughele 6-3 Chino Hills
Warren Washington 6-9 San Marcos Mission Hills
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