LAGUNA NIGUEL – League play comes to the forefront in Southern California high school basketball this week.
And, relative to the CIF Southern Section’s prospect eight-team Open Division playoff field, that’s most notable relative to the four strongest leagues in the section: The Baseline, Ivy, Mission and Trinity.
In key matchups this week:
*Baseline: Damien (No. 9 in the BurlisonOnBasketball updated Southern California Top 25) plays at No. 10 Chino Hills Friday night;
*Ivy: No. 15 Riverside Notre Dame plays host to No. 11 Rancho Verde on Tuesday night and visits No. 20 Riverside Poly Thursday night;
*Mission: No. 17 Loyola – on an 11-game winning streak – is at No. 19 Sherman Oaks Notre Dame Wednesday night and No. 16 Harvard-Westlake on Friday night;
*Trinity: No. 6 Mater Dei plays host to JSerra and No. 15 Santa Margarita is at No. 13 St. John Bosco Wednesday night; and No. 12 Orange Lutheran is at Santa Margarita Friday night.
No.’s 1 Sierra Canyon, 2 Rancho Christian and 5 Fairfax will play host to “one-day events” on Saturday, with the Fairfax affair subject to change if the L.A. Unified School District suffers a strike from its teachers’ union this week.
Here’s the updated BurlisonOnBasketball Top 25:
(With CIF section and record, thru games of Jan. 5)
- Chatsworth Sierra Canyon (Southern Section/18-1)
- Temecula Rancho Christian (SS/14-1)
- Westchester (LAC/15-1)
- Corona Centennial (SS/15-3)
- Fairfax (L.A. City/14-1)
- Santa Ana Mater Dei (SS/18-1)
- Torrance Bishop Montgomery (SS/15-4)
- Etiwanda (SS/15-2)
- La Verne Damien (SS/14-2)
- Chino Hills (SS/8-5)
- Moreno Valley Rancho Verde (SS/14-4)
- Orange Lutheran (SS/16-4)
- Bellflower St. John Bosco (SS/16-4)
- Riverside Notre Dame (SS/13-6)
- RSM Santa Margarita (SS/13-5)
- Studio City Harvard-Westlake (SS/13-4)
- Loyola (SS/16-4)
- Long Beach Poly (SS/12-4)
- Sherman Oaks Notre Dame (SS/12-8)
- Riverside Poly (SS/13-6)
- Brentwood (SS/12-1)
- Washington Prep (LAC/11-5)
- Windward (SS/13-3)
- Camarillo (SS/15-3)
- St. Augustine (San Diego Section/13-4)
New: St. Augustine
Dropped: Mission Bay
Leave a Reply