FULLERTON – Dang!
We can only hope that any of the CIF Southern Section’s Open Division boys’ basketball playoff games are as compelling as the Trinity League tournament final played at Hope International University Wednesday night.
There were only two points scored in the final three minutes of the gut-twisting game played between St. John Bosco and Santa Margarita.
But that layup by Eagles’ Markee White (after a pass from Drew Anderson), with 1:02 remaining, proved the difference in Santa Margarita’s 57-56 victory.
The Eagles needed one last defensive stop – on a baseline out-of-bounds situation with 1.5 seconds that resulted in a missed turn-around jumper from the free-throw line by the Braves’ Max Ellis – to secure win No. 26 and the league’s top seed to the CIF SS playoffs.
Both squads are locks to be in the section’s Open Division field – be it made up of eight, 10 or, most likely, 12 teams when it and the other nine divisions are unveiled by the CIF SS office in Los Alamitos Saturday at noon.
Coach Justin Bell’s Eagles are expected to be the division’s No. 2 or 3 seed, behind Sierra Canyon and, perhaps, Redondo Union – which were 1-2 in last week’s CIF SS computer ratings.
Coach Matt Dunn’s Braves, who edged the Eagles (74-73, in double overtime) when the teams played at Santa Margarita on Jan. 9, are expected to join Notre Dame and Harvard-Westlake – like Sierra Canyon, members of the Mission League – in rounding out the division’s top six seeds.
The playoffs are set to tip off next Wednesday evening, culminating in section championship games scheduled for Feb. 27&28 at the Toyota Arena in Ontario.
Six-foot-nine Christian Collins scored 20 points, with 11 rebounds and seven assists, when the Braves won at Santa Margarita.
And Collins – who was among the 24 McDonald’s All-Americans unveiled Tuesday afternoon – didn’t take long to show why he is a load to try to cope with, 1-on-1, Wednesday night.
Collins scored 15 points (including a couple of 3s) and drew a couple of fouls on the Eagles’ Anderson in the first quarter.
His pass led to a dunk by 7-footer Howie Wu for a 25-18 edge a minute and a half into the second quarter.
But Anderson’s five buckets in seven attempts got the Eagles to within 33-32 at intermission – all but 10 of those points coming from Collins.
The Braves (20-7) padded the advantage to four points after three quarters, in large part because of the terrific defense on the Eagles’ leading scorer, Georgia Tech-bound guard Kaiden Bailey.
While mostly being chased by SJB senior Tariq Iscandari, Bailey (credited with eight assists and three steals) – still recovering from nagging illness over the past week – went scoreless on 11 shots from the field.
But his buddies more than picked up the scoring slack, Anderson adding five points in the fourth quarter to finish with a team-high 24 while yet another senior forward, Brayden Kyman, scored on a transition layup to start the quarter and closed it with his fifth and sixth 3s of the night.
And the Eagles’ zone finally was able to quasi-“contain” Collins in the fourth quarter (just two free throws) , mostly by doing an admirable job of keeping Collins’ teammates from getting the ball into his mitts.
The most notable example of that was on that final 1.5-second possession, with Anderson was able to prevent a clear passing angle for Gavin Dean-Moss into Collins, resulting in Ellis – who, sandwiched around a 3, missed first seven and last two shots – being forced to attempt the winning shot.
In the third-place game, 6-foot-6, 250-pound junior G.C. Eboigbodin (pictured) scored 46 points and grabbed 17 rebounds to help JSerra knock off Mater Dei, 87-66, giving the Lions the Trinity’s third automatic bid to the playoffs.
The Monarchs (17-14) will need one of Division 1’s three at-large bids to extend their season next week.
The Lions (19-12) have beaten the Monarchs six times in a row over the past three seasons.
Eboigbodin’s athletic career path appeared to change in the winter, when he played football for the first time and landed on the radar of major college football programs, drawing multiple scholarship offers for the potential he demonstrated as a defensive end in the most competitive high school football league in the country.
He joined the football program in late June (after playing for the basketball team in the Cali Live Tournament in Ladera Ranch and San Juan Capistrano) and is just beginning to round into “basketball shape”.
Keith Wilkinson’s Lions are likely to land somewhere among the top eight seeds in the Division 1 bracket.
With the twin post threats of Eboigbodin and sophomore Ryan Doane (12 points and 13 rebounds Wednesday), as well as the backcourt of senior Jaden Bailes (17 points) and junior E.J. Bryson (eight rebounds and nine assists), the Lions have the goods to make a deep tourney run.
Junior Richie Ramirez and seniors Luke Barnett and Malloy Smith led the Monarchs with 21, 20 and 12 points, respectively.
*At Roosevelt High in Eastvale, Centennial pulled away from a deadlock at intermission to topple another Corona-based program, Santiago, 59-38 in the Big VIII League tourney title game.
The victory improved the Huskies to 25-5 for a final bit of polishing of their “Open Division resume” after being excluded from the 2025 Open field.
*The Mission League tourney championship game, set for Wednesday night – and scheduled to pit No. 1 Sierra Canyon and No. 4 Notre Dame – was canceled Wednesday afternoon and won’t be played.
Reportedly, a Sierra Canyon student died in an automobile accident on the way to school earlier in the day, leading to the school’s administration’s decision about the contest.
The league will send Sierra Canyon and Notre Dame as its first and second representatives to the playoffs (joining Crespi and Loyola with the other two automatic bids).
The Trailblazers and Knights are expected to be joined in the Open field by Harvard-Westlake and, possible, Crespi as well.
Leave a Reply