Archives

  LAGUNA NIGUEL – Friday’s second day of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Round of 64 (first round) games produced “seed upsets” in eight of the 16 contests.

   *No. 9s got wins over 8 seeds by way of the University of Central Florida (over Virginia Commonwealth) in the East Regional), Oklahoma (over Mississippi in the South) and Washington (over Utah State in the Midwest).

  Coupled with Baylor’s toppling Syracuse (in the West), it meant there will be a “No. 9 . . . No.

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  LAGUNA NIGUEL – The dazzling play of Murray State sophomore-and-never-to-be-junior Ja Morant wasn’t the only highlight of Thursday’s first 16 first-round NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament games.

  It just seemed as if that was the case . . .

  It wasn’t just the gaudy numbers he produced – 17 points on just nine shots from the field; 11 rebounds and 16 assists – nor the surprisingly lopsided win over Marquette in the West Regional game in Hartford (welcome to geography, NCAA tourney-style) that made the best guard in the world not playing in the NBA the de facto star of stars Thursday.

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  LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – My reactions to the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament bracket:

  *The top seeds (Duke/East, Virginia/South, North Carolina/Midwest and Gonzaga/West) were clear cut – especially after Auburn beat the snot out of Tennessee in the SEC final Sunday.

  *The strongest “1-2 seed combination”, IMHO, is North Carolina and Kentucky in the Midwest.

  SEC Tourney champion and No. 5 seed Auburn and Big 12 Tourney winner and No. 6 seed Iowa State seem the obvious biggest obstacles to a UNC-UK regional showdown in Kansas City on March 31.

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  DOWNEY – Some of the better players from the Class of 2019 that are still in search of a college destination were on display Saturday at St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy during the Beach City Hoops (in conjunction with Gamepoint-OC) Unsigned Senior Showcase.

    There was a plethora of superb jump shooters in attendance, notably Mission League products Vince Fier (Mission Hills Alemany) and Alex Blanco (Notre Dame-Sherman Oaks) along with Quincy Adams (Hollywood).

  A cluster of extremely quick point guards were in the building, too, led by the dynamic John Clausell (Leuzinger/PICTURED) who put on his usual display of end-to-end acceleration and putting-right-in-shooters’-hands playmaking.

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  ETIWANDA – “Big O” has been locked in as Chino Hills senior Onyeka Okongwu’s moniker for about as long as he’s been a dominant force on the high school hoops scene – basically, since November of his freshman year.

   But, after leading his team to a stunning, come-from-behind, 49-47 victory over host and top seed Etiwanda Tuesday night in the State Southern Regional DI final, it’s apparent that at least one other tag would be appropriate for the 6-foot-9, USC-bound Okongwu:

  Mr. March.

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