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NORWALK, CA – The Cerritos College gymnasium was the seven-hour home Sunday to some of the better “pre-high school” basketball players in California – and beyond – during the first “Elite King of Kings 32”elementary and middle-school camp.

The second day of the event (it was played Saturday at Gahr High in Cerritos, just a couple of miles south of the community college facility where things were held Sunday) featured non-stop action on three courts from about 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

And the middle court, home to the “Best of the Best” all-star game, provided a nice showcase for many of those aforementioned exceptional seventh and eighth graders.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL – The longest-standing high school hoops tournament in California – the Pacific Shores/Dijon Thompson Tournament – tips off for the 64^th time Monday afternoon at 3 o’clock at Redondo High in Redondo Beach.

Six teams from within BurlisonOnBasketball’s Southern California Pre-Season Top 25 are slated to participate.

Those are: Long Beach Poly (No. 6), which takes on North Hollywood Campbell Hall at 7:30 in the auxiliary gymnasium.

The Jackrabbits knocked off the host Seahawks in overtime of the championship game with forward Zaafir Williams bagging event Most Outstanding Player honors.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL – The 2015-16 high school basketball season gets underway in earnest on Monday in Southern California.

And it shapes up as a terrific campaign, both in the numbers of potentially outstanding teams as well as in superb players.

That point is illustrated nicely at Chino Hills and Sierra Canyon, whose squads are a very tight “1-2” in the BurlisonOnBasketball Preseason Top 25.

Chino Hills, which lost to San Ramon Valley in overtime of the California State Division I championship game last March, is led by the best player in the Western United States in 6-foot-5 senior point guard Lonzo Ball.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – College hoops of the 2015-16 get underway in earnest on Friday, with things really kicking into pre-conference gear on Tuesday night in Chicago.

The United Center will offer up a double-header that will tip at 7:30 (ET) with Kentucky against Duke, following at about 10 or so by Kansas and Michigan State.

That would be a heck of a set of semifinal match-ups on Final Four Saturday (April 2) in Houston, wouldn’t it?

A look at my choices for the teams that will be playing into the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament this spring:

 

1. MARYLAND

Why: Plenty of key returnees from what was the second best Big 10 team during the regular season plus three terrific newcomers equal a solid choice to win the conference and get to the Final Four.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – The latest fall round of national Pangos All-Frosh/Soph Camps once again did what its predecessors accomplished so succinctly:

A hefty portion of the nation’s top first- and second-year high school players were able to show off their considerable skill and “upside” during stops in Norwalk, CA (West), Lewisville, TX (South), LaGrange, IL (Midwest) and Thorofare, NJ (East) that were run by the founder of the Pangos Camp (including the Pangos All-American Camp held in late spring in Southern California annually), Dinos Trigonis.

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