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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – There wasn’t much in the way of significant surprises during Wednesday evening’s opening-round games of the California State Southern Regional Playoffs.

And those teams in action that were among the 16 clubs that competed for the Southern Section’s first-ever “Open Division” title demonstrated why that playoff field was the strongest ever assembled in California sectional competition.

None of the 10 Southern Section Open teams lost Wednesday night, with the average winning margin of 32.6 points with only one of the games decided by fewer than 22 points (Lakewood Mayfair’s 58-54 decision over San Diego Torrey Pines in Division I).

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ANAHEIM, Ca. – There has have been more overwhelming and esthetically pleasing championships for Santa Ana Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight.

But, undoubtedly, few have been as gratifying as was Southern Section crown No. 22 for McKnight’s Monarchs Saturday night in the Honda Center.

The Monarchs improved to 31-0 in 2013-14 with a gut-crunching 48-44 victory over Chino Hills in the first-ever CIF Southern Section Open Division championship game.

In a game in which the teams shot a combined 30 of 105 from the field — .286 —  it was up to the best player in California to provide the winners with just enough offense and key rebounds to extend their hopes for a mythical national title.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – The state’s best team and best player kept plowing toward an unbeaten season, state title and California Player of the Year honors Friday night.

Other highly-ranked CIF Southern Section teams and players didn’t find the sledding quite as smooth in the latest round of playoff action, however.

Santa Ana Mater Dei, the No. 1 seed in the Southern Section’s new “Open Division” of the playoffs, got 42 points from the aforementioned lock for POY honors – University of Arizona-bound Stanley Johnson – en route to a 77-59 quarterfinal win at Lakewood Mayfair that pushed the Monarchs to 29-0.

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LONG BEACH, Ca.  – The Pangos Junior All-American Camp, held this past weekend at Cabrillo High, once more provided an insightful look into the future – both short- and long-term – of high school hoops in the west.

Southern California, the Bay Area (east and west), Sacramento and Washington were particularly well-represented, as were Utah and Arizona

Approximately 140 players – including a few as young as in the fourth and fifth grades – took part, with the festivities capped by Sunday all-star games on the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade levels, as well as a “Best of the Best” game made up 21 eighth-graders and three seventh-graders.

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LOS ANGELES – Calling it “The Greatest Showcase on Earth” might have been a more than just a tad hyperbolic.

But the last of the major regular-season high school hoops “one-day events”, played host to by Cathedral High Saturday, was a day well-spent by those who participated and watched the action.

The finale proved “grand”, indeed, as an undermanned Corona Centennial club rallied from seven points down at intermission to knock off the host team, 72-63, handing the Phantoms their first loss to a California club this season.

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