Frank Burlison

RANCHO MIRAGE, Ca. – It got a significantly tougher test than was presented it during its first three games of the event.

Ultimately, though, the Chino Hills High basketball team had too much transition offense, forced too many turnovers and had too many Ball Brothers for its Redondo Union counterpart to cope with – as was the case for the first 12 opponents the Huskies had knocked off prior to Wednesday night’s championship game of the Open Division in the 13^th MaxPreps Holiday Classic at Rancho Mirage High.

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RANCHO MIRAGE, Ca. – A couple of Southern California-based programs that could be on the path toward a meeting in late February or March will accelerate the process Wednesday night.

The Chino Hills Huskies and Redondo Union Seahawks have been in the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section’s 16-team Open Division playoff field the past two years and will no doubt make it 3-for-3 in mid-February.

But they’ll get and up-close-and-personal look at one another Wednesday night, when they hook up at Rancho Mirage High for the championship game of the Open Division in the 13^th MaxPreps Holiday Classic.

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RANCHO MIRAGE, Ca. – An Open Division championship semifinal of the 13thMaxPreps Holiday Classic will be the setting for a rematch between two of the better teams in the west.

On Dec. 17, in the championship quarterfinals of the Tarkanian Classic, the host Las Vegas Bishop Gorman Gaels trimmed defending champion Redondo Beach (CA) Redondo, 63-58, behind a combined 36 points from juniors Charles O’Bannon Jr. (22) and Christian Popoola Jr. (14).

The teams’ respective second-round MaxPreps victories over Concord (CA) De La Salle and Bentonville (AK) Monday night created the setting for a Tuesday night (8:30) “re-do” of that clash, 12 nights later, in the Rancho Mirage High main gymnasium.

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RANCHO MIRAGE, Ca. – Do you need one example of why comparing scores with common opponents is a deceiving way to project the outcome of a basketball game?

OK, here you go:

On Nov. 28 at, during the ninth Prep2Prep Tip-Off Classic at Newark (CA) Memorial High, Hayward (CA) Moreau Catholic rallied from 16 points down in the second half to stun highly touted Chatsworth (CA) Sierra Canyon, 60-59.

Two weeks later, Mission Hills (CA) Alemany played that same Sierra Canyon squad and was tumbled by the Trail Blazers, 76-55.

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The post-Christmas of high school basketball gets underway in a big way in tournaments throughout the United States on Saturday.

Two of the most notable of those will take place in the outer regions of Southern California.

Those are the 13^th MaxPreps Holiday Classic (the main site is Rancho Mirage High) and the 26^th Under Armour Holiday Classic (the main site Torrey Pines High in San Diego).

There is quite a headliner at Rancho Mirage High:

Southern California’s Chino Hills (9-0) is the top seed in the 16-team MaxPreps “Open Division”.

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