Frank Burlison

BELLFLOWER, Ca. – The 2^nd Braves Varsity Boys Basketball Classic, presented by Muscle Milk and hosted by St. John Bosco High, tips off at 1:30 Monday afternoon, and doesn’t wrap up until late Saturday afternoon.

The 24-team field, divided into six pools, is sprinkled with a healthy portion of the premier programs in Southern California, including the top seeds in pools A-F: St. John Bosco, Santa Ana Mater Dei, Long Beach Poly, Compton, Gardena Serra and Redondo Beach Redondo.

Fifteen of the pool-play games will be contested in Thompson Park’s gymnasium – located, literally, right across Bellflower Blvd.

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REDONDO BEACH – The “Battle At The Beach, Part II”, hosted by Redondo Union High, gets underway Friday afternoon with a 16-team field, including some of which should be among the better hoops teams in Southern California during the 2013-14 season.

Among the schools represented will be Santa Ana Mater Dei, Torrance Bishop Montgomery, L.A. Windward  and, of course, the host.

Action gets underway at 3 p.m. with pool-play competition.

Play continues on Saturday at 10 a.m. and Sunday morning at 9.

The championship semifinals are set for 11:20 a.m.

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THE 27^th NIKE L.A. FAIRFAX HIGH CLASSIC

Friday’s Schedule

12^th-place semifinals: 9 a.m., Studio City Harvard-Westlake vs. Encino Crespi; 10:30, L.A. Brentwood vs. Mission Hills Alemany.

Consolation championship semifinals: Noon, Compton vs. Santa Monica; 1:30, West Hills Chaminade vs. La Canada.

Fifth-place semifinals: 3, Chino Hills vs. L.A. Loyola; 4:30, Orange Lutheran vs. Fairfax.

Championship semifinals: 6, Long Beach Poly vs. Santa Ana Mater Dei; 7:30, Woodland Hills El Camino Real vs. Corona Centennial.

Note: Saturday games begin at 9 a.m. and wrap up with the 6 p.m.

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LOS ANGELES – All in all, I’d consider Day II of the 27^th Nike Fairfax Summer Classic a “bookends” sort-of deal.

Games II&III on Tuesday were – and there is no other way to put this politely – “lopsided” affairs.

But the contests that began – and ended – the second day of competition during the six-day event were nothing short of entertaining.

First up, the games whose outcomes were achieved without much in the way of muss or fuss:

*The host Lions, minus Head Coach Harvey Kitani (he’s working Chris Paul’s camp), rolled past La Canada, 66-49.

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LOS ANGELES — The Nike-Fairfax High Summer Classic may not quite have lived up to the latter part of its name on the opening of the 27th version of the event Monday night.

But, all in all, one would be hard-pressed to find high school hoops games as entertaining – and as relatively well-played – in the summer as were the four contests played three weeks and two days into June.

Three squads that could go into next season ranked about the five best in the CIF Southern Section joined the Woodland Hills El Camino Real Conquistadors (with four starters on hand from the club that lost to Westchester in the L.A.

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