Frank Burlison

BELLFLOWER, Ca. – A barnburner was anticipated.

And the Long Beach Poly and Bellflower St. John Bosco hoops teams delivered exactly that Friday night.

A SRO crowd estimated – by me – at about 2,800 jammed the newly refurbished, and spiffy, Cerritos College gymnasium for one of three of the first-ever California State Southern Regional “Open Division” playoff games.

And the Jackrabbits prevailed over the (technically) host SJB Braves, 61-59, in a contest with an outcome that was sealed until Jordan Bell grabbed the rebound of miss by Poly teammate Roschon Prince and laid the ball through the cylinder of the iron ever-so-gently as time expired.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – The first-ever “open divisions” for the California State boys’ basketball championships were unveiled early Sunday evening.

There was much speculation and, quite frankly, ignorance about what the makeup of the respective open brackets would look like when they were unveiled after the state’s section commissioners put them together on Sunday.

When they were finally made public, this much was abundantly obvious:

Both the Northern and Southern brackets make up, arguably, the most power teams-packed fields in state tourney history.

The Southern field was limited to seven teams when the San Diego Section elected to keep its Division I champion, San Marcos Mission Hills, in the D-I regional bracket.

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ANAHEIM, Ca. – The Santa Ana Mater Dei Monarchs rolled into Saturday night’s CIF Southern Section 1AA championship game with a 30-1 record.

They were largely untested during the first rounds of the playoffs, knocking Eastvale Roosevelt, Downey Warren, Moreno Valley Rancho Verde and Inglewood by an average margin of 23.5 points.

But they were “tested” in the Anaheim Convention Center Arena – and then some.

The Etiwanda Eagles used their half-court defense and a balanced offensive attacked paced by junior guard Jordan McLaughlin to dominate most of the way, moving to as much as a 17-point advantage with about six minutes to go in the fourth quarter.

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ANAHEIM, Ca. – Six boys’ CIF Southern Section championship hoops games are on tap today in the Anaheim Convention Center Arena.

I’m here all morning, day and much of the night – courtside – to watch and analyze the games for you.

So, be sure to hit my twitter account — @FrankieBur – for up-to-the-minute updates and comments on each of the game.

I’ll also post a rundown on the entire day’s proceedings on this website.

The schedule:

*10 a.m. Bellflower St. John Bosco vs. West Hills Chaminade (3A); noon, La Verne Lutheran vs.

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ANAHEIM, Ca. – The first set of CIF Southern Section boys’ basketball championship games were played Thursday night in the Anaheim Convention Center Arena.

They might have meant a lot of things to a lot of folks in the building – remember, three teams went home with titles; the others left with the frustrating of coming oh-so-close to bagging that championship hardware.

But one thing the three contests had in common was that they were anything but offensive “works of art”.

Depending on your perspective – sort of the hoops’ version of “the glass if half full or half empty” kind of deal – the games were either examples of defense at its best or shooting at something well short of that.

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