Frank Burlison

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The regional semifinals in the California State Championships are being played tonight and there should plenty of dandy showdowns.

There are four of them in the new-fangled “Open Division”.

In South it will be Long Beach Poly at Santa Ana Mater Dei and L.A. Westchester at Etiwanda (both with 7 o’clock tip-offs).

Poly and Mater Dei, of course, first met in Southern Section title games in 1983 and ’84, with Gary McKnight – in his first season of what has evolved into a legendary coaching career – picking up his first championship and the Ron Palmer-coached LBP Jackrabbits returning the favor the following season, en route to a state title.

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LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The Gonzaga basketball team has been knocking down obstacles like so many wide-open 15-footers this season:

*An unbeaten regular-season West Coast Conference season: Wop!

*The program’s first-ever No. 1 national rating: Bang!

*Another WCC tournament: Count it!

*A first-ever No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament: As the late and oh-so-great Chick Hearn would have pronounced “This one’s in the refrigerator”.

The Bulldogs – or, as their players, coaches, followers and the world know them as “the Zags” – took care of that WCC tourney title in methodical fashion Monday night in front of 7,896 (6K or so seemingly wearing Gonzaga colors and regalia) in The Orleans Arena, whisking past Saint Mary’s for the third time, 65-51.

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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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