Frank Burlison

LAGUNA NIGUEL – Tyran Stokes made his first “real” high school season a memorable one – even if he and his Sherman Oaks Notre Dame teammates couldn’t quite get over the “Roosevelt hump”.

The 6-foot-7 Stokes, who played at Prolific Prep School in Napa as a freshman and sophomore before relocating to the San Fernando Valley in the fall, is the BurlisonOnBasketball top SoCal junior for the 2024-25 season.

He heads a group of players in the region’s Class of 2026 that could prove as deep and gifted as anywhere in the country, including Jason Crowe, Jr.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL – Here’s the first cache of individual, BurlisonOnBasketball Southern California honors for the 2024-25 boys high school basketball season.

Got a firm grasp on your seats?

OK, here goes . . . Eastvale Roosevelt gets a bunch of them!

Brayden Burries capped a remarkable, two-season run with Roosevelt by scoring 37 and 44 points, respectively, in the Mustangs’ South Regional (79-76, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame) and State Open (80-60, San Francisco Riordan) championship victories.

A year after leading the Mustangs to runner-up spots to Harvard-Westlake in the CIF Southern Section and South Regional Open finals to take the BurlisonOnBasketball top junior honor, Burries (pictured) adds the senior prize to his ever-growing bag of kudos, that includes McDonald’s All-American and California Player of the Year by Cal-Hi Sports and MaxPreps.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL – After slogging through seven games of the toughest “real high school” sectional and regional playoff fields in the country, nothing the North had to offer seemed must of an obstacle for the Eastvale Roosevelt Mustangs in Saturday night’s State Open Division boys’ championship game in Saturday.

And that was the case, as Coach Steve Singleton’s club dropped the Brayden Burries hammer on San Francisco Riordan, 80-60, in the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.

The Mustangs got a State Open Division final record 44 points from the Burries – one of six California-based McDonald’s All-Americans from the Class of 2025, two of those residing at Prolific Prep School in Napa – after he had dropped 28 on Harvard-Westlake (March 8) and 37 against Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks (Tuesday night) in the South Regional to earn the trip North.

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The top seeds in the Southern Regional’s Open and D-I divisions held off determined, down-to-the wire challenges Tuesday night to earn slots in the California Interscholastic Federation title games this weekend in Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center.

*In Eastvale, Brayden Burries hit a go-ahead 3-pointer from the left wing with 1:08 remaining to help No. 1 Roosevelt (34-2) edge third seed Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks, 79-76, in a rematch of the CIF Southern Section’s Open championship game 10 nights before in Ontario’s Toyota Arena.

The victory earned Burries – who finished with 37 points – and the rest of the Mustangs a pop at 29-1, North Region-winner San Francisco Riordan (52-40 over visiting De La Salle of Concord Tuesday night) Saturday night at 8 o’clock in the Sacramento Kings’ arena.

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EASTVALE – A couple of Tuesday night rematches of CIF Southern Section playoff games will determine which boys basketball teams will represent the South in next Friday and Saturday night’s Division I and Open championship games in Sacramento.

Redondo Union (28-5), following its 72-66 against visiting and Bay League rival Mira Costa, travels to the San Fernando Valley Tuesday for the D-I final against Sierra Canyon (25-7).

The Trailblazers, who needed two overtimes to beat visiting JSerra, 68-64, knocked off Redondo Union in overtime, 69-66, during a Feb.

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