Frank Burlison

LAGUNA NIGUEL – Three days’ of games – and then a computer and the CIF Southern Section will let sort out the boys’ basketball divisions and release the results Sunday morning from its Los Alamitos headquarters.

The results of Baseline, Big VIII, Mission and Trinity league tournaments, as well as a Bay League finale, over the next three days will go a long way toward dictating the size and seeding in the Open Division, and the bracketing in the 32-team Division I field.

Check below and peruse the updated BurlisonOnBasketball.com

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RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – Friday night’s Trinity League results set the stage for the league’s first-ever tournament, which tips Monday evening at Irvine Valley College.

Santa Margarita (102-81 over Orange Lutheran) and St. John Bosco (73-65 against Servite) secured quarterfinal byes Monday and will play in the semifinals Tuesday at Hope International University in Fullerton.

And JSerra secured the three seed as Jaden Bailes’ buzzer-beating layup gave the Lions a 67-66 decision at Mater Dei – their fifth win in a row against the Monarchs over three seasons.

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SANTA ANA – My, oh, my . . . what a Wednesday night for Trinity League boys’ basketball.

Roughly 20 minutes after the Santa Margarita High Eagles rallied from 15 points down in the fourth quarter to knock off Mater Dei on its home court for the first time ever, 74-73, host Orange Lutheran pulled off an even bigger stunner.

The Lancers built a nine-point edge in the final minute before holding off league-leading St. John Bosco – the No. 3 team in the CIF Southern Section – 72-68.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL – Two weeks to go before the translation from “speculation” to “reality” is complete . . .

The CIF Southern Section will release the makeup of, and matchups in, its boys’ basketball playoff divisions on Feb. 8, rendering all the ratings and projections – here and elsewhere – moot.

But here is my updated SoCal Top 30 teams rating, with just a slight adjustment – Harvard-Westlake and Notre Dame of the Mission League flipping the five and six spots, based on the result of their Saturday night game in Studio City – in the Top 10.

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SANTA ANA – Harvey Kitani was initiated into a club with an exclusive membership Friday night.

Just how exclusive is it?

Well, roll call would take about 15 seconds.

The Rolling Hills Prep boys’ basketball club joined two other coaches still cranking out the wins, Gary McKnight of Mater Dei and Mike LeDuc of Damien, as the sole members of California’s “1,000 boys varsity basketball victories” coaches’ club Friday night at Mater Dei High.

Appropriately, the 1KW came against another of the most successful coaches in the sport, Grant Rice and his Las Vegas Bishop Gorman program, 60-45, in the third boys game Friday night in the opening day of the two-day XXXI Nike Extravaganza.

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