Frank Burlison

LOS ANGELES – Highlighting the prep hoops action in Southern California this weekend is the fourth annual “Fairfax State Preview” – hosted by, logically, Fairfax High on Saturday.

The action gets underway at 10:30 a.m., with La Canada taking on El Camino of Oceanside.

The rest of the schedule:

Noon, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame vs. San Diego Francis Park;

1:30 p.m., Santa Monica vs. Mission Hills Alemany;

3, North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake vs. San Diego Torrey Pines;

4:30, L.A. Price vs. L.A. Windward;

6:30, L.A. Fairfax vs.

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Prep hoops happenings for the weekend in the West . . .

  *I’ll be in San Juan Capistrano, CA (just a few miles south on the 5 Freeway from where I live in Laguna Niguel) Friday night to watch the Trinity League confrontation between the state’s best team, Santa Ana Mater Dei, and host JSerra.

The host Lions (12-5 overall) have won three league games in a row after opening league with a tight loss at Bellflower St. John Bosco (which is led by brothers Isaac and Daniel Hamilton).

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VILLA PARK, CA – The second Villa Park High Coaches vs. Cancer one-day boys’ hoops event was held Saturday.

Here is a rundown on the games (note: I watched just the Palm Springs-Gahr and Villa Park-Los Alamitos contests):

*Redondo Beach Redondo Union 59, Huntington Beach Edison 49: The backcourt of sophomore Ian Fox (17) and junior Derek Biale (15) combined for 32 points to help the South Bay-based squad topple the Chargers in the South Bay-Orange County showdown.

Left-handed point guard Corey Foster scored 24 points for Edison while 6-4 senior Dreon Barlett added 14.

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VILLA PARK, CA – Are you craving some quality high school basketball action to watch, up close and personnel, today?

Then I suggest out make the trek to north Orange County to visit Villa Park High (18042 Taft Avenue in Villa Park) to watch Coach Kevin Reynolds’ Coaches vs. Cancer Showcase.

The first of five games gets underway at 2 o’clock, when Huntington Beach Edison takes on Redondo Beach Redondo.

The next four games: 3:30, Anaheim Canyon vs. Huntington Beach; 5, Palm Springs vs. Cerritos Gahr; 6:30, Villa Park vs.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA — Not surprisingly, my top 25 nominees for the John R. Wooden Award mid-season list is heavily laced with players from North Carolina (four) and Kentucky (three) – 28 percent of the nominees, in fact.

There are four freshmen among the 25, Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist of Kentucky, Trey Burke of Michigan and Cody Zeller of Indiana. Two other freshmen, guards Austin Rivers of Duke and Kevin Pangos of Gonzaga, were my final two cuts.

The Atlantic Coast Conference (led by the Tar Heels, of course) is the most heavily represented conference with six selections.

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