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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – Here we go, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen:

My look at the second week of the CIF’s Southern and L.A. City sections’ hoops playoffs.

And I’ll start with the toughest division of them all as Tuesday’s second-round (Round of 16 for L.A. City and first four Southern Section divisions) games rapidly approach . . .

SOUTHERN SECTION

  1AA: Top seed Santa Ana Mater Dei (at Downey Warren), No. 2 Long Beach Poly (home to Lakewood Mayfair) and No. 6 Etiwanda (home to Temecula Great Oak) shouldn’t be too severely challenged en route to Friday’s quarterfinal round.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – Sorry for the delay in putting this up but here are some observations about the fields and brackets for the CIF Southern Section and L.A. City boy’s hoops playoffs . . .

As had been anticipated, the Southern Section’s 1AA 32-team bracket shapes up as the most competitive in either section.

In reality, there are probably seven of the best 15 teams in Southern California in this division. Those included top seed Santa Ana Mater, followed (in order of seed) by Long Beach Poly, Corona Centennial, Mission Viejo, Rancho Cucamonga, Etiwanda and L.A.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – The CIF Southern Section and L.A. City playoffs get under way this coming week.

The following is my Top 15 rankings for teams from those sections – and include ONLY those teams that I watched in person during the regular season.

Among those I didn’t see in the regular season were Riverside JW North and Los Angeles Pacific Hills.

So here we go:

1.Santa Ana Mater Dei (CIF SS 1AA);

2. Torrance Bishop Montgomery (SS 4AA);

3. Long Beach Poly (SS 1AA);

4.

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SANTA ANA, Ca. – Some 14 hours and 40 minutes after the first of what were to be nine games tipped off, the host Mater Dei High Monarchs finally held off Los Angeles Westchester, 63-60, very late Saturday night during the second and final day of the 18^th Nike Extravaganza.

And, ooh, what a long day it was.

But for those who endured – and that’s as appropriate a word as I can conjure at the moment – the entirety of the nine games, it was worth the investment of a posterior likely to feel the impact of all that sitting and watching for at least a few days.

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SANTA ANA, Ca. – The biggest player in the Meruelo Athletic Center also proved to be the most productive Friday.

By the way, “and then some” could rightfully be attached to each part of that statement.

Center Mamadou Ndiaye, all 7-foot-5ish and 290 pounds or so of him, scored 34 points and grabbed 26 points to lead his Huntington Beach Brethren Christian team to a 50-34 victory over Anaheim Servite during one of the three boys’ game held during the opening action of the 18^th Nike Extravaganza, host by Mater Dei High.

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