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IRVINE, Ca. – The first day of the 18^th annual Irvine Valley Community College Tournament featured four competitive games and a whole lot of very competitive and skilled prospects.

Opening-day winners Thursday were San Diego Cuyamaca (88-76 over Norwalk Cerritos), Ventura (83-76 over Santa Clarita College of the Canyons), Long Beach City College (68-63 over Irvine Valley College) and Imperial Valley College (81-75 over Santa Monica City College).

Friday’s schedule: (consolation bracket) 1 p.m. Cerritos vs. College of the Canyons; 3, Irvine Valley vs. Santa Monica; (championship bracket) 5, Cuyamaca vs.

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LOS ANGELES, CA – Does the most improved basketball team in the Pac 12 Conference call the Galen Center home?

Two games into the season, it’s still too early to make that call.

But the USC Trojans, following 14- and 18-point wins over Coppin State and Long Beach State, respectively, over the first five days of the season will be making as strong case for that suggestion going into conference play.

The going will get a bit tougher shortly – there’s a Maui Invitational game with Illinois scheduled for Monday in Lahaina – but Kevin O’Neill’s squad bares almost zero resemblance to the squad that won just six games, overall, and finished last in the conference during 2011-12.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA – I was able to catch four college games – up close and personal – over the first 40 or so hours of the season.

Here are some observations, going backward in my analysis (and sorry for the delay!):

*Syracuse 62, San Diego State 49 (Sunday/USS Midway/San Diego): Coach Steve Fisher’s club was far from the first team to be thoroughly discombobulated by a Syracuse zone defense.

But what was particularly impressive about the fashion in which the Orange’s defense – both in terms of scheme and physical attributes of the athletes playing it – helped keep Jim Boeheim’s team in control all the way in the open air of a tantalizing San Diego Sunday afternoon was in how much time the Aztecs to prep for the Orange zone.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – Any sort of preseason All-American selection is always dicey, at best.

Should the weight of the selection come mostly from the side of “college achievement” or of “potential – what you think a guy will do in the coming season”?

I lean toward the “what a guy has already done” with a dash of “what he is likely to do” tossed into the mix.

I’m presenting 25 players, with five from each of the three perimeter positions and 10 in a combined “post” category, since post play is often so interchangeable for most programs – or something like it.

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CYPRESS, CA – Sunday at Cypress Community College, 24 hours before first “official” day of practice for the 2012-13 season, the first-ever West Coast Showdown Showcase proved to be quite the preview of some of the very best players Southern California has to offer.

As anticipated, three of the standout members of the Southern California Class of 2015 – guards Jeremy Hemsley (La Verne Damien), Kendall Small (Huntington Beach Ocean View) and Stephen Thompson (Torrance Bishop Montgomery) – were in attendance and each was terrific.

Of course, that’s been the case the entire fall at every event that Hemsley, Small and Thompson – teammates on the Superior Athletes travel program – have participated.

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