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The roundtrip drive – 158 miles visa the 73 Toll Road and 405 and 101 Freeways, spanning about two hours and 20 minutes of real time – was definitely worth it Sunday.

My Laguna Niguel to Woodlands Hills trek gave me the opportunity to watch eight games over about nine hours and 15 minutes during the Buzz Basketball/HoopLove Varsity Fall Classic Sunday in the Taft High gymnasium.

The games – involving 12 teams, three or four of which will rated among Southern California’s 10 best going into the 2011-12 season – put some of the most well-known talent in the Southland on display.

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My apologies for not posting anything the past few days – I’ve been swamped trying to get the information about my scouting service to as many coaching staffs as possible across the country.

Here’s what I’m up to in the next week or so:

• Sunday, I’ll be at Taft High (in the San Fernando Valley city of Woodland Hills) where eight games are scheduled involving the likes of Taft, Bellflower St. John Bosco, Mission Hills Alemany, Compton Dominguez and Chatsworth Sierra Canyon. There will be plenty of future Division I college players on hand.

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It figured.

Kyle Anderson, of St. Anthony in Jersey City, NJ, is probably one of the most active high school participants in the Twitter Universe.

He’s also one of the most gifted high school basketball players in any universe.

So, a little more than an hour ago, he announced his college choice to his 4,246 Twitter followers – and gosh-only-knows how many others via re-tweeting – by way of his @KyleAnderson5 “Vinny Chase” account the night before his 18^th birthday.

Anderson – the most skilled player in the national class of 2012 – obviously is a big Entourage fan.

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Things  didn’t end quite the way anyone had anticipated Sunday afternoon – with the Shabazz Muhammad-led Las Vegas Bishop Gorman team playing on Court 2 in the third-place game.

That’s because the California Supreme squad had its own designs on winning the Fullcourt Press Fall Hoops Classic at the HAX (in the Los Angeles community of Harbor City, just down Western Avenue from Narbonne High).

And that’s what happened, as the Gary Franklin Sr.-coached squad knocked off Gorman (referred to as “The Las Vegas Orangemen” in the event), 80-76, in the semifinals and then Long Beach Poly (“The Jackrabbits”), 53-46, in the final a couple of hours later.

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The Shabazz Muhammad-led “Las Vegas Orangemen” overpowered the Grant Jerrett-fronted “La Verne Trojans” Saturday night, 80-68, in a battle of two of the top high school squads in the west during the Fullcourt Press Fall Hoops Classic at the HAX in Harbor City in Southern California.

The “Orangemen”, of course, is the team of players from Bishop Gorman while the “Trojans” are the squad that will represent one of Southern California’s best in 2011-12, La Verne Lutheran.

In other quarterfinals Saturday evening, the “Jackrabbits” (Long Beach Poly High) edged Branch West Elite, 63-61, on Jordan Bell’s 5-footer along the right baseline in “sudden death” after a couple of two-minute overtime; the Cali Rebels got a buzzer-beating bucket by Huntington Beach (CA) Ocean View freshman guard Kendall Small to stun Belmont Shore, 69-67; and California Supreme outlasted Cal Select, 82-73.

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