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GLENDALE, AZ — The largest collection of the top boys’ high school teams and players in the west — and beyond — gathers in the annual Section 7 Basketball Tournament this weekend in the State Farm Stadium, home to the NFL’s Phoenix Cardinals.

The stadium’s playing field has been modified to fit 12 regulation-sized courts, where games in nine 16-team divisions and one 12-team bracket tip on Friday at noon.

The action is set to conclude with each of those 10 championship games — and the other teams get one last game, too — that are scheduled to begin at 8 o’clock Sunday morning.

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IRVINE — A lot of California-based high school teams, and their players, played against one another in front of a lot of college coaches Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on high school campuses throughout south Orange County.

So, consider it “mission accomplished” for the inaugural Boys’ California Live.

The event, run by the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association, drew 160-plus teams over 10 divisions of bracket play.

Champions were captured by teams from:

*Salesian Richmond (SoCal Chevy Bracket/in a 56-53 upset of defending State Open champion Harvard-Westlake).

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IRVINE — Orange County — specially, as we residents like to refer to it as, “the South County” — will serve as the hot spot for the California high school boys’ hoops scene this weekend.

The first-ever “Cali Live Tournament”, organized and run by the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association, will play host to an expected 163 high school teams.

On those players who still have eligibility running on their “only four years, once you step foot into a classroom as a freshman ” high school competition clocks permitted to participate.

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DRAPER, UT — The best of what Utah and Idaho have to offer in boys’ high school basketball programs — and that’s a whole lot of quality teams, players, and coaches — has been on display, via the Great Western Summer Classic, for the past two days at Juan Diego High in this suburb of Salt Lake City.

Even in knowing some teams were missing key players (injuries; or what-not) and transitions are being made from “what they were last season” to “what they will be in 2023-24”, the event produced some terrific games during the Wednesday and Thursday sessions I was courtside for.

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REDONDO BEACH — The two-day, first “Summer Beach Bash”, hosted by Redondo Union High, is set to tip off Saturday morning at 9 o’clock, with 29 games played over Saturday and Sunday in each of the school’s two gymnasiums.

Among the programs set to participate in the event are five (State Open Division Champion Harvard-Westlake; State Division I winner Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks; St. John Bosco; Bishop Montgomery and St. Bernard) of the eight that played in the 2023 CIF Southern Section Open Division playoffs.

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