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COMPTON – Considering that it hadn’t played a game in exactly 14 months, it should come as no surprise that the Long Beach Poly Jackrabbits initially struggled in its Moore League game with Compton Wednesday night at Centennial High.

The hosts (the game was moved to the other Compton Unified School District high school because the Compton campus is undergoing reconstruction) led the Jackrabbits, 24-21, after a turnover-plagued first 16 minutes of action.

“We’ve only had nine practices,” Poly Coach Shelton Diggs said afterward, echoing what a lot of coaches are saying since the return to the “new normal” of COVID-19 high school hoops.

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RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, Ca. – The Santa Margarita High boys’ basketball team missed out on a spot in the CIF Southern Section playoffs during the 2019-20 season.

That isn’t likely to be the case during Season II under Coach Justin Bell.

The Eagles improved to 3-0 while cruising past visiting San Gabriel Academy, 64-30, Tuesday night.

Bell has a roster deep in size and backcourt skill and experience.

And that roster is going to become even more formidable this weekend.

Transfers Luke Turner (6-foot-7, Rancho Christian) and Coby Barnes (6-3, Clovis Buchannan) become eligible on Friday for the team’s home game with Murrieta Valley.

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ALISO VIEJO, Ca. – The Capistrano Valley High Cougars improved to 3-0 Monday night in a “South Orange County tilt” played host to by the Aliso Niguel Warriors.

The Cougars took a 10-0 advantage and were never seriously threatened, though they got a tad sloppy in stretches of the second half, to prevail, 74-62.

Six-foot-three twins Gavin and Aidan O’Neill – transfers from Saddleback Valley Christian, which closed last spring – combined for 38 points for Coach Brian Mulligan’s team, with Gavin scoring 15 of his team-high 21 in the second half.

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It took a hell of a response from the top-ranked – and unbeaten – Gonzaga team against a superb performance by the UCLA Bruins to set it up.

But the NCAA men’s basketball championship matchup that most who follow the sport closely have anticipated – if not craved – for a large portion of the pandemic is just hours away.

Freshman Jalen Suggs’ Shot for the Ages – and, yes, it was a jump shot not a heave, from 33-feet away – beat the overtime buzzer, finally put the hammer down on a valiant squad from Westwood and set up the Monday night showdown between the now-31 and zip, top-ranked (out of the blocks) Bulldogs and a 27-2 Baylor team that was “1-B” to Gonzaga for the bulk of the season.

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BELLFLOWER, Ca. – It’s the early stage of a 2020-21 Southern California boys’ basketball season that – like much of the rest of life in the COVID-19 era – will be unlike any before.

The biggest reason that’s the case, of course, is – because of the pandemic has been squeezing normal out of the world more than a year – there was no 2020 portion of this season.

But falling infections, hospitalizations and deaths – knocking on the hardest piece of wood available – and rapidly increased percentage of the population that has been vaccinated has led high school sports in the Southland to ease their way back into play.

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