cal hi sports rankings 202

We really don't like polls. You already know how we feel about the SCIBCA (Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association) Poll. To the extent people take this stuff seriously, they're missing the real point of the game, which is not to get high "poll" rankings, but to win games, have fun, and for the best players, to get a chance to move to the next level. Having said that, there are evidently just a ton of people who want to see the Cal-Hi Sports rankings. Why? Probably because they're a lot of fun. At least for the 50 schools listed in the rankings. For the other oh, say, 3,000 schools that aren't ranked, well . . . better luck next time.

We continue to receive mail requesting both the SCIBCA and Cal-Hi rankings. Again, let us say, we'd really like to answer each e-mail individually on this subject, but we don't have time. Second, as for "CIF" polls, there really aren't any until the end of the season. In Southern Section there's the SCIBCA (pronounced "Skibka") Poll and then there's Cal Hi Sports, which is really a private organization which evaluates teams and then ranks them, selling the rankings to local papers. In order to obtain the rankings, you've got to get them from a newspaper. Or subscribe to Cal-Hi's newsletter. However, we contacted Cal-Hi at the beginning of the season, and they told us, "We only make the rankings available to our subscribers. However, once they are published, as far as we're concerned, they are available to anyone who wants to put them out."

Ok. So we have the rankings as of last Thursday. Sorry, that's the best we can do. And actually, since Cal-Hi only comes out once a week, these rankings are really as of games played through the 23rd of January, i.e., they are about one week behind "real-time". Still, that's not too bad when the task is to put out rankings for the entire state. Here's the Southern and Northern Cal rankings:

Southern California Top 10	Northern California Top 10
1. Compton-Dominguez 2. Lakewood-Artesia 3. Simi Valley 4. Glendora 5. Santa Ana-Mater Dei 6. LA Manual Arts 7. San Diego-Horizon 8. L.A.-Crenshaw. 9. Long Beach Jordan 10. Pasadena- Muir	1. San Francisco-St. Ignatius 2. Concord-De La Salle 3. Fresno-Clovis West 4. Easton-Washington 5. Oakland-Fremont 6. El Cerrito 7. Bakersfield 8. San Jose-Bellarmine 9. Richmond 10. Bakersfield-East.

Some movement from the week before. Simi and Glendora have each moved up a spot; Inglewood, previously No. 6 is gone, as is Capo Valley and Manual Arts moves up, Jordan and Muir appear in the rankings. In the Northern California rankings, nothing has happened, including the fact that only Cal-Hi seems to think Bakersfield, Clovis West and the rest of the Central Section teams that play in the Southern California State Championship Regionals are from the "north".

Cal Hi Sports also puts out a "Statewide Overall Top 20" which tries to pick the best teams regardless of Division in the entire state. Not surprisingly, most of these are Division I teams, but occasionally, some D-II's (Inglewood) and even a D-IV (Verbum Dei) can sneak in. Here's the poll:

Statewide Overall Top 20

1. San Francisco-St. Ignatius
2. Compton-Dominguez
3. Lakewood-Artesia
4. Simi Valley
5. Glendora
6. Concord-De La Salle
7. Santa Ana-Mater Dei
8. Fresno-Clovis West
9. Easton Washington
10. LA Manual Arts
11. San Diego Horizon
12. LA Crenshaw
13. Long Beach Jordan
14. Pasadena Muir
15. Inglewood
16. Oakland Fremont
17. Upland
18. Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley
19. El Cerrito
20. Bakersfield

What's interesting about the Statewide poll is that Compton, previously ranked, has dropped out completely. Well, come playoff time, we'll see about that.

Cal-Hi also breaks things down by Division. Not the "xx- AA" and and "xx-A" subdivisions which Southern Section employs (apparently Southern Section is alone in breaking things down this way because, to quote Dean Crowley the Southern Section Commissioner, "We have more than 500 schools in the Section. That's more than almost all of Northern California; we need the separate divisions to insure that more of our teams get rewarded by being able to participate in the State Tournament." ) A laudatory goal. Here are the "Division" Cal- Hi rankings.

Division I	Division II
1. San Francisco-St. Ignatius 2. Lakewood-Artesia 2. Simi Valley 4. Glendora 5. Concord-De La Salle 6. Santa Ana-Mater Dei 7. Fresno-Clovis West 8. Los Angeles Manual Arts 9. Los Angeles-Crenshaw 10. Long Beach-Jordan	1. Compton-Dominguez 2. Pasadena Muir 3. Inglewood 4. Rancho Santa Margarita-Santa Margarita 5. Compton 6. Richmond 7. Bakersfield-East 8. El Dorado Hills-Oak Ridge 9. Redondo Beach-Redondo 10. Fresno-Edison.
Division III	Division IV
1. Easton-Washington 2. El Cerrito 3. Torrance-Bishop Montgomery 4. Santa Cruz 5. Santa Rosa-Piner 6. San Diego-St. Augustine 7. San Mateo 8. Chaminade 9. Newport Beach Corona del Mar 10. Lafayette Acalanes	1. San Diego Horizon 2. Santa Ana-Mater De 3. Gardena-Serra 4. Encino-Crespi 5. Santa Monica-Crossroads 6. Moraga-Campolindo 7. Laguna Beach 8. Bakersfield-Garces 9. Pacific Grove 10. Argonaut
Division V
1. Oxnard-Santa Clara 2. Pasadena Poly 3. Modesto Christian 4. Los Angeles Pacific Hills 5. Modesto-Calvary Temple 6. Hoopa Hoopa Valley 7. Redding-Liberty 8. Oakland-St. Elizabeth 9. Eureka- St. Bernard 10. Downey Calvary Chapel

The biggest movement in these polls is that the week previous, San Diego Horizon was listed by Cal Hi Sports as the No. 1 team in Division V, and evidently they hadn't heard at the time that Horizon was playing up in D-IV. So this week they're No. 1 in D-IV. Otherwise, things are pretty much the same with one or two minor changes.