city pairings and bracket--first round

LA City Section: First Round Pairings Announced:
Playoff Games Begin Friday, 2/19--(Feb. 13, 1999)

The representatives from the City Section on the Playoff Seeding & Selection Committee met this morning in what we heard was a pretty raucous and goegraphically divisive meeting. They met to pick the top selections for playoffs and establish the brackets and the seeding. First the all the team records were placed on blackboards. There are about 80 teams in City Section; only half of those 80 were eligible for post season play. Of the 40 or so who were eligible, only 32 could qualify. And among the 32, there was jockeying for position and seeding among the coaches and representatives. Some teams desperately wanted to be in the "Division" tournament rather than the "City" tournament, because it was the only place they thought they had a chance to be successful. Others wanted to get the highest seeding possible and home court advantage, regardless of which bracket they were placed in. And still others voted on all the issues strictly along geographic lines: The Valley voted with the Valley on all issues and the City with the City. We hear that it got so rancorous that some coaches and reps threatened to walk out, telling each other to simply have two tournaments, a Valley and City Tournament, and maybe the winners would meet.

Of course, that isn't what ultimately happened, and after all the shouting and arguing stopped, the reps got about the business of doing what they came to do in the first place and selected two playoff brackets a "City Championship" bracket and a "Division Championship" bracket. Here's who's in the playoffs in the respective divisions:

L.A. City Championship Tournament			LA City Division Championship Tournament
No. 1 Fairfax	vs.	No. 16 Venice	No. 1 South Gate	vs.	No. 16 Banning
No. 2 Manual Arts	vs.	No. 15 Dorsey	No. 2 Kennedy	vs.	No. 15 Wilson
No. 3. Crenshaw	vs.	No. 14. Jordan	No. 3 Hamilton	vs.	No. 14 Mid-City
No. 4 Fremont	vs.	No. 13 Franklin	No. 4 Marshall	vs.	No. 13 Poly
No. 5 Westchester	vs.	No. 12 Grant	No. 5 Locke	vs.	No. 12 San Fernando
No. 6. Sylmar	vs.	No. 11 Carson	No. 6 Jefferson	vs.	No. 11 University
No. 7 Washington	vs.	No. 10 Chatsworth	No. 7 Hollywood	vs.	No. 10 Taft
No. 8 Palisades	vs.	No. 9 Cleveland	No. 8 North Hollywood	vs.	No. 9 Monroe

And again, recall that this year there is no longer any 3A or 4A. Instead, there's a "City Championship" tournament and a "Division" Championship. Only the City Champion and the runner-up in the City Championship tournament are eligible to move on to the CIF State Championship which will first consist of the Southern California regionals. The "Division" champ get to say they won, take home a trophy and then finishes the year.

From what we hear, all the first round games are next Friday night, February 19, at 7:30 p.m. There could be some exceptions to the time, especially at schools where there are security concerns (we won't mention any names, but you can probably figure it out) so we'd expect some of these games to actually start at 4:30 or 5:00 instead of 7:30 p.m.. Stay tuned because the official times will be published in the next day.

Game 1: Fairfax v. Venice-- For Venice, they couldn't have received a worse seeding, and with three players who are ineligible to grades, including Joe Dural and with Glen McGowan injured, it will be a real long-shot for them to upset Fairfax, the only team in the City Championship bracket to go undefeated in league and conference play this year. And with Joe Shipp, Jason Morrissette, and Stan Thorne playing better than ever, we would look for Fairfax to win on Friday.

Game 2: Manual v. Dorsey-- Manual Arts received the No. 2 seed, but that's only because they lost earlier this season during conference play by 7 at home to Fairfax; otherwise, Manual has to be considered one of the favorites to take the Division I title in the Southern Regional of the State Tournament and to move on to a State Title. With a core group of seniors like Johnny Hardwick, Brandon Moorer, Curtis Millage, James Wright, Ronald Cass, Otis Belisle and Larry Dillingham, plus some very talented juniors, they will give No. 15 Dorsey an almost impossible time. Manual has been beaten, but not by anyone other than Fairfax. We don't really know anything about Dorsey this year, but we'd pick Manual to win just given the margins of victory that we've seen against all other City teams.

Game 3: Crenshaw v. Jordan--Crenshaw, with Jonathan Stokes, EJ Harris, Diallo Washington, Tommy Johnson, DeWayne Parker, Armand Thomas, and Ryan Sims among others, has had it's troubles lately outside of the City Section, most notably, last weekend when they lost to Ocean View at the Nike Extravaganza, but against City teams, they haven't dropped many. Jordan has Ricky Gallagher, virgil Kennerly, Lary Carter, Willie Jacton, Alton Davis, and Leon Jones, and Tyrone Riley, but we'd look for the 'Shaw to easily handle Jordan to advance to the round of eight.

Game 4: Fremont v. Franklin-- Fremont is a team which is either vastly over-rated, or entirely under-appreciated. The team that is playing now is basically a different team than the one we saw in preseason, and unless they've succumbed to eligibility problems (and we haven't heard that of them) they've still got Jawan Carter, Henry Aubry, Donte Limbrick, La Jay Godbolt, Marcus Carnelus, Leo Ceja, Willie Dunn, Tim Taylor, Ronnie Moore, and Mo Covan among others. Franklin is a team we haven't seen yet, and they play in the Northern Conference and went 16-0, undefeated, and beat several good teams along the way. This could be among the best matchups of the City Tournament, and could provide the single biggest upset if Fremont isn't careful.

Game 5: Westchester v. Grant--- This is just a dream matchup of two really exciting outside shooters, Westchester's junior sensation Lou Wright and Grant's Arizona-bound senior Gilbert Arenas. Lately Gilbert hasn't been putting up the kind of numbers that he had been for a short stretch in the mid-season, but still, scoring in the mid to high 20's is no small feat. And remember last year, when against Creneshaw, Gilbert scored more than 50? If it was just these two, we'd say Grant might have a good shot, but even though Westchester, the defending City and State Champion is at it's most beatable, they are still very formidable, and Grant has no one inside who can really deal with the likes of ASU-bound 6'-9" Chris Osborne. So Grant will have to depend upon outside speed and outside shooting. Still it will be a great game.

Game 6: Sylmar v. Carson --- This is Sylmar's game to lose. With George Wrighster averaging more than 24 points a game over the last three games, Jeremiah Turner pulling down more than 10 rebounds per game, TK Reed playing suffocating defense, Brandon Jacobs dishing out close to 8 to 10 assists per game, and the rest of the Sylmar crew scoring like mad, we're having a hard time imagining them losing to a team like Carson, which is athletic, but really has no standout players who immediately spring to mind. Based on records, this is a good match, but our instinct tells us that even with Marques Duncantel who is scoring about 21 points per game, and Marques Washington and even Andre Johnson, Sylmar should still take this game at home to advance.

Game 7: Washington v. Chatsworth --- Other than the home court advantage, we really like Chatsworth's chances in this game. With Marlik Morris, Richard Harrison, Bobby Bowlin, Adam Drell, and point guard Mark Cannon all scoring and playing well, and Chatsworth ranked by the LA Times as the No. 8 team in the Valley Region (among both City and Southern Section teams) Chatsworth could just knock off the Generals. We haven't seen Washington in quite a while, actually since the Best in the West in December, but size-wise, they will match up well with Chatsworth, as their tallest player, Eugene Moore is only 6'-6". Unless they've lost players to grades, look for Lewis Woods and David Warsaw at the point, with Michael Torday and Gregory Taylor also filling in at guard spots, Rodney Anderson, Antoine Parker, Darrell Bagsby, Nehemiah Campbell, Dontae Foster, Timothe Fehoko, and Moore. This is a pick'em, but we like Chatsworth's chances.

Game 8: Palisades v. Cleveland --- Cleveland just completed an undefeated league and conference season last night, and if we had to guess, we'd say that they're the favorites, although the seeding committee obviously thinks more of Pali than we do. Which is not to say we don't respect Pali, it's just that we don't much care for their style of play. Cleveland, which is a much more wide-open team, feature Kent Dennis, a great 6'-4" shooting guard who may be one of the most under-recruited Division I prospects in the City. Eric Bush, Grant Gledger, Yashar Meharabani, Kenny Mason, Larry Knox, Brian Smil and Kareem Bolden make up the bulk of the other players you'll see if you get over to Palisades for this game. For Pali, look for Steve McMaryion, who at 6'-4" was one of the best shooters in the City a year ago, but who's inside game has become his trademark this year on a team which features no one bigger than 6'-5". Fifth-year senior Edward Estavan is a good outside shooter and will penetrate, and Reggi Fritz, Eric Alvarez, and Ikem Chukemerije all contribute. Again, we like Cleveland in this one, even though Pali already beat Cleveland once this year at the Beverly Hills tournament.

We don't have time right now to analyze the LA City "Division" Tournament entries, but we'll do that in the next day or two. In the meantime, look for the Southern Section to announce it's seeding selections tomorrow afternoon.