SoCalHoops High School News

A Playoff Primer: Sections, Champions,
Tournaments. . . What's It All Mean?--(Feb. 11, 1999)

We've gotten about 20 letters in the past week all of which evidence varying degrees of confusion about the differences between "Southern Section," "City Section," and what it means to win a "Southern Section" title as opposed to the "Southern Regional" of the California State Tournament. We think these differences are pretty clear to the majority of our readers, but for those of you who just stumbled upon California high school basketball, or just arrived here at SoCalHoops, it's probably time for a review and refresher course in view of the impending start of what we'll call the post-regular-season playoffs in all of the various CIF Sections.

Lesson 1: "What's A Section"?

There are four "Sections" in Southern California: The "Southern Section" of CIF, the LA City "Section" of CIF, San Diego "Section" of CIF and the "Central" Section of CIF which covers the southern half of the Central (San Joaquin) Valley. Each of these "Sections" is really an "almost" autonomous body which is affiliated with and a part of a larger organization called the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) which has some (but not all) governance and responsibility over the regional "Sections." Basically, a "Section" is a collection of schools in a relatively contiguous geographic region composed of multiple leagues (except Oakland, but that's a different story) who have all banded together for mutual competition in various sports; each "section" is responsible for it's own leagues, sets it's own policies for travel both in and out of state, determines league schedules, holds it's own section championship tournaments, and to a large extent is fairly autonomous from the larger CIF State Office, but does cede control to the State Office on issues which concern state governance (like appeals from Section rulings as in the case of Narbonne's title last year).

From the standpoint of basketball only, when we refer to "Southern Section" we are referring to the actual "section" of the CIF located in Southern California which is headquartered in Cerritos and for which Dean Crowley is the Commissioner. There are several hundred teams in Southern Section, and it's clearly the largest in the State.

When we refer to "City Section" that's the Los Angeles Unified School District "section" which is also a member of the State CIF. Barbara Feige is the Commissioner of City Section. Only LAUSD schools play within City Section.

Likewise, San Diego Section and Central Section are different groups, with differing administrative staffs, their own leagues, and their own governance structure.

Lesson 2: What's A Section Championship?

Each of these Sections holds their own post-regular-season Championship Tournaments. In the Southern Section, the 1999 Playoffs for the "Section" Championship Tournament will start Wednesday, February 17, 1999 with the first round, continue on February 19 with the second round, continue with the third round on February 23, the quarter finals on February 26, and the semifinals on Tuesday March 2. The finals (i.e., the Championship) will take place on Friday and Saturday, March 5 and 6 and will be at the Pond in Anaheim each day. There will be separate tournaments (and separate Champions") for each of the 10 divisions (I-AA, I-A, II-AA, I-A, and so on down to V-A) which will all conclude with the Southern Section Championships to be held on Friday, March 5 and Saturday March 6 at the Pond at Anaheim, where each division will determine who the "Southern Section Champion" and "Southern Section Runner-Up" is for each of the 10 divisions.

San Diego has a completely different tournament structure as does the Central Section, but the bottom line is that for each "Division" (which refers to enrollment figures, with Division I being the largest enrollments, and Division V being the smallest enrollments) there will be a separate "Section Champion" and a separate "runner-up." The Champions of each division are all eligible to compete in the State Tournament, and so are the runners-up in some (all?) sections.

Lesson 3: What's Up With The City Section Championship?

To be clear about this, the LA City teams do not compete in the "Southern Section" Championship tournament, even though many of the LA Unified Schools who play in City Section might be physically located right next door to a Southern Section school. They are separate and distinct Sections, with different leagues and a different governance structure.

In the City Section this year, there will be 32 City Section teams that will be divided into two groups, which will in essence play in two different post-regular-season tournaments: A "City" Championship Tournament, and a "Division" Tournament.

City Section is divided into Conferences, which are roughly geographically contiguous (with the exception of the Magnet School Conference). Some of the Conferences are also divided into "Leagues" which really simply reflects a historical anomaly which has existed for about 40 years, mostly in the Valley. In the metropolitan area of Los Angeles, there are some "leagues" (Pacific, Southern, Metro, and Western), but there are also conferences which have no separate "leagues." Why? We don't know. In the Valley, there's the Valley Pac-8 Conference, which has two leagues in it, the East Valley and the Mid-Valley, and there's also the Northwest Valley Conference which also has two leagues, the West Valley League and the North Valley League.

Lesson 4: Really, What's Up With The City Section. . . And What Is A "Division" Title Anyway?

In what now seems like ancient times, about 30 years ago, the City Championship was the big enchilada. There was no "State" tournament, so the only bragging rights City teams had was to win the City Title. Entry into the tournament and seeding was largely determined by who the winners were of the various leagues. Second and sometimes third place teams usually made the tournament.

Then someone got the bright idea about 20 years ago to try to give the Valley schools (and other perennial "loser" schools) more of an even playing field, so the concept of "Divisions" within City Section was created, comprised of "4A" and "3A". Schools were also grouped, from a league point of view, into these divisions, and two tournaments were created: A "4A" and "3A" City Championship tournament were created, and thus there were two different "City Champions." But in the past few years, what seemed like the logical reasons for the 4A and 3A distinctions (historical competitiveness, enrollment, etc) have in some cases drastically changed, so that once again, some schools, regardless of their division, just can't seem to win or get what they think is an even shot at a playoff run. Schools could "move up" but only if another team decided to "drop down," and the result was that you had teams like Sylmar last year, which would have been competitive in 4A along with San Fernando competing in 3A. The reasons for the distinctions also in many cases largely vanished, and the City Section was long overdue for a complete releaguing process anyway.

So this year, the City Section, in anticipation of going to the entirely new system next year will do the following:

City Section will take the top 16 "seeded" teams from around the various City Leagues and Conferences, and those top 16 will compete for the "City Championship". The winner and runner up of that "City Championship" tournament are then eligible to compete in the State Championship Tournament (we'll get to that in a moment). City Section will also take the next best 16 teams from the group of 32 (teams 17-32) and will hold a separate tournament for the "Division Title". None of those teams (17-32) will be eligible to compete at any level in the State Championship Tournament. This "lower" bracket tournament is what was, until this year called "3A", the title Sylmar won last year. The upper bracket is what used to be called "4A", the division with Manual, Crenshaw, Westchester, etc. Those divisions don't exist for playoff purposes any longer, and won't exist at all next season as the City Section will undergo a complete releaguing. But that's a different story.

Lesson 5: So What Is This "State" Tournament Thing Anyway?

The story above regarding section tournaments and section championships is largely the same for most of the Northern California sections (Northern, North Coast, Sac-Joaquin, etc) as well. All of them will have some form of post-regular-season tournament to determine one or more "Champions." The only real exception is the Oakland Section of CIF, which is really weird anyway, because it's just a "league" and not truly a conglomeration of many geographically convenient leagues. But that's also a whole different story.

In the early part of this century, as the CIF was getting off the ground, in 1916 specifically, there was a desire to have a single "State Champion" crowned. So the CIF decided to hold a tournament, which they did up until 1928. Probably for economic reasons, shortly thereafter a little thing known as the "Great Depression" hit, and with the onset of tough times in the 1930's and with WWII occupying most people's attention in the 1940's, and then the Cold War and Communists under every bed in the 1950's, the state tournament was dropped and not resurrected again until 1981. No one we've spoken to really understands why it took so long for the tournment to get resurrected, but eventually, in 1981 it got started again.

In the early years, Stockton High dominated the tournament, winning four championships in the 1920's (1922-23, 1925, 1928). In the "modern era" LA Crenshaw has equalled and exceeded that dominance winning four titles in the 1980's (1983, 1985-86, 1989) and adding four titles in the 1990's (1993-94, 1996-97). Apparently, the "modern" era began in 1981, when in a game held on March 14, 1981, a team from Bishop O'Dowd in Oakland (coached by Mike Phelps) defeated a team from Castlemont (also of Oakland) by a score of 70-69. It was not until the following year, in 1982, that one team from the south--in this case Carson, coached by Dick Acres-- defeated Washington High from San Francisco 54-53, to become the first SoCal Champion of the "modern" era. Interestingly, the records put out by the CIF show that Division I Championship play was begun again in 1981 for the boys--although as noted above it was a game between two teams from the North, so how much of a "state" title was it really? The first North-South contenst actually occurred in 1982.

That's the story in Division I, but for the other enrollment Divisions, the story isn't as clear because either the records weren't kept, those Divisions commenced participation in the tournament later, or in some cases, the divisions weren't yet created. Division II play didn't start until 1982 when
Drake of San Anselmo beat Banning 87-85 at the Oakland Coliseum in Boys' play. In Division III boys' records start with 1983, when Cloverdale defeated Crossroads 71-64 at the Sports Arena in LA. In Divisions IV and V, the records don't begin until 1988. In that year, Washington Union of Fresno (which now plays in Division III) won the D-IV title, beating Terra Linda of San Rafael 76-65. In Division V, the 1988 winner was Ripon Christian which defeated Calipatria 67-63.

Lesson 6: So When Is The State Tournament Held This Year?

March 19 & 20 will be the dates of the finals. Preliminary rounds in SoCal will take place March 9, March 11 and March 13.

Each of the Section Champions in each division and each of the runners-up in the Southern Section (because it's so large) gets the right to compete for the State Championship. There are State Regional playoffs, which begin March 9, and will also be held March 11, and March 13 in the Southern California Regionals. The winners of each of these "Regionals" then plays the winners of the Northern California Regionals on Friday and Saturday, March 19 & 20 at the Arco Arena in Sacramento for the State Championship. The only time LA City Section teams and Southern Section teams compete (other than perhaps at pre-season or off-season tournaments) is in the Southern Regional of the State Tournament, and not at any other time. So when you read about us making predictions about winners in "Southern Section", there's a reason we're not talking about the "City Section" teams. . . it's because they are not in the Southern Section of CIF.

Lesson 7: LA City Section Gets More Than Enough Respect. Really!

Some people have said that lately we are only writing about Southern Section teams as being the "favorites" in the State Tournament. Au contraire. While there are far more Southern Section teams to write about than there are City Section teams to write about, as far as the City Section teams getting "respect," they get plenty of respect when it comes to the State Tournament. Everyone knows that Crenshaw, a City Section team has more State title wins than any other school (8), from either Northern or Southern California, since the State Tournament first got resurrected in 1981 And of course, everyone knows who won the last State Title, Westchester, a City Section team.

Lesson 8: Don't Make Any Predictions. . . Well, If You Must. . . Ok

People have also written to us saying we haven't made any predictions about City Section. Hey, we're not in the "predicting" business. But since you asked. . . .

As far as City Section, right now, it's looking though like Manual is just way too athletic for anyone else in City Section, but you never know because Fairfax has beaten them once this year. The way we figure it, there are about 9 teams who we think have "locks" to make it into the top 16 teams, those who will, if they can get through the City Section playoffs, will earn the right to participate in the State Tournament at the Division I level: Manual, Crenshaw, Westchester, Venice, Palisades, Cleveland, Grant, Sylmar, and Chatsworth. From there, it sort of gets murky, but we have some thoughts on it as well. Here's who we predict will be among those top 16 teams for the LA City Section "City Championship" when the seeding committee makes its selections (and this is not necessarily in the order of predicted finish):

1. Manual Arts
2. Crenshaw
3. Westchester
4. Fairfax
5. Sylmar
6. Venice
7. Grant
8. Cleveland
9. Palisades
10. South Gate
11. Chatsworth
12. Los Angeles
13. San Fernando
14. Washington
15. Hamilton
16. Hollywood

There are some other bubble teams who may make it in including Poly, Taft, North Hollywood, Dorsey, and some others. Again, we won't predict who will win it all, but we're pretty certain that the top 16 teams will be those we've listed.

In San Diego, Central and Southern Sections, we'll come out with our top picks shortly. In the meantime, there are still two more days of regular season play, with games tonight, Thursday February 11 and tomorrow Friday, February 12.

Hope this clears up some of the confusion. If you've got a different opinion, let's hear it.