watts summer games: list of teams playing

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SoCalHoops Tournament News

LA Watts Festival Summer Games:
A Compendium Of Teams Playing--(June 9, 1999)

The Los Angeles Watts Festival Summer Games will get underway on June 19 & 20 for the first rounds of play. The basketball side of the games (yes, there is something more to life than basketball, we just haven't figured out what that might be--stuff like track & field, baseball, soccer, volleyball, etc)., will feature, as of today, 83 boys teams and 58 girls teams from all over SoCal, mostly LA City Section and local Southern Section teams, but there are a couple from as far away as San Diego and Riverside, which is nice and really surprising, considering that the games are single-elimination.

Last night the seeding committe met, and without revealing their tentative seeding selections, let's just say that there are some top-flight teams attending this year. While the list of teams we have in both the boys and girls is not "final" and a few more teams might sneak in during the next few days, we think we've got the basic core group of teams participating.

The schedules and matchups will be out shortly (actually we have them, but we're holding off on putting them up until Chris Fudge and the LA Junior Chamber of Commerce folks tell us it's ok to release them) and we'll post them up at SoCalHoops shortly.

In the meantime, at least we can tell you which teams are playing. We know the seeding information, but have been asked for now not to release it so we won't. In any event, here's who's coming:

The LA City Section teams: Bell, Canoga Park, Carson, Chatsworth, Cleveland, Dorsey, El Camino Real, Elizabeth Learning Center Magnet, Fairfax, Foshay Learning Center Magnet, Franklin, Fremont, Gardena, Hollywood, Huntington Park, Jerfrerson, LA Jordan, Locke, Los Angeles, Manual Arts, LA Marshall, Mid City Magnet, Narbonne, Palisades, Reseda, Roosevelt, San Fernando, Sylmar, Taft, Venice, Washington, and Westchester.

Teams from the Southern Section (and one from San Diego) include: Bell-Jeff, Bellflower, Belmont, Blair, Bolsa Grande, Buckley, Burbank, Burroughs, Cajon, Camarillo, Campbell Hall, Cathedral, Compton Centennial, Crescenta Valley, Crossroads, Diamond Ranch, Compton Dominguez, Esperanza, Granite Hills, Hawthorne, Inglewood, JW North, Long Beach Jordan, Keppel, La Canada, Leuzinger, Lynwood, Maranatha, Pasadena Marshall Fundamental, Mary Star, Mayfair, Mira Costa, Morningside, Muir, North Torrance, Oak Park, Oxnard, Pacifica, Pasadena, Peninsula, Quartz Hill, Riverside Ramona, Santa Monica, South Torrance, St. Augustine (San Diego), St. Monica, Torrance, Upland, Valley View, Verbum Dei, and West Torrance.

And without giving too much away, there really won't be much surprise in learing that some of the top seeded teams will feature some of the best players in SoCal. Dominguez, of course, has Tyson Chandler, Keith Brooks, Keilon Fortune, newcomer Sherman Gay, Larry Johnson, Steve Moore, and many other returning players from the Division II State Championship team. Westchester has Lou Wright, Kevin Brown, Terrance Lawson, Keith Everidge, Chad Bell, and Jason McKinney. Long Beach Jordan has Travon Bryant, perhaps one of the top recruits in the state this year, who is being mentioned by every scouting service and most of the top college programs; Mayfair features Edwin Draughn and Josh Childress returning; Crossroads has Isaiah Fox and Felipe Williams; Fairfax has Jason Morrissette, Evan Burns and Craig Smith; Upland, another team we'd expect to see as among the top seeds, has Demarcus Williams, Jason Johnson, Prentice Harris. The list of good players goes on and on, and this will be one of the better events of the summer, even if it is a single elimination tournament.

The girls' tournament will, as noted, have 58 teams in it, and possibly a few more. Right now, the entrants are Ayala, Bell, Bell Gardens, Belmont, Camarillo, Carson, Channel Islands, Chatsworth, Compton, Crenshaw, Crescenta Valley, Culver City, Diamond Ranch, Dominguez, Dorsey, Eagle Rock, Fairfax, Francis Polytechnic, Franklin, Fremont, Gardena, Grant, Hamilton, Hawthorne, Huntington Park, Inglewood, Jefferson, Long Beach Jordan, LA Jordan, Leuzinger, Locke, Lynwood, Manual Arts, LA Marshall, Long Beach Millikan, Moreno Valley, Morningside, muir, Narbonne, Notre Dame, Oak Park, Ontario, Pacific Hills, Pasadena, Peninsula, Redondo Union, Reseda, Rasary, San Fernando, San Pedro, Serra, South Gate, St. Bernard, St. Mary, St. Paul, Washington, Westchester, and Westminster.

Again, we'll have the first day's matchups and the brackets up shortly. The games will be played at seven different locations: Fairfax, Dorsey, Franklin, Gardena, Verbum Dei, LA Jordan and LA Southwest College.

See you there.