top25 players on the west coast

So how did we do with our picks yesterday in comparison to Frank Burlison's Orange County Register "Fab 15"? Not bad. Not bad at all. But we had at least one omission (for good reason), and a couple of the guys we selected were chosen to the "Second Team," or even the "Third Team" on Frank's lists.

Burlison's "Fab 15" First Team	SoCalHoops Top 25
1. Carlos Boozer	Carlos Boozer
2. Jason Kapono	Jason Kapono
3. Casey Jacobsen	Michaeal Dunleavy, Jr.
4. Michael Dunleavy, Jr.	Andrew Gooden
5. Andrew Gooden	Casey Jacobsen
6. Justin Davis	Justin Davis
7. Tito Maddox	Tito Maddox
8. Kevin Gaines	Kevin Gaines
9. Donnell Knight	Donnell Knight
10. Brian Jackson	Left him off our list. See below.
11. Brian Wethers	Brian Wethers
12. Curtis Borchardt	Curtis Borchardt
13. Julius Barnes	Julius Barnes
14. Gilbert Arenas	Gilbert Arenas
15. Demetrius Hunter	Demetrius Hunter

We had 12 other players listed on our Top 25 Plus 1, and all of them except one was chosen by Frank and his selction group to either the "Second Team" Fab 15, or the "Third Team" Fab 15.

Frank's group of voters and those of us here at SoCalHoops also differed on picking our "Top" player. The OC Register selected Carlos Boozer as the Top Preseason Consensus Player in the West. We picked Jason Kapono. And based on what we've seen over the last two years, we still think we're right on this one.

Lets see how we did on our other Top 25 selections, and where the others rated with Frank's selection committee:

Aaron Abrams (6'-4" Sr. SG/SF) from Rancho Buena Vista High-- Fab 15 "Second Team"

Lance Allred (6'-11" Sr. C) from East High, Salt Lake City-- Fab 15 "Second Team"

Rafael Berumen (6'-9" Sr. PF/C) from Simi Valley High, Simi Valley--Fab 15 "Second Team"

Nate Hair (6'-4" Sr. SG/SF) from Capistrano Valley High, Mission Viejo-- Fab 15 "Second Team"

Dalron Johnson (6'-8" Sr. PF/C) from Verbum Dei, Los Angeles, CA-- Fab 15 "Second Team"

Joe Kirchofer (6'-9" Sr. PF/C) from Laguna Creek High, Elk Grove, CA-- Don't tell Mike Montgomery at Stanford, named to Fab 15 "Third Team"

Shantay Legans (5'-10" Sr. PG) from Dos Pueblos High, Goleta, CA-- Fab 15 "Second Team"

Chris Osborne (6'-9" Sr. C/PF) from Westchester High, Los Angeles, CA-- Fab 15 "Second Team"

Joe Shipp (6'-5" Sr. SG/SF) from Fairfax High, Los Angeles, CA--Fab 15 "Second Team"

Tanner Shell (6'-6" Sr. SG) from Mountain View High, Mesa, AA-- Ouch. Fab 15 "Third Team"

Armand Thomas (6'-8" Sr. C/PF) from Crenshaw High, Los Angeles, CA-- Yeowww. . . Didn't make any of Frank's teams.

Ryan Wildenborg (6'-11" Sr. C) from Juanita High, Kirkland, WA-- Fab 15 "Second Team"

All in all, not a bad prediction. Of course, we were wrong about a couple of players.

Like Brian Jackson. The real trouble with ranking him, from our point of view, is that we didn't get a chance to see him at all this summer because, to our knowledge, he didn't play during the summer on any teams or at any camps. None. Nada. So nobody has really seen him play since the end of last year's season in March. That's a long time to go without playing. Nevertheless, he's obviously very highly thought of, and many people in Oregon have seen him play and say he's one of the best. He's committed to Oregon, and averaged 25.9 ppg as a junior, 10.7 rbg, and 1.8 blocks, so somebody must know something about him.

There were some others who were left off our list of 26, who were included in Frank's Second Team and the Third Team, and because of the volume of mail we've gotten, we're going to do another "Best of the Best" in California and SoCal. Hey, this stuff is really just a matter of opinion, and as we said at the outset of the Top 25+1 article, part of the point of doing the selections was to see how close we could come to predicting Frank's selections. And considering we had 14 out of 15 of the top picks correct, and the rest of our picks with the exception of Armand Thomas all made it to the other lists, we'd say we're doing allright.