feb 3 rankings

Well, a strange thing happened this week. As you know, every week, the LA Times and Daily News (and most other local papers in the area) publish the stats leaders and their weekly "top 10" polls mostly of teams, but sometimes also including players. Well, this time the Daily News, as always, was there with it's Weekly Poll. But the Times, perhaps because of the local storm conditions, or perhaps as a part of its new and improved high school & prep basketball coverage, didn't have anything except the line scores from the Southern Section games played on Monday afternoon and evening. No polls, no stats leaders, just the Athlete of the Week (Daniel Bobik of Newbury Park), and a one line blurb abut the Harvard-Westlake game which you already knew about if you read SoCalHoops last night just after the game ended. By the way, the score of the H-W game was Loyola 62, Harvard -Westlake 59. But that's a different story.

But back to the polls. This week, until the Times publishes it's poll (perhaps tomorrow) there is no "Consensus" pick. Last week, both the Times and Daily News agreed to disagree about the No. 1 pick. The Daily News had Simi moving up after losing to Newbury Park, while Chaminade moved down after beating Harvard-Westlake. We couldn't figure it out, and the Times obviously disagreed with this, and instead dropped Simi to No. 2 while elevating Chaminade to No. 1, even though Simi had beaten Chaminade in mid-December at the Simi Valley Tournament.

This week we have only the Daily News Poll, at least as of today. Moorpark, formerly No. 7, which lost, dropped out of the poll entirely. Also dropping completely out was Harvard-Westlake (formerly No. 6) which lost to St. Francis on Saturday, and just last night lost to Loyola for the second time this year. Moving up are Grant, La Canada and Hart. New members of the Top 10 Daily News Poll are North Hollywood and Valencia, which has reentered after dropping out a few weeks ago. Still unchanged are the 1-5 rankings.

Anyway, until the Times poll comes out, well leave you with the Times' Poll for January 26. Compare that to the Daily News Poll published today, February 3, 1998:

Daily News Boys' Rankings February 3, 1998
No	School	Record	Last Week
1	Simi Valley	20-3	1
2	San Fernando	19-2	2
3	Chaminade	18-1	3
4	Newbury Park	19-4	4
5	Montclair Prep	20-3	5
6	La Canada	18-5	8
7	Grant	14-7	9
8	Hart	14-8	10
9	Valencia	17-5	NR
10	North Hollywood	15-7	NR

LA Times Boys' Rankings January 26, 1998
No	School	Record	Last Week
1	Chaminade	17-1	1
2	Simi Valley	18-3	2
3	San Fernando	17-2	3
4	Newbury Park	17-4	4
5	Montclair Prep	19-3	7
6	Channel Islands	15-3	8
7	Harvard-Westlake	16-4	10
8	Santa Paula	16-4	NR
9	Taft	10-4	NR
10	Valencia	16-5	9

Yes, these truly are mythical rankings. They actually mean nothing. And that's even more true if you compare who the stats leaders are in the region.

Like the prior three weeks in the Southern Section it's still Ruben Douglas of Bell-Jeff.

He continues to lead all scorers in the region, and in 24 games, he's compiled 802 points --this time with a margin of 234 over the next leading scorer in Southern Section, Mark Hull of Hoover, who has knocked down 568 points. Ruben is now averaging 33.4, down only .2 from last weeks 33.6 average; for assists, he's still off the stats leaders, but his teammate, Chris Jones, the freshman point guard is still the Southern Section leader at 190 assists total, and in 24 games, he's averaging 7.9, down only slightly from last week's 8.0 per game. Defensively, we don't know what Ruben's doing in steals, because the Daily News doesn't publish that stat. But last week he was fourth in Southern Section at 87 in 21 games, for a 4.1 average. On the boards, Douglas was ranked in about the middle of the DN stats section (which combines both Southern Section and City), and he's averaging 8.8 per game, up from last week's 8.2 that the Times had him listed. So Bell-Jeff continues to lead the Southern Section in individual scoring and assists, and they also continue to lead in Southern Section Regional rebounding with Mike West's 330 boards in 24 games for a 13.8 rebounding average. But as a team, what do we know about Bell-Jeff. Limberger, three-week old brie, three-month old unwashed gym socks. Get the picture? We'll say it again: Team ball works better than me ball any day, even if you're forced to play 1 or 2 on 5 out of necessity, as in Bell-Jeff's case.

In the City Section, not surprisingly, Gilbert Arenas, still leads in scoring with a 32.0 average per game (544 points in 17 game) but he is, at least according to the DN, no longer first in assists and is no longer first in rebounds either. He's now second in City Section in assists with 107 in 17 games for an average of 6.3 per game, behind Birmingham's Fahim Hassenkhail who's averaging 8.4 per game (169 in 20 games). And in rebounding, he's third in City Section with 9.0 per game (153 in 17 games) behind Charles Harper of Canoga Park who is averaging 10.0 per game with 199 in 20 games in first, and Stanley Fletcher of Birmingham who's averaging 9.2 with 176 boards in 19 games. Still first in scoring, second in assists, and third in rebounding is very impressive, and as Gil's individual stats go down, they seem to rise in the Polls, even though they suffered an upset last week at the hands of Monroe. Oh, and last week he was in second place in steals behind DeJon Lee of North Hollywood. But since the DN doesn't keep track of steals leaders, we have no idea what happened with this stat last week. As soon as (if ever) the Times publishes the stats and their own poll, we'll update this.

Anyway, since some of you asked we thought you should know. Even though this stuff is pretty much meaningless, nd the only thing that counts is what happens out on the floor. Really.