long beach picks

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Long Beach Press-Telegram: Burlison's Pre-Playoff Prognostications--(February 17, 1998)

Today is the day for all the pundits, touts, tipsters and others to publish and proclaim what they think will happen in Southern Section. Some even go beyond predicting just the Southern Section CIF, and take a stab in the dark at who will win the State Championships. Everything is guesswork; some better than others, but still all guesswork nonetheless.

So as long as we're repeating others' playoff picks, here's Frank Burlison's take at predicting the winners and losers in playoffs.

Starting with Southern Section wild-card games Wednesday night, 279 schools will be represented in the 10 Southern Section and two L.A. City playoff divisions. By March 8, twelve of those teams will be crowned champions, including the eventual winner of the Southern Section's IV-A Division which has all of 15 teams competing for its title.

Burlison believes that things have gotten watered down a bit too much for his taste given the numbers of brackets, and the fact that there are 5 separate champions . But Frank thinks he's got a better system for playoffs than the one which currently exits: ". . . let's conjure the ultimate Southern California playoff format. And let's call it The Super 16. Since no one else is volunteering," he wrote yesterday.

Frank did the the seeding and bracketing in his fictional world, and in the upper bracket, his No. 1 seed would be Dominguez "matched against Etiwanda, the Super 16's No. 16 team. The rest of the upper bracket would No. 8 Redondo vs. No. 9 Washington, No. 5 Poly vs. No. 12 Crenshaw and No. 4 Glendora vs. No. 13 Simi Valley. How does that sound so far?" We're not sure, Frank, but Crenshaw at No. 12? Simi at 13? Are you kidding?

Frank goes on: "In the lower bracket, No. 3 Artesia would be matched against No. 14 Paso Robles (hey! At 23-0, it's the only unbeaten team in Southern California!), No. 6 Compton vs. No. 11 Newbury Park, No. 7 Fremont vs. No. 10 Santa Margarita and No. 2 Westchester vs. No. 15 Ocean View." Frank then asks, "Wouldn't it be cool?" Yeah, Frank, cool.

But then Frank brings us back to reality.

Writing about the first-round games, he says "You'd almost have to have a son or boyfriend playing to get excited about some of the first-round playoff matchups Friday night," but he notes a couple of exceptions:

Rowland at Jordan :(Southern Section, I-AA): Both teams are heavily laced with underclass talent. Check out 6-1 Julius Barnes of Rowland. After Jason Kapono and Casey Jacobsen (and shame on you if you don't know where they play), he's as gifted as any junior in Southern California.

Anaheim Canyon at Compton :(SS, II-AA): The asterisk on this listing is that Canyon has to survive a wild-card game Wednesday night to earn its trip West on the 91 Freeway. If it does, Canyon's Andrew Gaulden (New Mexico-bound) figures to match his skills against another 6-9 future Division I player (at Auburn) in David Hamilton.

And, Frank also gives us his "Big" divisional finals' matchups in Southern Section:

I-AA: Poly vs. Artesia. Will the third time be the charm for the Jackrabbits? No, Jason Kapono and his Artesia buddies are just too good Frank thinks

I-A: Glendora vs. Mater Dei: And Mater Dei will lose at the Pond, for once, against someone other than the Crenshaw Cougars;

II-AA: Compton vs. Santa Margarita. On March 5 the Tarbabes will venture into The Bren Center, where their head coach, Rod Palmer, once played as a UC Irvine guard, and prevail if David Hamilton and DeAndre Moore are cool, calm and collected while attempting to win their school's first CIF title since 1969;

II-A: Dominguez vs. Redondo. Very few things are a given in this world. One of those is that the Dons are going to win their fourth consecutive Southern Section title on March 8.

L.A. City:4-A: Westchester vs. Fremont. Westchester will be the choice here if the Comets get by Crenshaw (winner of five consecutive City titles) in a likely semifinal match on Feb. 27.

Hey Frank, what about the rest of the Divisions? Don't they exist in your perfect world? Or did the editors just impose a word-count limit? Inquiring minds need to know.