CIF Southern Section boys and girls basketball playoff brackets will be out Feb. 7.
Until then, a couple of regular-season games remain. Also on the basketball schedule between now and then are two league tournaments in boys basketball.
The Pacific Coast League’s eight teams have a tournament for the fourth season in a row. This might be the last season for the tournament. Pacifica Christian joins the league in the 2025-26 school year, so preliminary plans for future seasons call for a Pacific Coast Conference with the teams being split into two leagues, the Pacific Hills and Pacific View leagues, as has happened before.
This year’s tournament started Thursday and concludes Tuesday night at Woodbridge.
The Trinity League next week will have a boys basketball tournament for the first time. The tournament, which is a two-year arrangement, starts Monday with games at Concordia University in Irvine, then shifts to Hope International University in Fullerton on Tuesday and finishes Wednesday at Concordia.
The league’s first- and second-place teams have first-round byes while the league’s third-place team plays the sixth-place team and the fourth-place team plays the fifth-place team in the opening round.
Computer ratings that the Southern Section uses to place teams into playoff divisions and to help select at-large teams, which are teams that are not automatic qualifiers, put plenty of weight on strength of schedule. So just playing a highly-rated opponent, regardless of outcome, could boost a team’s rating enough to get an at-large playoff berth. League tournament results could influence, too, in what order a league will submit its representative playoff teams to the Southern Section
Irvine boys basketball coach Harry Meussner enjoys the Pacific Coast League tournament.
“I like it,” said Meussner, in his fourth season as Irvine’s coach. “It gives everyone a second chance after league is done.”
Also, Meussner said, if the eight teams in the Pacific Coast League played each other twice instead of the current single game per opponent system, that would force the league to schedule league games in December, a month when tournaments offer teams the opportunity to play different types of teams in different locations.
Trinity League coach Nate Klitzing, whose Orange Lutheran team upset St. John Bosco, 72-68, on Wednesday, said it’s good that the tournament limits the league’s six teams to playing each opponent only once.
“It’s like football where every single night everyone has to be prepared and bring their ‘A’ game,” said Klitzing, in his first season at his alma mater after coaching at Crean Lutheran. “The intensity is through the roof and you’re getting everyone’s best game from both teams.”
JSerra coach Keith Wilkinson, who played college basketball at USC, has mixed feelings about the Trinity League tournament.
“I don’t mind the tournament itself because it gives you a college basketball feel,” Wilkinson said. “I just don’t like playing everyone in league just the one time.”
Mater Dei coach Gary McKnight agreed.
“The idea is the tournament might help everyone get into the playoffs,” McKnight said. “But I don’t think it necessarily helps everyone. I like to have one home game and one away game in league.”
“Playing everyone just once shouldn’t decide seedings and the league champion,” Wilkinson continued. “What if a player gets sick or gets hurt or rolls an ankle? What makes high school basketball so great is the rivalries. When we play Santa Margarita at home and then away, those are the two best games of the year. The gyms are packed and it’s so fun.
“I’m not opposed to the tournament. I just like 10 games to determine a champion.”
NOTES
In Orange Lutheran’s win over St. John Bosco on Wednesday, Lancers senior Josh King scored 22 points and freshman Noah Zeola scored 17 points. “Everybody contributed, really,” Klitzing said. “Even the guys on the bench were doing next-level cheering.” …
CIF-SS boys and girls playoff brackets will be released Feb. 7 at noon. The boys and girls basketball playoffs will have Open Divisions. The number of teams in the Open Divisions are matters of much conjecture on social media. …
CIF-SS boys and girls soccer playoff brackets will be released Feb. 7 at 10 a.m. Boys and girls soccer have Open Divisions, too. …
CIF-SS boys and girls wrestling dual meet championships begin Saturday in most divisions. Division 1 boys is a four-team group of Corona Centennial, Esperanza, Servite and St. John Bosco. Finals are Wednesday for boys Division 1 and Feb. 5 for boys Divisions 1-6 and for all four girls divisions. The finals will be held at the school that is highest ranked of the final CIF-SS division poll among a division’s two finalists. …
In the CIF-SS boys dual meet tournament, El Modena is seeded No. 1 in Division 5. Sonora’s girls team is seeded No. 1 in Division 4. …
CIF-SS individual wrestling championships are Feb. 13 and 14 in six divisions. Two Orange County schools will host individual wrestling finals: the Central Division is at Westminster High, the Coastal Division at Fountain Valley High. …
Esperanza sophomore wrestler Sammy Sanchez, Orange County’s only boys champion at last season’s CIF State meet, made a successful season debut Saturday in the Esperanza Holiday Classic at Esperanza. Sanchez, who had yet to wrestle because of a sore knee, won the tournament championship at 126 pounds. In the team standings, Esperanza’s boys finished second to Temecula Valley and Westminster’s girls finished second to Poway. …
(Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)
The CIF Southern Section office is searching for a new and larger home, with Buena Park and Cypress the target locations. The move is pending CIF-SS Council approval of the Southern Section budget at the Council’s April 16 meeting. The Southern Section will need a larger space when it adds an assistant commissioner whose sole role will be processing transfers. The Southern Section says it processed 7,099 transfer requests during the 2024-25 school year. That assistant commissioner will have a program coordinator to assist in those duties. …
Former Rams defensive back Todd Lyght has left his position as an Orange Lutheran assistant football coach to become the defensive coordinator at Southern University in Louisiana. That is the school where former Rams running back Marshal Faulk is the head coach. …
Ethan Garbers has joined the Corona del Mar football coaching staff as the school’s quarterbacks coach. Garbers was an All-Orange County quarterback at Corona del Mar and a starting quarterback at UCLA.
