SoCalHoops High School News

SCIBCA CIF Southern Section
Polls For This Week--(Jan. 31, 2000)

This is the next to the last poll which will be issued by the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches' Association (SCIBCA) which is the official CIF Southern Section poll. After next week's polls, the rankings will be pretty much moot because on Sunday, February 13, the Southern Section will release the brackets for the playoffs.  Indeed, for all but the top four teams in each division, the rankings won't mean much except a fairly high seeding for the top 8 teams in the brackets.   In any event, here are the polls for this week, and there were some strange movements. . . very strange.  Teams that won moved down, while teams that lost (sometimes two games to lower division teams) moved up or remained ranked where they were the prior week. This poll is a consensus poll, which doesn't necessarily mean that it's anything more than a popularity contest, albeit chosen by an educated group which is supposed to be following each team's standings and progress. Nevertheless, we sense that there was some jockeying for position in this weeks' polls given the oddball results in a couple of divisions.  We've often been critical of polls, and this week confirms for us why we don't believe they are always the best guage of a teams' overall strengths and weaknesses relative to other teams in the same division.

Also, you'll note that in many divisions the "others" category goes much deeper than it has in past weeks, and the reason for this is the attempt by the SCIBCA committees in each division to get a handle on which teams are likely to be the remaining entrants into the brackets, either as "automatic" qualifiers (meaning they finish in the top 2 in a four team league, the top 3 in a five or six team league or the top 4 in a seven or eight team league), or as "at-large" teams (any team that wins more than 10 can petition to get into the tournament and will be admitted, most likely to the "wild card" round before the bracket is set.  Thus, this is an attempt to identify as many "good" teams as possible.   At least that's what we've heard. . . .

Division I Polls:

In Division I, there weren't very many changes. In D-IAA, the top three teams remain unchanged, while Fontana and Rialto remain tied in D-IAA, but they both moved down two notches to No. 6 from No. 4, to make room for Glendora which moved up from No. 6 (after losing a game), and El Toro which moved up all the way from No. 8. . . hey, they're good, but that big a jump?  Rancho Cucamonga moved up one spot, while Jordan and Upland remain at 9 and 10, and Etiwanda moves into the top 10 with a tie vote.  In Division IA, Santa Barbara evidently received a slightly lower vote (something we can't explain given their consistent results) and moved out of a tie for 3rd into 4th.  Troy dropped all the way from 5 to 9, while Pacific moves up to No. 5 from 6, and Claremont and Marina remain in the same places, but this week all received the same amount of votes with Villa Park so instead of being 6, 7 and 8, they are tied for 6th.   El Dorado and Loara remain unchanged in the last two spots (although they are tied this week).  

Division II

In Division II-AA, the top 3 spots stay the same, but Inglewood, which lost DeAngelo Collins, and thus became a much more problematic top 10 team, moved up from No. 5 to No. 4, while Brea Olinda dropped all the way down from 4 to 10. Santa Margarita was switched back to D-IIAA from D-IIA and they were slotted into the No. 5 spot to tie with Cjhaparral which moved up one from last week. Cathedral City remained at No. 8, while Compton moved down two spaces to No. 9, and Gahr and Newport Harbor remain in the final two spots.  In D-IIA, everyone stayed in exactly the same spot with the exception that with the move of Santa Margarita to II-AA, Servite, which had been ranked as the first "other" (meaning they were No. 11),  moved into the No. 10 spot, which is interesting given all the turmoil that program has been experiencing.

Here's the poll:

Division III

Just some jockeying back and forth between all of the top 10 in this single division, with the top three teams remaining unchanged.  Corona del Mar moved up from 5 to 4, while Morningside switched, and moved from 4 to 5.  Notre Dame made the biggest jump to No. 6, up from 8, while Monrovia made the biggest drop from 6 to 9.  Costa Mesa remains unchanged at No. 7, while Chaminade moved up one from 9 to 8.  Compton Centennial, with 10 wins now qualifies for the playoffs, even with the five forfeits, and they stay at No. 10.  A bunch of other teams were ranked as "others" and their relative position indicates the rankings for 11 (Gladstone) through 24 (La Quinta) within the division, and the teams likely to qualify for the playoffs.  Certainly there will be others who will make it as "at large" bids, but these are at least the top 24 teams in the collective opinion of those who voted.

Division IV Polls:

In Division IV-AA, St. Bernard drops from No. 1 last week to No. 3, while Marshall  Twentynine Palms moves from 6 to 4, while La Salle drops from 4 to 5.  Serra drops one from 5 to 6, Oak Park jumps one from 8 to 7, and El Segundo and Beaumont each move up a slot, and Rosamond moves from being an "other" to No. 10.  And curiously, Laguna Beach, which had been ranked at No. 7 drops completely off the radar. . . perhaps a recognition that with 9 forfeits as a result of playing with an ineligible Chris Manker, the Artists might not even make the playoffs. . . indeed, why waste a playoff seeding on them if they're not going to qualify with a minimum 10 wins. . . Still, they are, with Manker now eligible, one of the top 10 teams in the Division, even if they won't make the playoffs, at least in our view.    In Division IV-A, there have been absolutely no changes of any consequence in the top 9, and not a single team changed spots, up or down except No. 10 Loma Linda which came up from the "other" to displace Brentwood, which lost to Crossroads and dropped down to "other", ie., No. 11.   The othre non-movements in the divsion are strange given some of the losses which occurred during the week with St. Monica losing, and No. 5 Providence having lost twice last week, once to No. 7 ranked D-VAA Buckley and to unranked Yeshiva, both Division VAA teams (and things get even weirder in D-VAA, with Buckley actually moving down one after picking up two wins. . . go figure). 

Division V Polls:

Campbell Hall drops out of the No. 1 spot which goes to Pacific Hills after a tough overtime win by the Bruins at Campbell Hall this past Friday night.  Perhaps the most difficult division to rank, Division V-AA has, in our humble opinion, three top teams, all of them from the same league, who keep playing each other in overtime games, first Campbell Hall beating Montclair, then Pacific Hills beating Campbell Hall, and this week and next, these three teams will all have tough tests, so just about anything can happen. . . . two others, Bell Jeff and Calvary Chapel Downey, keep popping into the top 5 at various spots; Bell Jeff has dropped each week from it's high of No. 2 two weeks ago and is now at No. 5, while Calvary Chapel somehow remains highly ranked at No. 3 despite being idle for most of last week and playing a D-VA team that they just creamed . .  The other 5 in the division, (Nos. 6-10) seem to keep switching spots with each other, and this indicates to us the somewhat "political" nature of "consensus" polls, at least it indicates that there was something else besides results from last week at work in the voting. . . How else can one explain Buckley actually dropping one when they won two games, beating a ranked team in Division IVA (No. 5 Providence, which didn't drop at all, despite losing two games. . . Buckley plays Providence again tonight at Providence, so we'll see what happens if the Griffens win again. . .). Likewise,  there seems to be no other explanation for Chadwick to drop, despite the fact that they keep winning games, losing only a very close one to Crossroads, the No. 1 team in Division IVA?   Sure, 11-7 doesn't seem very impressive, but still Chadwick is beating and losing to some good teams.  St. Anthony lost last week to Verbum Dei, but they don't drop at all, probably on the strength of their win over St. Mary Star.  .  . Santa Clara beats Nordhoff, and they move up, which is probably the correct move for them after beating an unranked Division III team. . . but who the heck knows what any of this really means. . .  the one thing we can say with some confidence is that all of the top 10 teams will receive relatively high seedings in the playoffs, and it will be interesting to see what the final pre-playoff polls look like next week.  And in Divison V-A, well, once you get past the top three, well, it's really just a crap shoot. . . interestingly, on the day that the polls were released, Stoneridge Prep, which last week displaced Valley Torah at No. 4, dropping VT to No. 8, lost to. . . Valley Torah, and pretty decisively too.  A dollar short and a day late. . .  Here's the poll:

 
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