Girls Division V-AA bracket

While everyone thought that the Boys' brackets would be the most interesting with the 10-win rule, it turns out that most of the boys' entries into the playoffs are the ones that would be expected anyway, and the rule seems to have had little impact there. Not so in this bracket, the Girls' Division V-AA, in which there are five at-large entries (not an overwhelming number) but evidently the bracket was two teams short of being able to use a 64 team bracket, because with all the automatic qualifiers, and with no byes given in the first round to anyone, this turns out to be a 32 team bracket (thus involving 16 first round games) and another 15 "wild card" games. . . just one game (and two teams) short of a complete bracket. We don't know about the wisdom of not giving out any first round byes, but if you stop and think about it, the way the bracket is constructed, it pretty much amounts to the same thing anyway with every team but two (Shalhevet and Calvary Chapel Downey) getting a first round bye, and it allows the committee to save on the paper (they don't have to print one long bracket. . .) So once again, it looks like the guys who put this thing together (five current and former CIF commissioners--Ray Plutko, a former CIF Southern Section Commissioner, Dean Crowley, also a former CIF-SS Commissioner, Jim Staunton, current CIF-SS Commissioner, Hal Harkness, the former LA CIF Section Commissioner, and Paul Castillo, the new Assistant Commissioner of Basketball for the Southern Section), presumably knew what they were doing. If you don't agree, complain to them, not us.

There are a lot of wild card games, which will all be played on Thursday, February 17, 2000:

Wild Card Game "A":	Trona @ Boron
Wild Card Game "B":	Bell Jeff @ Montclair Prep
Wild Card Game "C":	Windward @ Flintridge Prep
Wild Card Game "D":	Bishop Diego @ Dunn
Wild Card Game "E":	Western Christian @ La Verne Lutheran
Wild Card Game "F":	St. Margaret's @ Aquinas
Wild Card Game "G":	Riverside Christian @ Pasadena Poly
Wild Card Game "H":	Avalon @ St. Anthony
Wild Card Game "I" :	Ribet Academy @ Buckley
Wild Card Game "J":	Desert @ Apple Valley Christian
Wild Card Game "K":	Linfield @ La Sierra Academy
Wild Card Game "L":	Bloomington Christian @ Desert Christian Lancaster
Wild Card Game "M":	Villanova Prep @ Grace Brethren
Wild Card Game "N":	Campbell Hall @ Holy Martyrs
Wild Card Game "O":	Fairmont @ Brethren Christian

The winners of these game will then be inserted into the bracket where indicated and will play in the first round games which will be held on February 19. Here's the rest of the bracket

First round games February 19			Second Round February 23	Quarterfinals Feb. 26 Alternate Site	Semifinals Feb. 29 Alternate Site	Finals March 3 or 4 The Pyramid
Upper half of Bracket
Shalhevet	@	Calvary Chapel Downey
Winnner Wild Card "A"	@	Ontario Christian
Winner Wild Card "B"	@	Cate
Winner Wild Card "C"	@	Pacific Hills
Winner Wild Card "D"	@	Santa Clara
Winner Wild Card "E"	@	Queen of Angels
Winner Wild Card "F"	@	Sherman Indian
Winner Wild Card "G"	@	Capistrano Valley Christian
Lower half of Bracket			Second Round	Quarterfinals	Semifinals
Winner Wild Card "H"	@	Calvary Chapel /M
Winner Wild Card "I"	@	Pilibos
Winner Wild Card "J"	@	Lone Pine
Winner Wild Card "K"	@	San Gabriel Academy
Winner Wild Card "L"	@	Chadwick
Winner Wild Card "M"	@	Valley Christian Santa Maria
Winner Wild Card "N"	@	Faith Baptist
Winner Wild Card "O"	@	Thacher

Essentially, through the first rounds, teams receiving a bye in the first round shall be the host team in the next round. All games with the excepiton fo the final round will start at 7:30 p.m. unless another time is mutually agreed upon and clearance is received from the CIF-SS Office. Public coin flips will be held in the lobby of the CIF-SS Office at 9:00 a.m. ithe day following each playoff game [these coin flips will determine subsquent sites after the first round, i.e., which school will be the host]. Coin flips will be available after 9:30 a.m. and we'll try to keep everyone posted with them here.