war on the floor pools and schedules

Looks like some high school teams will still be running back and forth between the Valley and the Carson-South Bay area in late June, and there's another huge concentration of talent participating at this year's "War on the Floor" tournament which will take place at Taft High School in Woodland Hills and Canoga Park HS in Canoga Park. The venues in the War on the Floor are about 10 minutes apart so it should be easy to shuttle between them to see as many teams as possible.

The War On The Floor will feature at least 8 "seeded" teams in each of the pools, as well as several other teams with top players. While a few teams who participated in prior years and who did well last year won't be there this year, teams like Harvard-Westlake which has always done well, and Mission League rival Crespi also won't be coming. Buckley, which surprised a lot of people by winning its pool and making it to the quarterfinals against Notre Dame, will be in Palm Springs that weekend at the first of the summer's 16-team boys' tournaments; Saugus, which has some excellent players and which played well last year also won't be there this time around, and neither will Hollywood, Westlake, Campbell Hall, Granada Hills, and LA Washington. But Bort Escoto, Sylmar's head coach and the driving force (along with Dennis Magro who helps administer the event) has brought perhaps the deepest talent pool to the War on the Floor that we can remember in a long time, and there will be a huge pool of talent including more than a few D-I prospects.

Pool A will have State D-I runners-up Clovis West with Chris Hernandez (6'-2" Sr. PG) who is possibly the best point guard right now on the West Coast, and certainly in California who is being recruited heavily by Stanford, UCLA, and a number of other Pac-10's, and Charlie Rodriguez (6'-8" Jr. PF). Pool A also has Oxnard with outstanding forward Nick Curtis (6'-7" Sr. PF), as well as Santa Monica and Monroe, who should both be in a rebuilding mode this summer after Santa Monica lost Jacoby Atako and Martin Castro to graduation and Monroe lost point guard Robert Palofax.

Pool B will also feature Fremont with talented All-City rising soph Mark Bradford (6'-0" So. SG/PG) and rising senior Kenton Paulino (6'-3" Sr. SG/SF), as well as Pasadena with Dino Wilburn (6'-2" Jr. SG/SF) while both Burbank with Trenton Cleveland (6'-2" Jr. SG) and Chatsworth who loses just about everyone to graduation, will both be rebuilding.

Pool C has Sylmar as the top team, and they should have Brandon Robinson (6'-3" Sr. SG/SF), Chris Slade (6'-0" Sr SG), George O'Garra (6'-6 Sr. C), John Valdez (6'-1" Sr. SG) and Ernest Williams 6'-3" Jr. PG/SG), as well as several others, as well as Newbury Park, Canyon Country Canyon HS, and Santa Clara.

Pool D will have Hoover (we think it's Fresno Hoover), as well as Simi Valley with Dustin Villepigue (6'-9" Sr. PF), Hart and Alemany.

Pool E will feature Chaminade with Scott Borchart (6'-8" Sr. PF), Canoga Park, Reseda and Montclair Prep which has Tony McFadden (6'-2" Sr. SG/SF)--or at least they should have him-- and it will be interesting to see the Eagles play their first game on Saturday against Montclair Prep, especially if Will Sheslow (6'-0" Jr. PG/SG) has indeed transferred from Montclair to Chaminade as we've been hearing he might.

Pool F has Sherman Oaks Notre Dame which features Cody Pearson (6'-3" Sr. SG/SF) who was recently offered a scholarship by Long Beach State coach Wayne Morgan after a team camp there this past weekend, as well as Mike Luderer (6'-4" Sr. SG/SF) and Ruben Sanchez (6'-0" Sr. PG) among the guys to keep an eye on. Pool F also has a very tough Dorsey team which should have a lot of excellent players, including Michael Wilds (6'-7" Sr. PF), Drew Gibson (5'-10" So. PG), and Julian Blake (6'-5" Sr. SF). That pool rounds out with El Camino and Daniel Murphy.

Pool G features Upland with, among others, Sheldon Pace (5'-10" Sr. PG), Jason Harris (6'-4" Sr. SG/SF), Kirk Snyder (6'-5" Sr F), Prentice Harris (6'-1" Sr. SG), Lionel Davis (6'-6" Sr. F/C) and Tye-Juan Hatter (6'-5" Jr SG/SF), Cleveland HS with Anthony Davis (6'-3" Sr. SG), who's being recruited heavily right now by many mid to high major programs. Pool G also has Grant in what is certainly a rebuilding season with Mike Charleston (6'-5" Sr. SF/SG), and the group is rounded out with Bell-Jeff which has talented shooter Casey Markovich (6'-4" Sr. SG), and two quick point guards in Romel Cabrera (5'-10" Jr. PG) and Tyler Kealey (6'-0" Jr. PG).

Pool H is the last pool , and it features one of the top teams in SoCal right now, certainly a team which will challenge for the D-II section title next year, and the Inglewood Sentinels, who won the event two years ago, will bring a fullly loaded roster with most of the guys who return from this past season, as well as expected-Pasadena-transfer Doug Thomas (6'-8" Sr. PF/SF) and Westchester-transfer Jason McKinney (5'-11" Jr. PG), as well as the other Anthony Davis (6'-2" Sr. SG), who is a very dangerous shooter. The pool also has Taft, which may or may not have last year's very talented freshman and now a rising soph, Steve Smith (6'-1" So. SG) who is rumored to be transferring to just about any school in the Valley you can name. . . which means he'll still probably be at Taft. Pasadena Marshall will be a whole new group as well without Deverion Mackey who signed recently at Cal Baptist, and Jason Sanford who also graduates, and LA Poly rounds out the teams.

Here are the pools and the game schedules for the first three days of play, from Saturday, June 24 through Monday June 26. Bracket play will start on Monday (no, we don't have the brackets yet) and that will continue through Tuesday.

Saturday June 24, 2000
@ Taft HS			@ Canoga Park HS
Time	Pool	Teams	Time	Pool	Teams
9:00 a.m.	H	Taft v. Marshall	9:00 a.m.	F	Dorsey v. El Camino
10:15 a.m.	H	Inglewood v. Poly	10:15 a.m.	F	Notre Dame v. Murphy
11:30 a.m.	C	Sylmar v. Santa Clara	11:30 a.m.	G	Cleveland v. Grant
12:45 p.m.	C	Newbury Poark v. Canyon	12:45 p.m.	G	Upland v. Bell-Jeff
2:00 p.m.	A	Oxnard v. Santa Monica	2:00 p.m.	E	Chaminade v. Montclair Prep
3:15 p.m.	A	Clovis West v. Monroe	3:15 p.m.	E	Canoga v. Rededa
4:30 pm.	D	Hoover v. Alemany	4:30 p.m.	B	Pasadena v. Burbank
5:45 p.m.	D	Simi Valley v. Hart	5:45 p.m.	B	Fremont v. Chatsworth
7:00 p.m.	C	Canyon v. Sylmar	7:00 p.m.	E	Montclair Prep v. Canoga
8:15 p.m.	C	Santa Clara v. Newbury Park	8:15 p.m.	E	Reseda v. Chaminade
Sunday, June 25, 2000
@ Taft HS			@ Canoga Park HS
9:00 a.m.	H	Poly v. Taft	9:00 a.m.	F	El Camino v. Notre Dame
10:15 a.m.	H	Marshall v. Inglewood	10:15 a.m.	F	Murphy v. Dorsey
11:30 a.m.	D	Hart v. Hoover	11:30 a.m.	G	Bell-Jeff v. Cleveland
12:45 p.m.	D	Alemany v. Simi Valley	12:45 p.m.	G	Grant v. Upland
2:00 p.m.	A	Santa Monica v. Clovis West	2:00 p.m.	B	Burbank v. Fremont
3:15 p.m.	A	Monroe v. Oxnard	3:15 p.m.	B	Chatsworth v. Pasadena
4:30 pm.	C	Canyon v. Santa Clara	4:30 pm.	E	Reseda v. Montclair Prep
5:45 p.m.	C	Sylmar v. Newbury Park	5:45 p.m.	E	Chaminade v. Canoga Park
7:00 p.m.	A	Clovis West v. Oxnard	7:00 p.m.	B	Fremont v. Pasadena
8:15 p.m.	A	Santa Monica v. Monroe	8:15 p.m.	B	Burbank v. Chatsworth
Monday, June 26, 2000
@ Taft HS			@Canoga Park HS
11:00 a.m.	F	Notre Dame v. Dorsey	11:00 a.m.	F	El Camino v. Murphy
12:15 p.m.	H	Inglewood v. Taft	12:15 p.m.	G	Grant v. Bell-Jeff
1:30 p.m.	D	Hart v. Alemany	1:30 p.m.	G	Upland v. Cleveland
2:45 p.m.	D	Hoover v. Simi	2:45 p.m.	H	Marshall v. LA Poly

Again, bracket play will begin on Monday, and if it's anything like last year, there will be two brackets, one for the first and second place pool teams and the other for third and fourth place teams. In any event, we should know more about that in the next week or so.

What:	"War On The Floor"
Where:	Canoga Park HS & Taft HS
When:	June 24-28, 2000
Who:	32 Top So-Cal HS Teams

Pool A	Pool B	Pool C	Pool D	Pool E	Pool F	Pool H	Pool I
Clovis West Oxnard Santa Monica Monroe	Fremont Pasadena Burbank Chatsworth	Sylmar Newbury Park Canyon Santa Clara	Hoover Simi Valley Hart Alemany	Chaminade Canoga Park Reseda Montclair Prep	Notre Dame Dorsey El Camino Daniel Murphy	Upland Cleveland Grant Bell-Jeff	Inglewood Taft Pas. Marshall LA Poly