centennial forfeits

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SoCalHoops High School News

Compton Centennial Will Have
To Forfeit Games--(Jan 26, 2001)

The CIF Southern Section has, for the second year in a row, determined that Compton Centennial played several games with one or more ineligible players. According to the Torrance Daily Breeze report, published today, ". . .Centennial/Compton must forfeit several of its games beginning with the start of this season. Centennial will be sanctioned because one of its players was found to be ineligible. Centennial currently leads the Ocean League at 8-0, but the Southern Section believes that it will be required to forfeit all but one of its victories. The actual number of forfeitures will not be known until the Centennial administration notifies the Southern Section with the exact number of games the ineligible player participated in."

Many will recall that essentially the same thing happened last year at Centennial and the Apaches were required to forfeit 9 games. It didn't affect their playoff performance, although last season and like last year, we've learned the inelgibility results in part from a failure to turn in proper paperwork.

The Daily Breeze did not identify the ineligible player, or whether he remains ineligible, and thus it's too early to know how this will really impact the program. But depending on the number of games required to be forfeited, it could be significant, because we were informed ourselves (separately from anything having to do with Centennial) that this year's "11-win" rule is not going to work like last year, and our reports on the message board to the contrary were in error. This year, the 11-wins will get you the right to file a petition to request entry into the playoffs. From there, it's still discretionary with the seeding committee as to whether the size of the bracket will allow for wild-card games or whether there will be room in the bracket without wild-cards. Thus, depending on the number of games which Centennial is required to forfeit, their league standings and overall wins might be considerable, because the rule regarding forfeits requires that every game in which the ineligible player participated be deemed a loss.