SoCalHoops HS Top 20
LA City Section Top 16--(Dec. 16, 2001)

Why a "Top 16?"  Because in the City Section, only the top 16 teams make it to the "City Championship" tournament, and only the winner of the City Championship (and the runner up) make it to the State Southern Regional Championships in Division I.   Actually a team can declare for Division II in State competition, but no one, to our knowledge, ever has done that.  So for our purposes, just compare these teams to the top teams in Southern Section's Division I, and ditto for Central and San Diego.

LA City Section Top 16 ( Issued Dec. 16, 2001)
The winner of the LA City Section's "City Championship" is seeded in Division I for purposes of the State Championship playoffs.  Unlike Southern Section, enrollments are not relevant for section competition
Ranking	School	League	Standings (Overall, League)
1	Westchester	Western	5-0, 1-0
2	Fairfax	Western	8-1, 1-0
3	Fremont	Coliseum	6-0, 0-0
4	Dorsey	Coliseum	5-2, 0-0
5	Palisades	Western	9-2, 2-0
6	Sylmar	Valley Mission	4-1, 0-0
7	Crenshaw	Coliseum	3-3, 0-0
8	Carson	Marine	5-2, 0-0
9	Taft	West Valley	4-2. 0-0
10	Banning	Marine	5-2, 0-0
11	Locke	Coliseum	8-6, 0-0
12	Cleveland	West Valley	3-3, 0-0
13	Manual Arts	Coliseum	2-0, 0-0
14	Grant	Sunset Six	2-3, 0-0
15	El Camino	West Valley	5-5, 0-0
16	Reseda	Valley Mission	4-2, 0-0

What happens to the rest of the teams in LA City for post-season competition?  Well, the next 32 teams (those ranked #'s 17-32) qualify for the "City Invitational" Championships,  a championship tournament which is roughly equivalent to the City Championship, but which doesn't send the winner and runner up on to further post-season play in the State Tournament.   There are historical reasons why the "Invitational" still exists, but they're not important here.  Think of it as just another opportunity for kids to continue to play a sport they love, for the sake of playing.....

There are some other interesting quirks about the LA City Section as well when it comes to ranking the teams.   Teams are selected for post-season play based on "automatic" bids (league winners), except for the Magnet Conference (and teams from the Magnet can only qualify for the Invitational automatically....a team can get into the City Championship, but it's got to be really, really good to use up one of the discretionary slots).   Thus, out of 8 leagues, 8 teams are automatically in the City Championship, and the other 8 are subject to the whims and views of the "seeding committee" which in reality consists of all of the coaches in City Section (at least those who choose to participate in the free-for-all meeting which takes place the Saturday after the end of the regular season).  What usually happens is that alliances are made and broken between coaches in some of the more dominant leagues, and the loudest and most politically connected and aware are usually the coaches that get their teams  the last 8 spots.  Of course,  those last 8 spots are usually also among the best teams out there, but there is also usually a disparity between Valley and Metro area teams in terms of representation.....oh well.