war on the floor pool play

Just as in years past, there will be a lot of high school team tournament action in late June, and the War on the Floor is always one of the best. This year brings a very strong field of City Section teams and teams from the Central Section Fresno area to compete with Southern Section teams, and this one will feature a lot of excellent players as well.

The tournament will take place at Taft HS (located just off Ventura Blvd. at the corner of Ventura and Winnetka--exit the 101 at Winnetka and head south), and at Los Angeles Pierce JC, which is also located off the Winnetka exit, but just to the north (if coming from the Ventura Fwy, head north on Winnetka and turn left at the entrance to the college on Winnetka; look for the gyms located just to the northwest, past the tennis courts). Both Pierce gyms can be unbearably hot if the weather isn't cooperating (there's no air conditioning), so dress accordingly. Taft can get pretty hot too, so be forewarned. . . .

The War On The Floor will feature at least 8 "seeded" teams, one in each of the 8 pools, as well as several other teams with top players. Bort Escoto, Sylmar's head coach and the driving force (along with Dennis Magro who helps administer the event) has brought a pretty deep talent pool to the War on the Floor, maybe not the deepest that we've ever seen, but this one will attract a lot of top players you won't want to miss. Among the top teams featuring top players will be Fairfax with perhaps the top junior in this year's rising seniors, Evan Burns (6'-7" Jr. F), Inglewood with DeAngelo Collins (6'-9" Jr. F) who is telling everyone that he'll bypass college and go straight to the NBA, Taft with super-soph Steve Smith (6'-2" So. G), Chatsworth with a player who could just wind up being the top player in the City Section, Franklin Robinson (6'-4" Jr. G), and a ton of other top players.

Here are the pools and the game schedules for the first three days of play, from Saturday, June 23 through Sunday June 24. Bracket play will start on Monday (no, we don't have the brackets yet) and will continue through Tuesday.

Pool A	Pool B	Pool C	Pool D
Inglewood Chatsworth Daniel Murphy Littlerock	Clovis West Thousand Oaks Grant El Camino	Oxnard Santa Monica Simi Valley Alemany	Sylmar Chaminade Bullard AV Christian
Pool E	Pool F	Pool H	Pool I
Taft Montclair Prep Canyon Calabasas	Harvard-Westlake Hoover Saugus Canoga Park	Fremont Campbell Hall Notre Dame Hunt. Park	Fairfax Hart Burbank Westlake

Saturday June 23, 2001
	@ Taft HS	@ Pierce College (East)	@ Pierce College (West)
10:00 a.m.	Taft v. Calabasas	Camp. Hall v. Notre Dame	Chatsworth v. D. Murphy
11:30 a.m.	MC Prep v. Canyon	Inglewood v. Littlerock	Fremont v. Hunt. Park
1:00 p.m.	Fairfax v. Westlake	Sylmar v. AV Christian	Harvard-West. v. Canoga
2:30 p.m.	Hart v. Burbank	Chaminade v. Bullard	Hoover v. Saugus
4:00 p.m.	Canyon v. Taft	Thousand Oaks v. Grant	Oxnard v. Alemany
5:30 p.m.	Calabasas v. MC Prep	Clovis West v. El Camino	Santa Monica v. Simi Valley
7:00 p.m.	Canoga Park v. Hoover	Saugus v. Harvard-West.	AV Christian v. Chaminade
8:30 p.m.	Alemany v. Santa Monica	Simi Valley v. Oxnard	Bullard v. Sylmar
Sunday, June 24, 2001
	@ Taft HS	@ Pierce College (East)	@ Pierce College (West)
10:00 a.m.	Hunt. Park v. Camp. Hall	Westlake v. Hart	Grant v. Clovis West
11:30 a.m.	Notre Dame v. Fremont	Oxnard v. Santa Monica	El Camino v. Thousand Oaks
1:00 p.m.	D. Murphy v. Inglewood	Burbank v. Fairfax	Simi Valley v. Alemany
2:30 p.m.	Littlerock v. Chatsworth	Fremont v. Campbell Hall	Notre Dame v. Huntington Park
4:00 p.m.	Bullard v. AV Christian	Fairfax v. Hart	Burbank v. Westlake
5:30 p.m.	Inglewood v. Chatsworth	Taft v. Montclair Prep	D. Murphy v. Littlerock
7:00 p.m.	Sylmar v. Chaminade	Harvard-West v. Hoover	Saugus v. Canoga Park
8:30 p.m.	Grant v. El Camino	Clovis West v. T. Oaks	Canyon v. Calabasas

Bracket play will begin on Monday at 10:00 a.m. and will conclude Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. with the Gold Bracket Championship Game. The single-elimination portion of the tournament will consist of two 16-team single elimination brackets, a "Gold" for first and second place teams, and "Silver" for third and fourth place pool finishers.

	What:		"War On The Floor"
	Where:		Taft HS & LA Pierce College (East & West Gyms)
	When:		June 23-27, 2001 (Pool Play 6/23 &6/24)
	Who:		32 SoCal HS Teams