SoCalHoops State Tournament

D-IV SoCal & NorCal Regionals:
Semifinals Results & Brackets--(Mar. 11, 2002)

Aside from being laid up with the flu for a couple of days last week, there's been an incredible amount going on in basketball everywhere which kept us from posting this yesterday, the day after the Saturday semifinals.  But better late than never.   The finals are now set, and we'll see a matchup of Westchester and Long Beach Poly this coming Saturday at the Long Beach City College.   Game time is 7:00 p.m.   The winner will advance to Arco Arena to the State Finals, meeting the NorCal champion.

What we've done, as with the first round, is to update the bracket (below) and are also post complete results by culling together the highlights from the pros who write about this stuff for a living, providing as many perspectives of the same game as possible, which, in some divisions means from about three or four different newspapers (with links of course back to the original newspaper source).  Here's what happened.

Horizon 77, Harvard-Westlake 63

From the San Diego Union-Tribune
By Steve Brand, Staff Writer

The Horizon rooters didn't score a point, make a steal or pull down a rebound, but Horizon High coach Zack Jones left little doubt who he thought was a major factor in the Panthers' 77-63 victory over North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake last night. "Our fans are our sixth man," said Jones of the crowd that filled the Horizon gym more than an hour before the game and turned the volume way up when Horizon needed it most. "We thought about playing this game in a bigger gym, but we felt we owed it to our fans to play it here." As an estimated 1,500 of those faithful were sardined into the gym and another 200 filled the cafeteria to see the contest on close-circuit TV, Horizon rallied from a 13-point deficit early in the third quarter to down the Wolverines. With the victory, their 26th in 30 starts, Horizon moves into Saturday's CIF-Southern California Regional Division IV championship against Bakersfield Garces, a 73-64 winner over L.A. Verbum Dei last night. That game will be played at 7 p.m. at Long Beach City College. To get there, Horizon had to overcome a patient, hot-shooting Wolverines contingent led by sophomore Bryce Taylor, who scored 23 of his 25 points in the first three quarters. By scoring the first seven points of the third quarter, Harvard-Westlake opened a 42-29 lead. But Horizon stayed close behind Nate Carter, who finished with a game-high 28 points and 16 rebounds; Ryan Read, who scored 21; and Jared Dudley, who swept down 15 rebounds. Finally, a Read three-point field goal ignited a 14-2 run, allowing Horizon to pull even at 55-55 by the end of the third quarter. Harvard-Westlake regained the lead 61-60 with 5:33 to play. Its next basket would come with 20 seconds to play – after Horizon had scored 15 straight points. "It's a game of momentum and we went cold," said Harvard-Westlake coach Greg Hilliard. "We got a nice lead, but I knew it was too early. Horizon's a great team and, since Garces is also excellent, I'd pay to see that game." He may have to do that now because Horizon went back to what got them to this position – smothering defense, control of the boards and getting the ball inside for easy baskets. "I told Nate during one of our timeouts that now was the time to prove he's the best player in San Diego," said Jones. "As a team, we've been to the state championships before (1997), but we've never been ranked this high in the state (6th) or the Western Region (13th)." The Panthers have moved up steadily on both Cal-Hi Sports polls, especially after an eye-opening 74-33 rout of Carlsbad. And right there offering support home and away has been that sixth man Jones has come to so appreciate.

HORIZON 77,  HARVARD-WESTLAKE 63

Harvard-Westlake	15	20	20	8	– 63
Horizon	19	10	26	22	– 77

Harvard-Westlake (27-6) – Weinstein 8, Taylor 25, Harris 2, Weinberger 10, Chung 1, White 13, Woolridge 4.
Horizon (26-4) – Read 21, Dudley 9, Veikalas 7, Carter 28, Roberts 3, Johnson 6, Williams 3.
Three-point goals – Taylor 3, White 3, Read 2, Williams, Weinberger. Bakersfield Garces 73, L.A. Verbum Dei 64.

From the Daily News:
Harvard-Westlake's postseason run ends at Horizon
By Lee Barnathan, Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO -- All season, they have been boys who played like older boys, freshmen and sophomores masquerading as upperclassmen. They got Harvard-Westlake's boys' basketball team all the way to a Southern Section Division IV-AA championship and a first-round state-tournament victory. But on Saturday in the Southern California Regional semifinal, the Wolverines of Studio City turned back into youngsters, complete with all the frustrations that come with the inability to execute in the fourth quarter.  An older, more experienced (and top-seeded) Horizon of San Diego team used a specific defense to stifle Harvard-Westlake and go on to a 77-63 victory in front of a loud, raucous, overflow crowd of more than 1,500 at Horizon High. The Panthers (26-4) will play in the regional final Saturday at 8 p.m. at Long Beach City College. The defense in question: a 1-3-1 zone. Nothing fancier than that. However, it wasn't any zone the fourth-seeded Wolverines (27-6) had seen on any Horizon tape, nor was it any zone the Wolverines had seen all season. "As young as we are," Harvard-Westlake coach Greg Hilliard said, "we hadn't seen it this year, and we didn't have an answer for it." The Panthers went on a 17-0 run over much of the fourth period, turning a 61-60 deficit into a laugher. Harvard-Westlake scored just eight points in the fourth quarter. It was the opposite of the Wolverines' play for the first three quarters, when the unconscious shooting of sophomore Bryce Taylor helped Harvard-Westlake take a 35-29 halftime lead, build it to 42-29 early in the third and, after Horizon came back, keep the Wolverines tied 55-55 after three. Taylor scored 23 of his 25 points in the first three quarters, excelling from the perimeter. "We've seen him play even better," Hilliard said. "He's a great player, a heady player, a competitor. He's just going to be a great player." Freshman Ed White, the hero of Wednesday's game against Serra of Gardena, also chipped in with 10 of his 13 points in the second and third quarter. Junior Bobby Weinberger scored 10 points, and point guard Craig Weinstein, the only senior starter, had 10 rebounds to go with his eight points and three steals. Noticeably absent was sophomore Evan Harris, who scored just two points. He committed two quick fouls in the first three minutes and wasn't a factor. In fact, he missed several inside shots, typifying the team's inside struggles. "We didn't get some rolls we would've liked," Hilliard said. "We got here with a few good bounces, so I guess it was our turn." Harvard-Westlake was outrebounded 45-23. Horizon's 6-foot-7 forward Nate Carter, the San Diego County Player of the Year, scored 28 points and grabbed 16 rebounds. Guard Ryan Reed scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half, and forward Jared Dudley scored nine points (seven on free throws) but had 15 rebounds. 

Garces 73, Verbum Dei 64

From the Fresno Bee

Led by Kyle Shiloh's 24 points, Garces beat Verbum Dei 73-64 at Centennial Garden in Bakersfield in a Division 4 Southern Regional semifinal.

From the LA Times

Kyle Shiloh made five of nine three-pointers and finished with 24 points for Garces (29-4). Richard Chaney and Mike Pagan finished with 21 points each for Verbum Dei (28-4). Bakersfield will play the Harvard-Westlake/San Diego Horizon next Saturday at 7 p.m. at Long Beach City College.

From the Bakersfield Californian
Rams grounds Eagles, 73-64
By Kevin Eubanks, Californian staff writer

Any questions about Kyle Shiloh's significance to the Garces boys basketball team were answered Saturday afternoon in front of 2,345 fans at Centennial Garden. But in answering those questions, an apparent blowout was turned into a thriller. Garces won the CIF Southern California regional Division IV semifinal game against Verbum Dei of Los Angeles, 73-64, but the score does very little to indicate what actually happened near the end of the game. A comfortable lead turned uncomfortable during less than a minute in the fourth quarter, and it was all connected to Shiloh. "The fourth quarter really indicates how good he is," Garces coach Gino Lacava said. "Without him, we fell apart. When he got back in the game, he iced the game. "Everybody has a guy that will kill a team if he goes out. Verb has that (Richard) Chaney guy, San Joaquin Memorial has (Antonio Lawrence). We have four or five guys we sit back on, but Kyle is obviously the key."  Garces will now play in the Division IV Southern California regional final next Saturday at 7 p.m. at Long Beach City College against San Diego-Horizon. Horizon, the top seed in Southern California, knocked off North Hollywood-Harvard-Westlake in the other semifinal game, 77-63.  Shiloh and the Rams (29-4) led by as many as 24 points in the fourth quarter and held a 61-39 lead with four minutes, 10 seconds remaining in the game when Shiloh tweaked a muscle in his left leg after trying to rebound a missed Verbum Dei shot, and left the game. In the next 56 seconds, the Eagles (28-4) pressed, forced turnover after turnover, and scored 12 straight points to cut the lead to 61-51. And they did so in an impressive and acrobatic fashion. The Eagles made five of their six 3-point baskets in the fourth quarter, with three of those coming from 5-foot-9 sophomore guard Mike Pagan. When Pagan wasn't knocking down shots from the outside, he was penetrating the huge Garces interior, hanging in the air and making some outrageous layups which included a reverse scoop from under the basket that went high off the glass and in.  Even after Shiloh re-entered the game with 3:16 remaining, Verbum Dei was able to cut the lead to five at 63-58, but Shiloh's ability to handle the ball and knock down free throws when fouled gave Garces the win.  "I didn't even see what happened," Shiloh said. "I was on the bench having my leg looked at and all of a sudden our lead was less. I had to come back in the game to try to take control.  "I'm fine now. I knew I was going back in."  Shiloh was dominating whenever he was on the court. He scored a game-high 24 points, including five 3-point baskets, and he also dished out six assists. But it was simply his ability to handle the ball against Verbum Dei's Pagan, Mike Bell and Chaney -- the players who guarded Shiloh the most in the man-to-man defense -- that really made the biggest difference in the game.  Verbum Dei did press somewhat in the first three quarters, but it was a loose three-quarter court press that Shiloh had no problems breaking. It wasn't until the final four minutes of the fourth quarter that the Eagles went into their all-out, full-court press, which could have made it a different game early on. "It was bad strategy on my part," Verbum Dei coach Ronnie Gipson said. "We should have gone with a much faster game than just the final four minutes. That team can be beat, but I should have changed my strategy faster. I guess we'll just have to get them next year."  Along with Shiloh, players like 7-foot sophomore Robert Swift (15 points, 11 rebounds) and 6-7 junior Zach Ryan (15 points) also had obvious significant impacts on the game. But there were two Garces players who might have had equal impressions on the game as Shiloh, and it didn't show on the box score. Christian Martin scored just three points, and Derrick Norris didn't add to the offensive output at all, but it was the defensive contributions from Martin and Norris that might have made as much of an impact on the game as Shiloh's ball-handling and shooting ability, especially in the first half.  Martin and Norris shared time in the first half guarding Verbum Dei's star  player, the 6-5 forward Chaney. Chaney, who averaged 25 points and 12 rebounds this season, finished the game with 21 points and 10 rebounds. Most of those came in the second half after Lacava made some changes to his defensive structure.  Chaney scored just seven points on 2-of-7 shooting in the first half, which allowed Garces to grab a 33-25 lead at the half.  "They did a great job against him in the first half," Lacava said. "In the second half, we went to four guards and we pulled out to a 24-point lead. It was a coaching guess, and it worked. They weren't scoring much, but we were kind of struggling scoring, too."  The Rams didn't struggle scoring in the second half. Verbum Dei scored the first five points in the third quarter to narrow the lead to 33-30, but Garces followed up with a 26-5 run over the next 6:48 to blow the game open at 59-35.  In that run, Ryan hit all three of his 3-point shots, Shiloh connected on two of his own, and Swift added six points.  After another two minutes of play, Garces led 61-39 before Shiloh was injured and Verbum Dei went on its run. But the Rams converted 10-of-14 free throws in the final 2:28 to finish the Eagles off.

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