fairfax tournament

What:	Nike 16th Annual Fairfax Summer Classic
When:	July 25-28, 2002
Where:	Fairfax HS
Who:	16 Top SoCal High School Teams
	NCAA Certified

Unlike the Mayfair matchup, we know for a certainty that the Fairfax "Goodman Summer Classic" tournament will be NCAA certified, and we also know that it's once again going to be sponsored by Nike, and we also know that once again, D-I coaches who are recruiting the top players from the teams involved in this thing will have to make a choice to leave Las Vegas early or later, because this one takes place smack in the middle of the adidas Las Vegas Big Time Tournament, which runs from July 22-26.

We have the complete bracket for the tournament, but don't have time to post it right now, so we'll just give you the list of teams attending and the first day's schedule of games. The lineup looks strong and this one will feature a lot of top teams from around SoCal, including the top two teams from last year's Nike-sponsored stable, Westchester and Fairfax, as well as other traditionally strong SoCal-based high school teams like Redondo Union, Carson, Loyola, La Canada, Pasadena, and Sylmar.

Time	Opponents	Game No
1:00 p.m.	Mayfair vs. Redondo	2
2:00 p.m.	Pasadena vs. Sylmar	7
3:00 p.m.	Muir vs. Crossroads	3
4:00 p.m.	Bellflower vs. Carson	4
6:00 p.m.	South Gate vs. Fairfax	8
7:00 p.m.	Torrance vs. Loyola	5
8:00 p.m.	Westchester vs. West Torrance	1
9:00 p.m.	La Canada vs. Santa Monica	6

The bracket order is listed on the right where we've identified "Game No.".... In other words, as you can see, Westchester is listed as playing in "Game No. 1" even though they play in primetime at 8:00 p.m. in the next to last game of the day, and that's simply because on the bracket, Westchester has the No. 1 seed, whereas Fairfax is the No. 2 seed even though the Lions play in Game 8. Again, just think of the bracket as going top to bottom, with the winners advancing to a championship half of the bracket, and the losers dropping to the left side of the consolation bracket.

Again, with all of the top players at some of these schools (Westchester, Loyola, and a few others in particular) listed on some of the top travel team rosters who are slated to appear in Las Vegas, it should be interesting to see who shows up where....

And as in year's past, we'd love to say "see you there," but that's probably unlikely because we too will be in Las Vegas once again. Of course somehow, someway, we'll find a way to give you reports of what takes place, who plays well, and which D-I coaches are spotted around the gym.