Some good Orange County boys basketball teams will not be in the CIF Southern Section playoffs that begin next week.
The CIF-SS limits the number of guaranteed playoff entries for each league. Four-team leagues get two guaranteed entries, five- and six-team leagues get three guaranteed entries, and seven-team leagues get four guaranteed entries.
Orange County has several five- and six-team boys basketball leagues, and one seven-team league (Pacific Coast League).
A team that did not finish high enough in their league to get a guaranteed berth still can be in the playoffs as an at-large team if it has an overall record of .500 or better. At-large teams are selected if a bracket’s 32 spots are not filled by automatic qualifiers.
The CIF Southern Section on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at noon will release its 10 playoff division brackets. There could be some good Orange County teams not included in those brackets.
JSerra or Orange Lutheran, or both, are not going to finish high enough in the Trinity League standings to get a guaranteed berth in Division 1. They were tied for fourth place in the six-team league going into this week.
With at least seven Division 1 teams being pulled into the Open Division, that leaves 38 teams classified as Division 1 boys basketball teams vying for berths in the 32-team bracket – and if fewer than 32 teams are automatic qualifiers, there just might be an at-large berth for JSerra (14-8 going into this week) or Orange Lutheran (15-8), or both. Orange Lutheran is No. 4 in the Orange County top 25 and JSerra is No. 11, so it would be an eyebrow-raiser if such high-quality teams are not in the playoffs when lesser teams in lesser leagues get into the playoffs in other divisions.
Other good teams in situations similar to JSerra and Orange Lutheran are county No. 17 Villa Park (15-7) and No. 18 El Dorado (19-7). They will finish too low in the final Crestview League standings to get guaranteed playoff berths, so the at-large route is the route to the playoffs for them.
No. 20 Newport Harbor (15-10) and No. 22 Dana Hills (15-8) also would need at-large berths to get in the playoffs.
Playoff dates for Divisions 1-5A: wild card round, Feb. 9; other rounds Feb. 11, 15, 18 and 22; finals Feb. 25 and 26 at home-team sites.
Open Division playoff dates: Feb. 11, 15 and 18, with final on Feb. 25 or 26 at a home-team site.
NOTES
• A semi-educated guess on which eight teams will be in the Open Division (in alphabetical order): Centennial of Corona, Damien, Etiwanda, Harvard-Westlake, Mater Dei, Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks, Riverside Poly and Sierra Canyon. That could mean Crean Lutheran would be the top-seeded team in Division 1, and that Santa Margarita might be among the top four seeds in Division 1.
• One of the bigger games of this week might be Los Alamitos at Edison on Thursday. That could decide the championship of the Surf League, one of the better leagues in Orange County.
• JSerra coach Keith Wilkinson, after the Lions’ 70-69 win over Marina in the 9 a.m. game at the Nike Extravaganza on Saturday at Mater Dei, gave this appraisal of his team that was led by Rob Diaz’s 27 points: “We’re trying to figure it out right now. We started off the year playing really well and then we kind of hit a little bit of a slump. We want to play our best basketball in February.”