The last time a boys basketball team other than Mater Dei was No. 1 in the Orange County rankings was 1989 when Saddleback finished the season in that spot.

Canyon opens this season at No. 1 in Orange County.

The Comanches were 25-5 last season when they shared the Crestview League championship with Foothill and advanced to the CIF Southern Section Division 2AA quarterfinals. They bring back an outstanding group of players from that team.

Brandon Benjamin was All-Orange County first team last season as an exceptionally polished freshman. The 6-foot-5 Benjamin averaged 18 points and eight rebounds a game. He shot 57 percent from the field, with many of those shots coming around the basket by finding openings that only he seems to see.

The Goodall twins, Jaden and Joshua, are 6-6 juniors who will add plenty of scoring punch for the Comanches. Jaden Goodall, All-County fourth team in 2021-22, averaged 11 points and four rebounds last season and led the team in 3-point shots with 41. Joshua Goodall averaged eight points and three rebounds, and his 28 3s was third-most on the team. Senior guard Johnathan Carey last season made 38 3-pointers.

Canyon is famous for creating turnovers and playing at NASCAR-type speed.

“We’re going to do the things you’d recognize in Canyon basketball,” said coach Nate Harrison, going into his 21st season running the Comanches program that he has led to three CIF Southern Section championships. “We’ll play fast and there will be a lot of 3s. We like to think we can play the game as well as anyone else out there.”

Monday is the first day of the 2022-23 boys basketball season.

The Comanches open the season in the Rumble For Rosecrans Ave. tournament that will hold games at Fullerton, Norwalk, Sunny Hills and Troy high schools. The Comanches play their first game Monday at 6 p.m. against West Torrance.

NOTES

Servite has a new coach, Tony Davis, who coached Mayfair for 15 seasons. Davis led the Monsoons to two CIF-SS championships. … Landon Pluimer is the new coach at San Clemente, where he had served as an assistant coach for five seasons. … D’Cean Bryant, the Orange County coach of the year three years ago at Fountain Valley, left the Barons to become the coach at Sage Hill. His son Carter Bryant, who was All-County third team last season as a sophomore, also left Fountain Valley for Sage Hill, which is now in the Pacific Coast League for basketball. … Rus Soobzokov was promoted to boys basketball head coach at Laguna Beach. … St. Margaret’s moved to the Orange Coast League. … Mater Dei will play a boys basketball game outside of North American for the first time. The Monarchs will be in London for Hoohall Classic Europe on Dec. 2-3. … The CIF-SS playoffs again will have an Open Division. Up to eight teams will be selected to play in that division. … Orange County teams that won CIF-SS championship last season were San Juan Hills (Division 2A), Garden Grove (Division 4AA) and Western (Division 4A).