The CIFSS released its first ever boys basketball open division bracket and the top seeds make sense with teams rewarded for head-to-head victories. Starting with No. 8 seed Mayfair of Lakewood, however, the seedings are a bit more difficult to figure out.
The 2014 CIFSS Open Division boys bracket
(Listed with final regular season record, section division and overall state ranking)
Top Bracket
No. 1 Santa Ana Mater Dei (27-0, I-AA, No. 1) vs. No. 16 Montebello Cantwell Sacred Heart (20-6, IV-A, BB)
No. 8 Lakewood Mayfair (22-5, I-AA, BB) vs. No. 9 West Hills Chaminade (21-4, III-A, No. 16)
No. 5 Chatsworth Sierra Canyon (25-2, IV-A, No. 6) vs. No. 12 Riverside J.W. North (24-0, I-A, No. 11)
No. 4 Corona Centennial (24-2, I-AA, No. 3) vs. No. 13 Gardena Serra (20-7, IV-AA, No. 17)
Bottom Bracket
No. 3 L.A. Loyola (24-2, I-AA, No. 2) vs. No. 14 Bellflower St. John Bosco (17-9, II-A, BB)
No. 6 Redondo Beach Redondo Union (22-4, II-AA, No. 7) vs. No. 11 Compton (22-5, II-A, No. 15)
No. 7 Chino Hills (23-4, I-AA, No. 8) vs. No. 10 Torrance Bishop Montgomery (22-4, IV-AA, No. 13)
No. 2 Etiwanda (25-3, I-AA, No. 5) vs. No. 15 L.A. Cathedral (22-3, III-A, No. 20)
Cal-Hi Sports Quick Breakdown
Just looking at the bracket it’s definitley the toughest section playoff bracket in state history. We recall some CIFSS Div. I-AA brackets with some monster quarterfinal matchups in a 32-team field and some matchups of two state-ranked teams in the L.A. City 4A quarterfinals back in the section’s heydey in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but nothing like this.
There are 13 teams currently in our state top 20 in the field and all 16 teams have been ranked in the state top 20 at one point in the season with Mayfair of Lakewood, St. John Bosco of Bellflower and Cantwell Sacred Heart of Montebello joining the open division mix.
The top four seeds are on point, as Etiwanda was rewarded for its head-to-head victory over Corona Centennial and most of the teams were rewarded for their overall resume from November to February. Clearly, league titles and league record was not a focus. Loyola was rewarded for its head-to-head win over Corona Centennial and for its overall regular season. Yes, the Cubs will have a different look without Parker Jackson-Cartwright but their second league loss to Alemany of Mission Hills didn’t put them lower than the Huskies as we predicted it might.
Head-to-head didn’t take as much precedence in the lower seeds. We predicted Cantwell Sacred Heart would play Mater Dei in our mock bracket, but that was with Long Beach Poly in the bracket. Our reasoning was although it didn’t win its league, the Cardinals own a head-to-head win over Mayfair, which grabbed a No. 8 seed, and a win over No. 7 seed Chino Hills. Those results also mean Camino Real League Cathedral of Los Angeles also drew a tough seed because they swept Cantwell Sacred Heart. The Phantoms weren’t rewarded and open with No. 2 seed Etiwanda.
The ironic part of the seeding and leaving out Long Beach Poly, the Moore League champion, from the open mix was the Jackrabbits were ranked ahead of Mayfair in the last CIFSS/SCIBCA Top 10 Poll published before the open division teams were announced on Friday. Poly, ranked No. 14 in the latest state Top 20, was No. 6 and Mayfair was No. 7. The top five in that Top 10 poll were all selected to the open division.
