State Basketball Players of the Week

Two of our first four player of the week winners for the 2025-26 basketball season are Brandon Granger from St. Bernard of Playa del Rey and Maliya Hunter from Archbishop Mitty of San Jose. Photos: Instagram.com & mitty_wbb / X.com.

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Notes: For these honors, we consider CIF Central Section players for Northern California. To nominate anyone, email markjtennis@gmail.com.

Cal-Hi Sports Southern California
Boys Basketball Player of the Week

Brandon Granger (St. Bernard, Playa del Rey) Jr.

To find the initial SoCal Player of the Week for boys we head to the South Bay area of the greater Los Angeles metro and we find ourselves around a mile west of the beach and a stone’s throw north of the Los Angeles International Airport in Playa del Rey, and it’s at St. Benard High where we find this week’s honoree, who adds a statewide honor to being named the South Bay Breeze Player of Week.

Last week, in a very solid 62-58 overtime win over last year’s CIF Open Division state champions from Roosevelt of Eastvale, the Vikings’ 5-foot-10 junior point guard dropped in a nifty 40 points in leading team to the victory.

St. Bernard has scheduled tough as evidenced by the fact it not only has played Roosevelt but also two weeks the Vikings faced Cal-Hi Sports No. 11 Crean Lutheran of Irvine. The Vikings lost that game, 62-50, but in that contest Granger went for 35 points.

Because of the tough scheduling, the Vikings are only 4-4 but they take will their record to Northern California to compete in the Father Barry Classic Basketball Tournament at Jesuit High in Carmichael. Brandon will get to show his stuff to the Sacramento area crowd when St. Bernard opens on Thursday with Archbishop Mitty of San Jose.

Zetta Faasua is a junior guard at Chaparral who has been making buckets for the Pumas since her freshman season. Photo: Hudl.com.

Zetta Faasua (Chaparral, Temecula) Jr.

Our first stop in the search for the SoCal girls player of the week finds us making a trek to the far southern reaches of the Inland Empire. We land just west of Highway 79 and a little more than a mile east of where the I-15 and I-215 intersect in Temecula, and it’s at Chaparral High where we find the winner, who know kicks off her season by winning a statewide honor to go with local recognition.

Last week, in a 61-35 victory on the road in nearby San Jacinto, Faasua, a 5-foot-8 junior guard, didn’t quite outscore the host Tigers but she came as close as you can after going for a double-double. She dropped 34 points (three three-pointers) and had 12 rebounds with five assists, three steals and two blocks.

Earlier in the week, and in a 63-40 home win against a Fallbrook team from just over the county line in the CIF San Diego Section, she was just under her current 24.4 points per game season average after going for 23 points with four three-pointers, plus four rebounds.

So far for 5-2 Chaparral, besides her 24.4 points average, Zetta has also netted 8.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.7 blocks per game, and she has gone for 23 or more points in six of the seven games.

Last season as a sophomore, Faasua averaged 14.8 points per game.

Cal-Hi Sports Northern California
Girls Basketball Player of the Week

Maliya Hunter (Archbishop Mitty, San Jose) Soph.

Quite often we don’t always look for stars from the top ranked teams for the player of the week features, since many of those players are already getting a lot of ink and recognition.

However, in the case of Hunter, a 6-foot-2 forward who was one of three finalists for Cal-Hi Sports State Freshman of the Year last season, and plays at perennial top five ranked Archbishop Mitty of San Jose, the way she came out of the box to start the season, and the fact that her performances came at one of the state’s top early tournaments, made her a perfect choice for the initial Cal-Hi Sports NorCal Girls Player of the Week honor.

As is the case with almost all teams coached by legendary Mitty head coach Sue Phillips, no one, not even recent 2019 Ms. Basketball State Player of the Year Hailey Jones, carries the entire scoring load for the Monarchs, and with multiple D1 prospects and college-signees this year on the roster, this season is no different.

However, last week in the four-game La Jolla County Day Sweet 16 Invitational, Hunter put on a show.

For the four Sweet 16 games that got Cal-Hi Sports Preseason No. 4 Mitty off to a 4-0 start this season, Hunter was higher than the 10.6 points per game and 5.0 rebounds per game that earned her West Catholic Athletic League Player of the Year honors last season. She averaged 16.6 points and 7.3 rebounds per game, but had the games not all been one-sided and won by 18 points or more, her numbersa may have been higher.

The tournament opener was a 80-38 victory over San Diego Lincoln and Hunter was not even among the three leading scorers. That was followed by a 66-48 win over preseason No. 21 Francis Parker of San Diego where she had 16 points and eight rebounds. Next was a 56-34 rout of preseason No. 18 Mission Hills of San Marcos where she had a respectable eight points and eight rebounds in limited action, but it was what she did in the 76-46 drubbing of preseason bubble team Rancho Christian (Temecula) in the title game that caught our eye and solidified Mayila’s choice as this week’s award winner.

Hunter had 20 points at the half and 32 after three-quarters, and when Phillips, who never pours it on, brought on the subs in the fourth quarter, she ended up with a double-double 34 points and 10 rebounds.

The kind of start she has had makes Hunter a legitimate choice to be in the running for Cal-Hi Sports State Sophomore of the Year, and if she keeps up what she is currently doing when Iowa-bound Mitty star McKenna Woliczko returns in January, plus the others on the talent-laden roster, Mitty should make a run at winning its first CIF Open Division state championship.

It’s been a great start to the senior season of Mason Adimora at Rodriguez of Fairfield. Photo: bmrfilms_ / YouTube.com.

Mason Adimora (Rodríguez, Fairfield) Sr.

The search for the Cal-Hi Sports NorCal player of the week to us to far western area of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section to Fairfield, and we land a little over a mile south of where I-80 and I-680 intersect, and smack dab between the two interstates at Amelia Rodriguez High, and it’s the high-scoring 6-foot-5 senior named Adimora from Amelia that snags the weekly honors.

Last week, in the 37th Annual Chris Vonture Spartan Classic at De La Salle in Concord, Adimora helped Rodriguez to a pair of wins in three games and Mason put up averages of 29.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, four steals and two blocks.

Those stats in in itself are pretty impressive, but the single performance that gets Adimora a statewide honor to go with local kudos came in an 89-34 victory over Vallejo when he went for a double-double 46 points and 15 rebounds, plus five assists, seven steals and two blocked shots. He followed that up next day with another-double 26 points with 13 rebounds plus four steals and three blocks in a win against Ygnacio Valley of Concord.

So far this season for 4-1 Rodriguez, Adimora, who carries a 4.02 GPA and was named All-Tournament for the Vonture Classic, is averaging 27.0 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 3.4 steals and 2.2 blocks.

Harold Abend is the associate editor of CalHiSports.com and the vice president of the California Prep Sportswriters Association. He can be reached at marketingharoldabend@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @HaroldAbend