Author Archives: Harold Abend
Sopak leaves Carondelet for UNR
Last season’s State Coach of the Year in girls basketball is going to take the plunge into college coaching as Carondelet of Concord’s Kelly Sopak (also the former head coach at Miramonte of Orinda when Sabrina Ionescu was there) is going to take over the program at the University of Nevada. It is a bit […]
CIF Saturday Girls BB State Finals
With junior sensation Kaleena Smith leading the way, Ontario Christian completes its remarkable build from small school to CIF Open Division state champion with victory in long-anticipated matchup over Archbishop Mitty of San Jose. Sierra Pacific also wins All-Central Section D2 title and Faith Christian wins D4 title in last game of record-breaking career of […]
NEW Girls BB State TOP 30 Rankings
Talk about some movement. Not one team in the first 15 spots maintained last week’s ranking this week after there were some upsets and seeds that went down. Ontario Christian is back on top and Archbishop Mitty is No. 2 as the two will need to win on Tuesday to force a rematch for the...
NEW Girls BB State TOP 30 Rankings
We begin this week with some explanations from the CIF and our own thoughts on Sunday’s release of pairings for both the NorCal and SoCal regional playoffs. We also have a big change at the top as Sierra Canyon has to move up to No. 1 after beating previous No. 1 Ontario Christian in the...
CIFSS Girls: Was it an upset or not?
Underdog Sierra Canyon gets an epic outing from All-American Jerzy Robinson to topple state No. 1 and national No. 2 Ontario Christian in the CIF Southern Section Open Division final on Saturday night in Ontario. New Cal-Hi Sports State TOP 30 rankings will be out on Monday night or Tuesday morning and are likely to […]
State Basketball Players of the Week
At this stage of the season, we like to talk about the funnel narrowing when it comes to the Players of the Week features and rankings. That’s because the field basically gets cut in half every round (except in some Open and D1 divisions) as the playoffs drive toward CIF section championships and the CIF...
NEW Girls BB State TOP 30 Rankings
No. 1 Ontario Christian already has more 100-point games than any team in state history entering CIF Southern Section Open Division semifinals with three other top five state teams. St. Mary’s of Stockton and San Ramon Valley also move up within top 10 and may already be eyeing each other for possible CIF NorCal Open...
NEW Girls BB State TOP 30 Rankings
At this stage of the season, with the CIF Southern Section playoffs already in full swing, and the other sections about ready to begin their playoff competition, the computerized seeding and rankings derived from them don’t really hold a lot of water moving forward. That’s because at this point all that really matters is head-to-head...
State Basketball Players of the Week
When it gets to this point in the basketball season, the CIF Southern Section still has 300 teams in action in its playoffs. The Southern California honorees likely will be coming from those playoff-bound teams, and that is the case with both our SoCal honorees. Also, with the funnel beginning to narrow for the rest […]
