Basking In Basketball Glory

I always get really excited around this time of year. Uncontrollably excited. Like, laying-eyes-on-a-bike-laying-under-the-Christmas-tree excited. And the only thing in the world (besides a new Huffy) that really evokes that type of emotion from me is high school basketball.

This weekend, we'll see four of Southern California's best teams battle it out in the CIF championships, as Mater Dei (the nation's top-ranked team) takes on Riverside Kings who I had the chance to cover when the Wolves defeated Long Beach Wilson two weeks ago. That winner will be crowned Division IAA champs, but the battle for City Section Division I is just as intriguing.

Long-time basketball powerhouses Taft and Westchester will face off after Taft upset heavy favorite Fairfax and their USC-bound stars, Renardo Sidney and Solomon Hill. Taft's stifling defense held Sidney and Hill to 19 combined points, while Westchester will try to outrun Taft with their explosive offense. I also had the chance to cover Westchester when they beat Long Beach Jordan back in December, and was very impressed with their uptempo energy and offensive precision.

Now, I've always viewed high school basketball as perhaps the most pure form of the sport. That may be hard to believe given its perception of exploiting young talent and rotting the minds of its stars by tempting them with gifts and showering them with praise. But, on the court, there's nothing like high school basketball, the most talented are allowed to shine without adherence to gameplans or constrictions from coaches. As bad as this sounds, good high school players are sometimes even above the limitations of fundamentals (I can see why this would be viewed as a negative, but personally I prefer letting talent be talent). At the high school level, these players come along so rarely that they are allowed to dominate the court when they do.

That kind of free-wheeling reliance on the best players works in most high school games, but ended up costing Fairfax dearly in their loss to Taft, as Fairfax boasted two A+ prospects and yet were defeated easily. Similarly, I was very impressed with the overwhelming talent from Dominguez in their victory over Long Beach Poly, but they were unable to get past King. Why? Good players will take you farther at this level than any other , and high school is most conducive to the practice of riding pure talent to victory (if not, Texas would have won a national title with Kevin Durant), but good players will be beaten by good teams every time. Very few coaches are equipped to harness and develop talent for the good of the team, which is why Fairfax and Dominguez fell despite superior talent, but the few that do usually achieve great success.

That's what we've seen from the four teams that still have life. And that's why we can expect this weekend's games to live up to the lofty hype. Southern California is home to some of the nation's best basketball talent; and it will be on full display under the bright lights of the Honda Center and USC's Galen Center.

Mater Dei vs. Kings - 6:30 pm, Saturday at the Honda Center
Taft vs. Westchester - Friday at the Galen Center