Corona del Mar boys basketball coach Jason Simco wanted his team to be in the Open Division of the CIF Southern Section playoffs.
He got what he wanted.
The Sea Kings (27-1) are in the field of 12 teams in the section’s top division. They are seeded eighth.
“I love it,” Simco said after playoff brackets were released Saturday. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m so proud of our kids.”
The other 11 Open Division teams are, in order of seeding: Sierra Canyon (22-1), Santa Margarita (26-3), Redondo Union (25-3), Sherman Oaks Notre Dame (19-6), St. John Bosco (20-7), Corona Centennial (26-4), Harvard-Westlake (22-5), Crespi (19-11), Damien (26-5), Etiwanda (26-2) and La Mirada (22-6).
The Open Division is the section’s only division that has a pool-play format. The 12 teams are divided into four pools. Corona del Mar is in a pool with top-seeded Sierra Canyon and ninth-seeded Crespi.
The first round of Open Division pool play is Wednesday. Corona del Mar’s first game is on the second day of pool play, Friday, with a home game against Crespi.
Divisions 1-10 play first-round games on Feb. 11, second-round games on Feb. 13, quarterfinals on Feb. 17 and semifinals Feb. 20. Championship games are Feb. 27 and 28 at Toyota Arena in Ontario.
All six Trinity League teams made the playoffs. In addition to Santa Margarita and St. John Bosco in the Open Division, JSerra (19-12) and Orange Lutheran (18-9) are in Division 1, and Mater Dei (17-14) and Servite (18-11) are in Division 2.
Power rankings created by computer are used to place teams into playoff divisions and to seed them in those divisions.
Teams that were not automatic qualifiers, which are teams that finish high enough in their leagues’ final standings to get guaranteed playoff berths, were left to hope to make the playoffs as at-large teams. Mater Dei, Orange Lutheran and Servite were granted at-large berths.
Servite went 0-5 in Trinity League games and this week was eliminated in the first round of the Trinity League Tournament. Servite coach Matt Kanne said he had spent time looking at the power rankings in an effort to see if the Friars would get into the playoffs.
“Then I stopped looking,” Kanne said. “I gave up trying to figure this thing out.”
Mater Dei got in as an at-large team. The Monarchs have made the playoffs every season since Gary McKnight became the program’s coach in 1982.
This is the second season that computer power rankings are used for CIF-SS basketball playoffs. The system can produce matchups that never happened before, like two teams from the same league playing each other in the first round and league champions playing Round 1 away games against teams that finished lower in their leagues’ standings.
Among the many examples of that is in Division 2. South Coast League co-champion San Clemente (18-10) plays at Hesperia (20-8), the second-place team of the Mojave River League, in the first round.
“Crazy, huh?” said San Clemente coach Landon Pluimer. “We’ve got to go to Hesperia, and that’s a long drive. I don’t like it.”
Sea View League champion Aliso Niguel (20-8) plays a Division 3 first-round game at Newport Harbor (16-12), which finished sixth in the seven-team Sunset League. The Sailors are the home team because they are ranked No. 88 and Aliso Niguel is No. 110.
“I’m still trying to figure out the whole computer rankings thing,” said Aliso Niguel coach Keith Barnett. “But they’re ranked higher than us so we’re going on the road.”
Head-to-head results might not carry much weight in the power rankings.
Mater Dei beat Orange Lutheran twice, including by 27 points in this week’s Trinity League Tournament. But in the power rankings, Orange Lutheran is No. 35 and Mater Dei is No. 48.
Crean Lutheran (21-7) is No. 13 in the final power rankings. With the Open Division a 12-team group, Crean Lutheran’s No. 13 ranking makes it the No. 1 seed in Division 1.
Canyon (16-12), the No. 4 team in the five-team Crestview League, received an at-large berth in Division 2.
