Girls’ basketball: Dixon leads California’s surprising Parade

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Jasmine Dixon, named Miss Basketball for CalHiSports.com and player of the year by The Times, has been named to Parade Magazine’s 32nd All-America High School girls’ basketball team.

Dixon averaged 14.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.2 steals and 3.2 assists while playing guard/forward for the three-time Division I state champions.

Dixon was among five Californians who made the team, including three Southland players -- her teammate, Monique Oliver, and Marlborough point guard Nikki Speed.

Speed, who was named co-most valuable player of the McDonald’s All-American game, was named to Parade’s third team. Oliver, a transfer to Poly this season from North Las Vegas, Nev., was named to the fourth team.

Parade’s four 10-player squads were reportedly chosen by ‘coaches, scouts, recruiters and media across the country.’

Maybe I wouldn’t have such a huge problem with the Parade team if people didn’t always treat it like it was an all-star team that really mattered, because it doesn’t. It can’t. Not when a player such as Atonye Nyingifa of Redondo is excluded, and a player like Oliver -- nice as she is -- is included.

Based on 2007-08, and consideration from some of the Southland’s most respected coaches, Speed was not even one of the top five considerations for the 10-player Times All-Star team. Oliver was not included at all. Nor was Oliver a member of the first or second teams for Cal-Hi Sports, which considered no fewer than 20 other Californians to be more deserving.

Same with Tierra Rogers of San Francisco Sacred Heart Cathedral and Chelsea Gray of Stockton St. Mary’s. Rodgers was named to Parade’s second team, Gray to the fourth team. Both were on Cal-Hi Sports’ second team.

This is a high school all-American team, meaning it’s supposed to be based on high school performance, not what you did over the summer playing for travel teams. Otherwise, call it a school-girl all-star team or some such thing, not a high school all-star team.

Parade is not a sporting magazine. Including a high school all-star team in its pages is about marketing, not about credibility. In 2007, Lynwood’s Lenita Sanford was a third-team all-American, but not one of the top 10 players in the Southland based on her senior season (though she made The Times team as a junior).

I have always been fascinated by this. The Parade team is filled with great players, but putting together a national All-American list requires players whose inclusion is beyond question.

-- Martin Henderson

-- Image by Glenn Koenig/Los Angeles Times