Boys’ basketball: The truth is there are too many divisions

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Sorry to be the party pooper, but when a Southern Section championship division includes in the semifinals the Nos. 3, 4 and 5 finishers from a single league, it tells me there are too many divisions and too many championships.

In Division 4A, Mission Hills Alemany is 14-16 and gets to play in the semifinals after knocking off No. 1-seeded Oaks Christian. Good for the Warriors, but this is just the result of Southern Section rules allowing virtually every team to make the playoffs. It’s like Little League: Everyone gets to play.

Crespi, Alemany and Notre Dame, the third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishers from the Mission League, are in the 4A semifinals. Harvard-Westlake, the Mission champion, and Loyola, the second-place finisher, are in the 3A and 1A semifinals, respectively.

This is the new way of doing things, making league play hardly important because win or lose, you’re probably still going to make the playoffs and still have a chance to win one of the 12 championships offered and be able to put up one of those CIF banners.

Sorry, folks, but the banners won 10 years ago mean a lot more than the ones today. That’s my opinion.

-- Eric Sondheimer