JUNIOR COLLEGE STATE BASKETBALL PLAYOFFS : Moorpark, Glendale Undermine Seedings

If a lesson has been learned thus far in the men’s junior college state basketball playoffs, it is that rankings, seedings and the cozy confines of a home court can mean next to nothing.

Antelope Valley and Valley colleges, which were seeded among the top six teams from the southern portion of the state, found out the hard way. Both schools’ teams were upset at home in second-round games Wednesday.

And those teams of double-digit seedings, Glendale and Moorpark? Well, they hope the trend continues.

Glendale, seeded 11th, bounced host Cerritos, the defending state champion, out of the playoffs with a 71-63 victory. Visiting Moorpark, seeded 13th, took out fourth-seeded Antelope Valley, 85-76.

Both teams will be on the road again for round-of-16 games beginning at 7:30 tonight. Glendale (24-11) will play at third-seeded Rancho Santiago (28-3), and Moorpark (23-10) will travel to Huntington Beach to meet Golden West (23-10).

Glendale faces a particularly tall order in Rancho Santiago, which has a pair of 6-foot-9 bookends in Corie Blount and Matthew Lien. However, the Vaqueros have hurdled sizable obstacles before.

In a tournament game early in the season, Glendale felled top-seeded Cypress, whose front-line players average 6-6.

The Vaqueros’ tallest starter is Dave Swanson, a 6-5 sophomore, but if Coach Brian Beauchemin is concerned, he is hiding it well.

“I don’t think we’re scared of anyone at this point,” said Beauchemin, whose team has won nine of its past 10. “You look at the top six seeds and we’ve beat four of them, so, you know, line ‘em up. Really. And it doesn’t bother us where we have to go, either.”

Like Glendale, which regularly trims close to 20 points off opponents’ scoring averages, Moorpark is at its best playing tenacious defense.

“When we’re playing well, we’re a step quicker on defense, we just have great movement,” Raider Coach Al Nordquist said. “The other thing we show is the ability to move the ball and make good choices with our shots. Against Antelope Valley, we did both of those things.”

Tonight’s winners advance to the eight-team state tournament that begins Thursday at UC Irvine’s Bren Center.