State Tournament Questioned, but Has Some of the Answers

Thomas Byrnes, the California Interscholastic Federation’s state commissioner, had reason to smile during last weekend’s State basketball championships at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. In 10 years, the tournament has become a major high school event and one of the nation’s top state playoffs in terms of attendance.

Saturday’s finals drew 11,820, who watched hometown favorite Alameda St. Joseph finish the day by defeating Fremont in the boys’ Division I title game. It gave Northern California its first victory over a Southern California team since the state revised the tournament in 1981.

Despite its increasing popularity, the State tournament has its detractors. Byrnes answered some of the common complaints about:

--Having Northern California as the permanent site for the finals. Only once have the finals been held away from Oakland. That was in 1983 in the Sports Arena. Next year’s finals will be held in Sacramento because the Oakland Coliseum Arena is unavailable.

Said Byrnes: “California is so big and so large, that it is not like other states . . . where no one is more than a two-hour drive from anywhere. Here, we have schools driving six or seven hours sometimes to the finals. To have some continuity year after year, we have permanent sites for all our State championship sports, and we spread those sites around across the state.”

--Having an alternating finals setup of girls’ and boys’ games.

“We don’t want to change this format because we give a chance for the girls to have more visibility,” Byrnes said. “If we moved the girls to a different site than the boys, most of the press would go to the boys.

“When we first started, a lot of the crowd did leave between games, but I’ve noticed that the girls are holding the crowd better the last few years.”

One problem that occurred in the Southern Regional finals was that the boys’ Division I game did not start until nearly 10 p.m.

“Scheduling of the games, where they all begin at a better time, is something to look into,” Byrnes said. “But, the big problem we had with the Southern Regional was that there was a (USC men’s basketball) game stuck in the middle of the finals.”

--Having travel problems. Finalists complain about the lack of reimbursement for mileage and the state only allowing one night’s lodging for each day of competition.

“I don’t know about any complaint for reimbursement because we pay more than the Sections with $1 a mile for driving,” Byrnes said. “We even reimburse $2 a mile for air travel.

“When we pay for only one night’s stay, it is up to the coaches to pick the night. Some like to have their players sleep in their own beds the night before playing and others like to stay over after the game.”

One problem Fremont had was traveling the morning of its 7 p.m. game because it decided not to make a late night trip back to Los Angeles afterward.

“It really depends on the coach,” Byrnes said. “You have to have a policy, and if you lined up 10 coaches, you might have five who would want to sleep over while the other half would not.”

--Having at-large teams qualify for the tournament after losing in Section playoffs.

In a tournament of champions, many believe that having at-large teams weakens the State playoffs. When a team like Estancia loses in the Southern Section’s divisional final and then comes back to win the boys’ Division III Southern Regional championship, does that mean that Southern California is sending its best team to the State final?

“The State tournament is not consistent in any manner,” said Crenshaw Coach Willie West, who questions the changing guidelines of the playoff qualifications.

“One year they say that there won’t be any at-large teams and then they change it the next. In 1983, we went in as an at-large team and won the State title, then from 1983 to ‘87, they didn’t have any at-large teams. We beat Manual Arts for the City title in ‘88, then all of a sudden without any notification, they start having at-large teams again and Manual beats us in the State playoffs. It seems like they keep changing things when they get ready and that stinks.”

Still, based on its rise in attendance and a possible long-term cable television contract with Prime Ticket, the State tournament’s future is bright.

The hope is that the answers from Byrnes and the CIF will help silence the growing questions about the running of the tournament.

The reputation of Jason Kidd, standout junior guard for St. Joseph, continued to grow with his performance against Fremont. It was not only his 25 points, eight rebounds, seven steals and four assists, but it was the effect he had on the Oakland Coliseum Arena crowd.

Every time he touched the ball, people waited for something to happen with high expectations. Fremont actually did a good job forcing Kidd out of his game--he only made seven of 33 field-goal attempts--but, to his credit, Kidd was able to assist his teammates and lead the Pilots to victory.

“I think that the team had a great game,” said Kidd, who has narrowed his college choices to only 14. “It wasn’t just me, because it takes five players to win a ballgame.”

St. Joseph will probably be favored to repeat next season with Kidd, who already sign autographs after games, and junior forward Adrian Ealy, who scored 22 points and grabbed 12 rebounds against Fremont, returning.

The Southern Section General Council has voted to allow four Orange County Catholic schools to play in leagues with public schools.

Santa Margarita, Mater Dei and a combined entry of Servite (all boys) and Rosary (all girls) won approval to play with Orange County public schools for the 1992-94 seasons.

The issue now goes to the state panel. If approved, it will be the first time public and parochial schools in Orange County will be allowed to compete in the same leagues.

“The issue is over as far as the Southern Section is concerned,” said Dean Crowley, the section’s associate commissioner. “The next level would be a hearing panel by the state’s executive committee.”

The executive committee’s next scheduled meeting is April 11.

Currently, all private schools in the county compete against other private schools in what is termed the private geographic area, crossing county lines. The four private schools have made a request to be placed with the county’s public schools because of rising transportation costs incurred while competing against other private schools in Los Angeles, La Puente and Downey.

Public school administrators throughout the county fear that private schools will dominate athletic events because private schools have no boundaries from which to draw athletes.

In other council agenda items:

--Sea View League representatives proposed that a summer dead period (a period when college coaches may not contact their athletes) scheduled to begin Aug. 1 be set aside until a study is made of all the sports and coaches that would be affected. The measure was overwhelmingly approved.

--Sunset League representatives proposed that a football scrimmage be added to the 10-game schedule beginning in the 1991 season. Ten years ago, the council voted to allow football programs the option of either a 10th game or a scrimmage. The measure will be voted on at the next council meeting April 25.

Prep Notes

Our all-State tournament championship teams: Boys--Jason Kidd of St. Joseph; David Beilstein of Tustin, who scored 28 points in the Tillers’ 66-54 Division II win over Danville San Ramon; Michael Tate of Fremont, who grabbed a State championship game record 20 rebounds against St. Joseph; Kevin Dunne of San Ramon, who scored 19 points in the loss to Tustin; Mike Haas of Costa Mesa Estancia, who had 27 points in the victory over Fremont Washington for the Division III title.

Girls--Tanda Rucker of Berkeley, who scored 16 points and had six assists in the Yellowjackets’ 76-50 rout of Inglewood Morningside in Division I; Kate Paye of Atherton Menlo, who scored 21 points with 10 assists, in the Knights’ 65-48 win over El Cajon Christian in Division V; Anna McConnell of Santa Maria St. Joseph, who scored all five overtime points for the Knights in their win over San Rafael in Division IV; Jody Anton of Brea-Olinda, who scored 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the Ladycats’ 54-46 victory over Hayward Moreau in Division II; Monique Morehouse of Palos Verdes, who scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the Sea Kings’ 58-42 victory over Healdsburg in Division III.

Here are our top five teams combining the Southern and City sections: Boys--1. Fremont (34-2); 2. Tustin (30-4); 3. Santa Barbara (28-6); 4. Long Beach Jordan (23-8); 5. Manual Arts (23-5). Girls--1. Brea-Olinda (33-1); 2. Morningside (32-3); 3. Palos Verdes (33-2); 4. Washington (25-5); 5. Chino (29-5).