Area Teams Make Mass Playoff Exit

Sportswriters. . . . what do they know?

Every Monday, a group of Times’ sportswriters sits around a table and picks the area’s top 10 teams in the current boys’ major sport. There have been plenty of heated discussions over the years--even vicious name calling--about the rankings.

But, a week from Monday, when the basketball season is complete, we’re going to be hard-pressed to come up with the area’s final top 10.

Why? Because every team in our most recent top 10 has been eliminated from the playoffs.

Furthermore, five of those teams lost their first playoff game and two others lost their second.

Brutal postseason.

But, in defense of the writers, it’s not as if we couldn’t tell the good teams from the bad. We just failed to distinguish the bad from the horrible and the losers from the chokers (and believe me, there were plenty of good teams that choked).

The region’s deficiency of strong basketball teams, however, is not solely limited to those in our top 10.

The Times’ Valley edition covers nearly 70 high school boys’ basketball teams from Channel Islands to Glendale and from Lancaster to Sherman Oaks. Forty-three teams from this region (33 Southern Section and 10 City Section) made the playoffs.

Only three, Crescenta Valley, Santa Clara and Campbell Hall, are still playing.

How can a region so rich in football and baseball talent be so poor in basketball?

Some coaches, like North Hollywood’s Steve Miller, say Valley teams are weak because there aren’t enough solid teams in the area to sustain a decent competitive schedule to stay sharp for the postseason.

“I think there’s some really good coaching and some really good players here, but not necessarily enough good players,” Miller said. “Not enough teams game in and game out. And you have no control over that.”

Among City Section teams, it comes down to two differences between area City teams and non-Valley City teams, Miller said. It’s the style of play and numbers of talented athletes.

“The competition in the City is much better than the Valley,” Miller said. “Look at the styles. The City is pressure, pressure, pressure. How many teams play like that in the Valley?

“It’s a completely different style of ball. The style and the talent is very hard to simulate.”

Miller also maintains that the lack of good youth basketball programs is taking its toll. Grant Coach Howie Levine concurs.

“You see a lot of kids playing five-on-five outside,” Levine said. “But, you don’t learn the game that way. It’s really not team-oriented. No one plays defense.”

Levine was not at all surprised by the poor showing of area teams in the playoffs. “I knew that the Valley was down right away.”

And the natural disaster made things worse.

“The earthquake threw us off a little like a lot of schools,” Levine said. “I think Hart definitely lost their momentum, playing away from their school and all.”

Well, fans, don’t despair. There is a cure for a poor basketball season:

Baseball begins Tuesday.

Play ball!

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City blues: The weakness of City basketball in the region was apparent in the postseason. Ten of the region’s 18 City teams made the playoffs. Seven lost in the first round, including North Hollywood and Chatsworth, the Times’ No. 2- and No. 1-ranked teams.

Reseda, ranked No. 5, Cleveland and San Fernando each advanced past the first round but lost in the quarterfinals Friday. And each had the opportunity to win in the final seconds but could not convert.

Perhaps Reseda, Cleveland and San Fernando were merely keeping with the natural order of basketball blues in the Valley. Or, perhaps it’s something else entirely.

“There’s a mind-set that City teams have. City teams don’t like to lose to a Valley team,” said Miller, who coached Fairfax to two City titles before taking over at North Hollywood. “It’s an embarrassment.”

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Transcending gender lines: The poor showing among area City teams is not limited to boys.

Eight of 10 Valley area girls’ City teams lost in the first round. Only Taft and Sylmar advanced to the quarterfinals. But, as fate would have it, the two teams met in a 3-A quarterfinal Friday.

Taft won, 49-37, and now the Toreadors represent the only area City basketball team--boys or girls--left in the playoffs.

“I’ll be sure to tell them that on Monday,” Taft Coach Mark Drucker said.

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False alarm: Senior forward Jason Hartman was flabbergasted after being told by a Thousand Oaks High official Thursday that he had been selected to play in the McDonald’s All-American all-star game on Easter. “This is too good to be true,” he thought.

Turns out he was right. The McDonald’s official had called the school to inform Hartman he had been one of 10 finalists from California, not that he had been selected.

“The school kind of goofed up,” said Dean Hartman, Jason’s father. “That’s the way it looks to me.”