Valley Teams Don’t See Parity in City Pairings

Pairings for the City Section boys’ and girls’ basketball playoffs were released Saturday and they were met with the annual reaction of shock by many Valley-area coaches who claim the region receives little respect.

No area team was seeded higher than sixth in either 16-team 4-A bracket, and Monroe’s boys’ team was even bumped from the 4-A playoffs to make room for Jordan, a 3-A school.

“That’s a huge disappointment,” Monroe Coach Paul Graber said. “We were 16-6 with 22 road games this year. I thought they’d take that into consideration when they had their funky little meeting.”

The Vikings played all their games on the road because their gym was damaged in the Northridge earthquake. Athletic Director Linda Gayton served on the committee that passed over her school’s team.

“Everyone there was very sincere in trying to put the best teams in the tournament and to seed them fairly,” she said. “I tried to plead my case with them.”

North Hollywood’s girls (19-2), who won their ninth Valley Pac-8 Conference championship in 10 seasons, were seeded seventh in the 4-A.

“The seeding was ridiculous,” North Hollywood Coach Rich Allen said.

Allen questioned the logic behind the No. 4 seeding of Palisades (12-7), which lost to the Huskies, 56-43, this season.

“I was stunned,” he said. “I’m not so much struck by the seeding as I am the lack of respect.”

Chatsworth (19-4) was seeded sixth in the boys’ 4-A, highest of any area team in the division.

In the boys’ 3-A, Birmingham (13-9) received a No. 4 seeding. Chatsworth’s girls (17-5) were seeded fourth in 3-A.