The Dog House will be barking Friday night
The basketball playoff pairings were announced Sunday and again some of the brackets left you scratching your head. Baldwin Park is traveling to Beaumont. I hope that gas bill fits into the school budget.
Mt. View made the playoffs. That’s the good news. The bad news is they’re traveling to Santa Paula. Nothing like driving two hours on a Friday night during prime traffic hours. If you lose is it worth making the playoffs? Rio Hondo league teams San Marino and Monrovia got in but they have to make the trek to Oak Park and Oaks Christian respectively. South Pasadena is driving to Cabrillo on Friday.
It’s not great for some of the teams traveling here either. Barstow is coming in to play Gladstone. Barstow and Gladstone? In what world does that matchup make any sense. But it’s basketball and it’s always been that way and there doesn’t seem to be any changes coming anytime soon. That’s fine but I don’t want to hear any whining about budget constraints the next time the football team needs new helmets.
If you want to check out some good ball Pasadena is the place to be this Friday night. The Bulldogs always put on a good show (they’ve won nine consecutive Pacific League titles) and the atmosphere is second to none – at least in this area. The “Dog House” is always packed to the rafters and the it’s incredibly loud. You would be hard pressed to find a such a raucous crowd at any other local venue.
Downey will visit The Dog House Friday night. Check it out.
Temple City, Covina, Workman and Arroyo are all entering the playoffs with perfect league records. The Knights wrapped up their MVL run Friday night with a win at Mt. View. Make no mistake, the offense revolves around Primitivo Gomez who scored 25 in the win.
Gomez is 6’5” but and is dangerous because he can score from inside or outside. Against the Vikings he buried three shots from downtown as well as a number of buckets in the lane and down on the block. But they’ll also need to get solid efforts out of Ryan Tran and Edgar Lupercio to have a chance in the playoffs. The Knights get Servite at home in the first round Wednesday night.
With Eric Olivas and Goren Lee gunning from long range Temple City will always be in the hunt. Olivas really doesn’t have a shot that’s “out of his range.”
If you haven’t seen Covina’s Mike Peters yet, the Colts are home Wednesday night against Antelope Valley.
It will be interesting to see how Workman stacks up in the playoffs after rolling through the Montview. The Lobos open with Olympic League at large representative Valley Christian at home on Wednesday night.
The rich get richer in the world of college football. Alabama who has won three of the last four BCS Championships had the number one rated recruiting class in the country. Mississippi surprised a lot of people by slipping into the top five. Notre Dame, BCS runner up, also had a class that was in the top five.
UCLA is rapidly gaining strides. The Bruins had a better class than USC for the first time in years and they also picked up Kylie Fitts, a defensive lineman who originally committed to USC before inking with the Bruins.
After a brawl reportedly broke out in the locker room after the Sun Bowl and a 7-6 overall finish you have to figure 2013 is do or die for head coach Lane Kiffin.
It was a big day for Monrovia last week. Northwestern, Colorado and Penn, are the destinations of Brett Walsh, George Frazier and Mason Bryant respectively as they all put pen to paper last Wednesday. Just when we thought that was it Isaac Miravet signed with Azusa Pacific University the next day. Congratulations to the players and the entire Monrovia program.
That’s my principle.
Tim can be reached at tim@midvalleysports.com.
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