It officially was a down year in San Diego Section basketball.  Every team in the final Union-Tribune Top 10  poll was eliminated by the quarterfinals round of the Southern California regional tournament.

Three of the six from the original 32 in five divisions made it past the semifinals into a championship game, but all were beaten on the road.

The Christian boys (24-10), Division IV No. 13 seed who eliminated No. 1 Riverside Hillcrest, 43-42, in the semifinals, were 1 for 14 from three-point range and bowed to View Point of the Los Angeles City Section, 57-43, in the finals.

San Marcos, the 3 seed in girls D-II, was 6 for 25 from the arc and completed a 22-8 season with a 56-43 loss to top-ranked Redondo Beach Redondo Union.

Mater Dei (22-14), a No. 9 seed which battled uphill through the rounds, defeating No. 8 La Canada Flintridge Prep, 78-55; No. 1 Bonita Vista, 75-67, and No. 5 Tulare Mission Oak, 71-50, could not finish in girls’ D-III, dropping a 53-50 decision to No. 6 Fullerton Sunny Hills after leading, 24-14, at halftime.

The season marked the third consecutive  in which there will be no state champion from the San Diego Section. The La Jolla Country Day girls were the last to achieve the feat when they defeated Palo Alto Eastside Prep, 40-36, in 2014-15.

The three remaining San Diego teams,  eliminated in the semifinals, were No. 5 San Diego, 67-48, by No. 1 Santa Clarita Christian in boys D-IV; No. 13 San Diego Southwest, 72-52, by No. 7 Van Nuys in boys’ D-IV, and the Cathedral girls, 15 seed who were pushed out by neighboring San Marcos, 71-55, in D-II.

SINGER LEADS

Helix’ John Singer, who did not coach this season due to illness, still leads active San Diego Section coaches with 668 victories, all-time No. 2 behind El Camino’s Ray Johnson, who won 763.

Six San Diego Section teams, from the original 32, reach the semifinals of the Southern California state regional playoffs tonight.

An all-San Diego Section final is possible in Boys Division V, but both teams, 5 San Diego and 11 San Diego Southwest, face higher seeds on the road, 1 Canyon Country Santa Clarita Christian and 7 Van Nuys, respectively.

The Cavers, following the remergence of their football team, are making their first appearance in a Southern Califronia semifinal since they lost to Burbank Burroughs, 59-50, in 1955.

At least one girls team from here will be in the D-II finals, because 15 Cathedral (21-11) or 3 San Marcos (21-7) meet tonight at San Marcos.

Christian (23-9), seeded 13th in boys D-IV, is at 1 Riverside Hillcrest (32-3) tonight and 9 Mater Dei will travel 300 miles North to face No. 5 Tulare Mission Oak (25-7) of the Central Section in girls D-IV.

Mater Dei roiled the brackets last week when it rode a 28-20 last quarter to upset No. 1 Bonita Vista, 75-67, after losing twice to the Barons in the regular season.

For the other 26 teams in the playoffs the season ended last week, their conclusions reminiscent of  the popular 1960’s surfer tune “Wipeout.”

Local clubs, even those favored in the seedings, went down under a wave of Southern Section power.  All of the teams in the final Union-Tribune Top 10 were given happy trails sendoffs in the first or second round. Hardest hit were our big ones in the Open Division and D-I.

Mission Bay (56-34 to Torrance Bishop Montgomery), and Foothills Christian (88-62 to Chatsworth Sierra Canyon) fell early in the Open Division.  Torrey Pines, the 2 seed in D-I, was beaten in overtime by 15 Taft Woodland Hills, 81-74.

The only question about theTorrey Pines defeat was why Taft was a 15 seed.  The Torreadors long have been a Los Angeles City Section blueblood and annually one of the better teams in Southern California.

Tonight’s matchups:

Mission Bay, by virtue of late-season wins over Torrey Pines and Foothills Christian, emerged as the No. 1 team in the final Union-Tribune poll.

The Buccaneers defeated favored Torrey Pines on the Falcons’  floor, 64-62, in the semifinals of the San Diego Section Open Division playoffs and then beat Foothills Christian, 52-45, in the finals after splitting with the Knights during the season, winning, 72-56. and losing in overtime, 61-58.

Foothills, dealing with the drama of star Taeschon Cherry’s, expulsion from the school days before the game with Mission Bay, dropped to third, behind Torrey Pines.

The Bucs, who had dropped out of the Cal-Hi Sports top 20 after a 54-51, regular-season-ending decision to La Jolla, are back in at number 18.  Torrey Pines is 19th. Mount Miguel girls are 18th.

Union-Tribune Boys’ final poll Monday, March 5:

NR–Not ranked.

Others receiving votes: Francis Parker (14-12, 9 points), El Camino (18-13, 4), Christian (21-9, 2), San Diego (22-7, 2).

Poll participants:  John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune; Terry Monahan, freelancer; Steve Brand, San Diego Hall of Champions;  Adam Paul,  Ramon Scott, EastCountySports.com; John Kentera, Prep Talent Evaluator; Rick Smith, partletonsports.com; Bodie DeSilva, sandiegopreps.com; Steve (Biff) Dolan, Mountain Country 107.9 FM; Christian Pedersen, S.D. Preps Insider; Aaron Burgin, Fulltime Hoops; Brad Enright, L.A. Court Report.

There were two races in the Eastern League, one with four teams see-sawing through the season seeking two playoffs berths, and another, weekly shootout between Crawford’s Larry Blum and San Diego’s Elburt Miller.

St. Augustine (19-5), led by Bob Spence, Mike (Zeke) Shea, Jimmy Antl, John Emerson, and Gary Hoffman, held off Crawford (24-6-1), Hoover (18-8), and San Diego (19-8) and won its first league championship in any sport since joining the City Prep League in 1957.

But Crawford, the presumptive favorite at the start of the season, prevailed in the San Diego Section playoffs.

CIF honchos resolved what was described by The San Diego Union’s Chuck Sawyer as a “long and bitter argument” by voting after the 1961-62 season to allow teams to participate in two tournaments.  Several schools had begun a trend of skipping the traditional Kiwanis event to participate in similar tests in other locales.

Coaches, players, and fans had complained about short-sighted goals and thinking  since the Section was formed in 1960.

SCORING SOARING

Blum, a 5-foot, 11-inch guard, scored 737 points in 31 games and broke the County record by one point.  St. Augustine’s Tom Shaules had 736 in 1957-58.  Miller, a 6-3 forward, scored 689 points in 27 games and had the highest average, 25.5.

Miller also broke a 19-year-old San Diego High single-game scoring record.  He had 39 in a 68-55 win at home over Lincoln to better the mark of 38 by Ivan Robinson in the 1943-44 season.

Miller’s record would be topped later in the decade when Oscar Foster scored 40 and then 41.

OTHERS FIND THE NET

There were at least two dozen players after  Blum and Miller who contributed to a sharp, upward trend in scoring.

Kearny’s Dick Dowling (570), Granite Hills’ Bob Lundgren (513), Hilltop’s Bob Gray (479), Crawford’s Dick Woodson (460), Grossmont’s Bill Biggs (453) La Jolla’s Dave Grund (447), and Morse’s Kenny Leininger (407) were among 26 players who scored at least 300 points.

A decade before you could count the number of 300-point scorers on one hand, without counting the thumb.  Eleven players scored 300 or more points in 1961-62.

KIWANIS

The season usually started in the last week of November but the mid-December San Diego Kiwanis Tournament, one of the largest in the state, signaled that basketball would be king for the next three months.

The 16th annual event, involving almost 400 athletes, 32 teams, and eight venues, was the first of six different that kept several local squads busy through the Christmas holiday.

Crawford, 5-0, was top seed in the Unlimited Division and 7-0 La Jolla was favored in the Limited Division for smaller schools.

Granite Hills’ Bob Lundgren scored 41 points in a 62-54 win over San Dieguito.  La Jolla’s Dave Grund made 16 baskets and 32 points in a 72-38 victory against Morse. Larry Blum had 30 in an 82-42 win over El Capitan and 34 in an 81-59 rout of Lincoln.

An all-Eastern League semifinal was averted when Sweetwater upset 8-0 St. Augustine, 60-49.  Crawford eliminated San Diego, 48-41, although Blum was held to six points, all free throws.  Hoover, a 72-53 loser to Hilltop earlier, defeated the Lancers, 49-41, and Sweetwater, 50-43, setting up a Cardinals-Colts final.

DARKNESS

Crawford defeated the Cardinals, 55-49, but its lead was only 46-45 with 4:13 remaining in the game.  At that point the lights dimmed at Peterson Gym.  The approximate 3,000 persons in attendance stirred restlessly through a 32-minute delay.

Hoover outscored the Colts, 44-32, from the field but Crawford had a 23-5 edge in free throws.

La Jolla wrapped the Limited Division with a 65-48 win over Western League rival Mission Bay.

Blum and teammate Dick Woodson were joined on the all-tournament team by Hoover’s Bob Powell and Gilbert Hernandez, and John Adams of Sweetwater.  The Limited Division squad included Lundgren and Grund, Charlie Buchanan of La Jolla, Richard Vera of Mission Bay, and Marty (The Mop) Jensen of Coronado.

MUSTANG-OPTIMIST

La Jolla was 2 for 2 in tournaments after scoring the last nine points to defeat Mission Bay, 51-48, in a repeat of the Kiwanis final.  The Vikings also defeated Kearny, 68-44, and tournament host San Dieguito, 72-57.

SAN BERNARDINO

Elburt Miller set scoring and rebound records and the Cavers topped Redlands, 57-29, for the consolation championship.  San Diego lost its opener, 49-47, to Riverside Poly, and then defeated Riverside Ramona, 65-57, and San Bernardino Pacific, 58-55.

Miller scored 24, 29, 31, and 25 points for a total of 109 and had 78 rebounds.

Froebel Brigham, a starter on Coach Bill Standly’s squad, also served as an on-site reporter, filing game accounts with The San Diego Union.

NEWPORT HARBOR OPTIMIST

Grossmont held off Santa Monica, 60-57, for the consolation championship.

FILLMORE

Helix was beaten by Santa Paula, 71-61, in the semifinals and by Bishop, 47-42, in the third place game.

COVINA

In reaching the finals of the 32-team event, Crawford played five games in six days.  Trailing, 32-30 at halftime of the championship against host Covina, the Colts faltered and saw a 13-game winning streak end with a 57-50 defeat.

Dick Woodson scored 22 points and Larry Blum 20.  No other Colt scored a field goal.

Blum scored 25, 44, 10, 22, and 20 points during the tournament and had a shot at the single game record of 48 but was whistled to the bench with his fifth foul midway of the fourth quarter in an 87-35 win over La Puente.

“I think I had forty-four with seven or eight minutes to play and then picked up three charging fouls running through the key and on two of them there was no contact, so I fouled out and I think we won by fifty,” Blum recalled years later.

Blum was 17×32 from the field for 53 per cent and scored 21 points in the second quarter.

The Colts’ other victories were 68-49 over West Covina Edgewood, 65-43 over San Gabriel, and 67-47 over West Covina.

Hoover was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Crescenta Valley, 50-47, after 69-30 and 60-46 victories over Baldwin Park and Glendale.

Mount Miguel lost its opener, 50-44, to Norwalk and then marched to the Consolation bracket championship, 52-34 over Lawndale Lennox, 44-38 over Edgewood, and 66-44 over Covina Northview.

GROSSMONT LEAGUE

Helix and Grossmont tied for second with 9-3 records. Rather than conduct a vote among league bosses to determine a second playoff participant, Grossmont principal Walter Barnett got his colleagues to agree to a playoff at neutral El Cajon Valley.

The San Diego Section board of managers vetoed.

CIF commissioner Don Clarkson pointed out that the teams had played a schedule of 20 games plus participated in two tournaments and that the board of managers had enacted a rule prohibiting playoffs before the playoffs.

Barnett knew the inconvenience of unresolved ties.  As a lineman on Grossmont’s 1927 team, Barnett was on the field for a 0-0 playoff with Calexico.  The CIF Southern Section ruled that the teams play again to determine the small schools’ champion. Grossmont blanked Calexico, 9-0.

The Foothillers also won the vote for the postseason berth.  Helix finished at 16-11. Grossmont also would close with a 16-11 record after a 56-51 playoff loss to St. Augustine.

SCOTS HAVE A HOME

Bob Divine, who had campaigned for years for a gymnasium at Helix, had mixed feelings.

After more than a decade of practicing outdoors and playing most of their home games at Grossmont, a new facility rose on the Helix campus.

Divine was there as Helix defeated Monte Vista, 49-38, in a Grossmont League game that inaugurated the 1,800-seat showcase.

No longer coaching, Divine was vice-principal at Monte Vista.

MATADORS, OLE!

At 10-2 in the league and with a final record of 20-9, Mount Miguel was breathing rarefied air.

The Matadors, who began play in 1957-58, had posted an overall record of 34-71 in their first five seasons.

Larry McCollister’s 28 points led a 55-48, league-clinching win over Granite Hills.

EASTERN

After a 13-1 start, Crawford lost five of its next nine games, including 67-56 and 61-59 nonleague losses to Helix and La Jolla, and a 56-54 decision in a head-to-head meeting with St. Augustine.

Saints fans, who sold out their tiny Dougherty Gym the day before, let Crawford coach Jim Sams have it after the often brusque Sams had declared, “We’re better offensively and defensively.  They’ll have to score in the sixties to beat us.”

Crawford fell to 4-3 in league play after a 55-54 defeat at San Diego, where the Cavers’ Froebel Brigham drained a 30-footer with 13 seconds to play and Elburt Miller scored 29 points.

The Colts would not lose again, but their playoff hopes were at risk entering the final night of the regular season. St. Augustine was 8-1, Crawford, Hoover, and San Diego each 6-3.

CIF big shot Don Clarkson was on hand at Crawford to conduct a postgame telephonic vote among principals to determine the league’s second playoff representative.

Hoover knocked out San Diego, 52-45, and Crawford slammed St. Augustine, 89-59, marking the second loss in a week for the Saints, who stumbled against Hilltop, 48-38, three days earlier.

Crawford, which was 3-0 against Hoover, seemed a shoe-in but it was not until a meeting three days later and a second vote did the Colts get in.

Who won, the ratings or the seedings?  Since the seedings are based on the ratings and the ratings are based on the  Ocomputer, the question should be who won, the computer or the human eye?

So far, the computer is trailing the organ of sight, at least in this impromptu survey.

Writer John Maffei of The San Diego Union, employing the eyeball test, has selected the winner in 77.8 per cent of games each Friday during the  season since 2015.

Lead seeded teams, based on Max Preps ratings this season, have won 42 of the 60 games in the first two weeks of the San Diego Section playoffs, or 67.7 per cent.  A nice number, but….

Heading into this week’s  semifinals, there are 9 lower seeds (5 and above) still alive.

Higher seeded teams won 29 of 40 first-round games, 72.5 per cent, although there were a couple unexpected whoppers.

Fifteen seed University City upset Division IV No. 2 Rancho Buena Vista, 61-51, and 14 seed El Centro Central tripped No. 3 Bonita Vista, 55-54 in D-III.

The higher seeds won 13 of 20 second round games, 65 per cent, but there were more surprises.

No. 9 Francis Parker, coached by veteran Jim Tomey, who won a state championship at University High with Luke Walton, Nate Staggs, and others in 1998, ousted No. 1 Montgomery, 80-76, in D-III and No. 8 El Centro Southwest ushered out No. 1 Maranatha, 57-55, in D-IV.

Three fifth seeds, three sixes, and one seventh, eighth, and ninth, respectively, are in the hunt as the semifinals get under way Wednesday.

Boys Open and D-1 championships will be Saturday at Viejas Arena.  Divisions II, III, and IV will be at San Marcos High.  La Costa Canyon will host D-V.  All games Wednesday are scheduled to tip at 7 p.m.

Full disclosure:  Maffei admitted to not doing so well in the 2017 playoffs, tabbing around 50 per cent of the winners, but that included the Southern and state postseason, involving many teams the writer had not seen.

Semifinals pairings:

 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SEEDING

Since all eight Open Division teams automatically qualify for the Southern California regional playoffs, a seeding game was necessary for the quarterfinals losers, St. Augustine and San Marcos, which will meet Thursday at 7 p.m. at San Marcos.

The Saints were beaten, 85-55, by Foothills Christian, representing revenge for the Knights, who lost a playoff at St. Augustine, 72-69, in 2017.

Foothills stifled the Saints with a suffocating zone defense, which coach Mike Haupt’s team could not penetrate.  The Saints shot air balls and rim rattlers from three-point range.

The only similarity to the 2017 contest was the Knights’ propensity for technical fouls.  They had three in the 2017 game and two in the encore.