Is there time for prep basketball playoffs? Or a Jesuit-Capital Christian showdown?
Mike Lorente is an advocate of high school basketball. So is every coach on his schedule and those the first-year Capital Christian coach would like to schedule this week, next week, next month or whenever.
But like a coach scrambling to squeeze out every moment of a fading-fast game, time has become an issue. There may not be enough of it to seize on ambition and a fun idea. Lorente is proposing a regional basketball playoff tournament of sorts, the area’s top programs facing off to decide the top dog, to cap a trying academic year with a feel-good finish.
He speaks for a lot of coaches, including softball, baseball — you name it.
“I don’t understand why we couldn’t have a playoff tournament, eight teams of the area’s top teams, to give the kids something to play for,” said Lorente, whose team has been ranked second by The Bee all season, behind Jesuit. “It’s not fair and it’s not equitable if other sections in Northern California are having playoffs and we’re not. Why did this section jump the gun? Why isn’t it OK to rescind the deadline?”
Fair questions.
Prep playoff questions
First of all, it wouldn’t be an official Sac-Joaquin Section tournament. There have been no postseason events this academic year, no thanks to the pandemic that turned high schools and sports seasons upside down and shook everyone to the core. But it goes beyond the inconvenience of the pandemic, where much of the heavy lifting on the academic front was trying to get kids back on campus, hybrid model or otherwise, and sports seasons back on the calendar amid endless stop-and-starts, COVID-19 testing, scheduling and more.
This section, the second-largest governing bodies for prep sports of the 10 in the state, has a board of managers that voted not to have playoffs for any sports. That happened in January. Why are the Central Coast Section, the Oakland Section and the Southern Section in Southern California having playoffs for a number of sports? Those section board of managers held off on voting, and then voted to go for it. No section is going to vote one way then reverse course weeks or months later.
“We hit December and the beginning of January, and it seemed everyone’s philosophy changed from section championships to just getting the kids out there to play,” said Will DeBoard, the assistant commissioner of the regional section, based in Lodi. “The board, with representatives of every league in our section, voted to eliminate the postseason and let leagues create their own seasons, to get games in when they can, while they can, with an end date.
“Why is it more complex in our section? We have 16 different counties, compared to seven for the Southern Section, and back in January, schools couldn’t play a county two counties away. Hard to do a playoff that way. No one knew how things would look later in the spring.”
Still, DeBoard said glorious showdowns could have happened, and still can — before the June 14 cutoff.
“There’s nothing stopping Jesuit and Capital Christian playing each other in basketball, or, say there’s four really good teams in the section and they want to play, there’s nothing stopping them,” DeBoard said.
Racing the clock
The hurdle remains time.
Lorente said he will volunteer his Capital Christian gym. Grant boys’ basketball coach Deonard Wilson said he’d “love any chance to play anyone in a playoff.” Same with Lindsey Ferrell of the Burbank boys, though he really just wants to have any games at all. Burbank played its season opener Monday, weeks after everyone else. Dustin Monday at Elk Grove has a boys’ basketball team that “had a chance to make a championship run in a normal year, a chance to really showcase what we have. It’s disappointing because teams like us deserved that shot.”
The same plea rings true on the girls’ side of hoops. Bee No. 1 Antelope and coach Sean Chambers said he would invite a game against section No. 1 St. Mary’s, or any number of highly ranked SFL teams. Easier said than done. Sierra Foothill League programs, heavy on Placer County with teams also in Folsom and at Oak Ridge in El Dorado Hills, will cap seasons with a league tournament at the end of the month.
The biggest hurdle besides the end date is graduation. It’s here.
Jesuit graduates this week. Its Delta League schedule ends June 3, along with the others in the league. Elk Grove Unified School District teams, heavy in the Delta, graduates seniors all next week. Capital Christian’s season ends June 11, well after its May 28 graduation.
“We’re hoping the section can extend the season one more week to get a playoff in,” Lorente said. “I know it isn’t normal to have playoffs so far past graduation but nothing is normal right now. We’re well past that.”
So, why not a Jesuit vs. Capital showdown? Lorente is game. Jesuit is game in getting this academic year over with.
“It’s gym space, time, finals and then graduation, baccalaureate, and there are league cutoff dates,” Jesuit athletic director Hank Weinberger said. “I understand where it’s coming from, coaches wanting to play a tournament or a big game. We’re not afraid of anyone. It’s not that we don’t want to play anyone else, but as soon as our league season ends, we roll into summer.”
Weinberger added a thought that any administrator and coach can ponder, “Holding seniors accountable past graduation at any school ... ?”
Jesuit isn’t the Grinch here, nor is the section office. Did the board of managers jump the gun? In hindsight, yes.
“We didn’t wait, and some say that was the right call and some say it was the wrong call,” said DeBoard of the section office. “We got flack to make a decision in January. Not a majority of people, but we got our share of calls from schools with a ‘We need to know now!’”
Meanwhile, Lorente is waiting by his phone. Who’s up for a showdown contest? Burbank? Elk Grove? Folsom? Rocklin? Modesto Christian?
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 7:16 AM.