Can Jesuit win it all? What to watch at CIF State basketball finals in Sacramento
A high school basketball season that started with summer-league fun, fall workouts and early winter tryouts is now at the finish line.
The 44th edition of the CIF State Basketball Championships will be held at Golden 1 Center, home of the Sacramento Kings, with 10 games spread over two days. The six girls and boys divisions range from the highest classification game of the Open Division down to Division V, with everyone on the same page of expecting to finish on top.
Two Sacramento-area teams remain after 14 regional girls teams and 14 area boys clubs entered the Northern California Regional tournaments. Woodland Christian of Yolo County starts off the action with a 10 a.m. game Friday for the Division V title, facing Rosamond of Los Angeles County. Jesuit is the lone boys local outfit left, and the Marauders take on Chatsworth of Los Angeles County and the son of a retired NBA star in the Division II contest at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
The Jesuit game is followed by the Open Division girls and boys games, and then it’s season over.
▪ All 12 championship games will be televised by Spectrum Networks based out of Los Angeles, and the games will be carried on the streaming NFHS network
▪ Sacramento has been the home base for the CIF State finals since 1998, with the 2010 games held in Bakersfield and the 2015 event held at Cal in Berkeley. The first CIF State finals held in Sacramento was in 1992, at Arco Arena, and it returned in 1996 before becoming a staple. The state finals have been held at Golden 1 since 2016, when the venue first opened.
The CIF has long maintained that it wants to provide a wow factor for state events, and be it since-demolished Arco Arena or Golden 1 Center, that’s been a constant.
Jesuit’s Big Red defense vs. prolific scorer
Defense has defined Jesuit’s remarkable season, which took a jolt in the Marauders’ last visit to Golden 1, a last-second loss to Rocklin in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II finals. But Jesuit and coach Tim Kelly bounced back big in the NorCal tournament and emerged as the ninth regional team to take NorCal D-II honors.
Now the ultimate challenge looms for Jesuit (26-9) in its quest to become just the third area program to win a CIF State D-II boys crown, joining Oak Ridge of El Dorado Hills in 2005 under coach Steve Scott and Elk Grove in 2022 under coach Dustin Monday.
Jesuit’s opponent, Chatsworth (26-8) is led by Alijah Arenas, the 6-foot-6, USC-committed scoring star who is the son of three-time NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas. The Arenas family sat courtside last season at Golden 1 Center to watch Alijah score 44 points in a state final. He is 20 points shy from becoming the first player in the history of the Los Angeles City Section to eclipse 3,000 points.
Then again, the Chancellors and Arenas also have to deal with Jesuit’s patient offense that includes the relentless 6-5 senior guard Asher Schroeder, 6-3 senior guard Luke Browne and 6-6 senior interior banger Amaury McKinney, who can also play on the high post and hit 3-point shots.
Woodland Christian rise
The last time Woodland Christian played at Golden 1 Center was the first time for a program that is 20 years old and has fewer than 200 high school students. That was on Feb. 28, a section D-V loss to Bret Harte of Angels Camp.
The Cardinals (30-6) and leading scorers Tegan Hayes, Siena Sorbello and Keziah Maldonado-Lemus will play a Rosamond team that is 29-7, is in its first CIF State final and is riding a 14-game winning streak. Shiloh Sorbello is the WC coach, a lawyer in Yolo County whose daughter, Siena, is among the team captains.
Riordan roars into Open
Riordan of San Francisco is a storied program, and this may be the school’s finest team at 29-1, which is saying something given the 18 Central Coast Section crowns stuffed into the trophy case. Riordan plays Roosevelt of Riverside County in the Open Division at 8 p.m. Saturday, where a victory cements the greatest-team argument in a hurry.
Roosevelt (34-2) is state-ranked No. 1 by Cal-Hi Sports and is led by Brayden Burries, Myles Walker and Issac Williamson
One of Riordan’s key players is 6-6 forward John Tofi Jr., who started his prep career at Sheldon High in the Elk Grove Unified School District. His father, John Tofi Sr., is a Riordan assistant coach who was a star player on the 2002 Riordan team that won the 2002 state title.
Mitty vs. Etiwanda in girls Open — again
The Open Division was created in 2013 to place the elite programs into one division, and here we go again with nationally ranked girls powerhouses meeting for the third consecutive season as Mitty of San Jose takes on Etiwanda of San Bernardino on Saturday at 6 p.m.
Etiwanda beat Mitty the past two seasons in the Open final, great games that were capped with both coaches praising the rise of girls basketball in general. Sue Phillips is the Hall of Fame coach who leads Mitty, now in her 32nd on at her alma mater with 847 victories and no end in sight. Mitty was the top-ranked team in the country on Jan. 4 when two-time national Player of the Year McKenna Woliczko tore her ACL in a tournament. The team has won 18 of 20 since, losing only to national powers.
LeBron James at Golden 1?
Yes, LeBron James, a not-so-favorite of Kings fans as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, will be back in Golden 1. He will be watching his son, Bryce James, Friday at 8 p.m. help lead Sierra Canyon of Chatsworth against Lincoln of Stockton in the Division I final.
That will close out the James era for Sierra Canyon after Bronny led Sierra Canyon in the past followed by Bryce, a senior guard who is averaging 8.1 points.
And then there’s the other team, the Trojans of the Sac-Joaquin Section. Lincoln is in the midst of its finest season, riding along with a school-record 31-4 season behind 6-6 wing Anthony Moore, who averages 17.8 points. No Stockton boys team has won a CIF state title in this sport.
The smalls can ball
International High of San Francisco has an enrollment of just under 400 students, from kindergarten to 12th grade, and the most prolific of them all is Conor Maguire. He is a feisty 6-foot senior guard who went for 39 points in a 71-63 D-V NorCal final win over Fortune of Sacramento.
Maguire also had a 63-point game in which he made a North Coast Section record 14 3-pointers. The school will close Friday, and students will be bussed to the noon Division V game against Diamond Ranch of Pomona
Complete brackets and an online state basketball program are available at cifstate.org/sports/basketball.
CIF State finals
All games at Golden 1 Center
FRIDAY
10 a.m. — Division V Girls: Rosamond (29-7) vs. Woodland Christian (30-6)
Noon — Division V Boys: Diamond Ranch (23-14) vs. International (23-12)
2 p.m. — Division III Boys: San Gabriel Academy (20-13) vs. King’s Academy (27-4)
4 p.m. — Division III Girls: Mater Dei Catholic-Chula Vista (21-13) vs. Marin Catholic (25-11)
6 p.m. — Division I Girls: Sage Hill (23-11) vs. Carondelet (29-6)
8 p.m. — Division I Boys: Sierra Canyon (26-7) vs. Lincoln-Stockton (31-4)
SATURDAY
10 a.m. — Division IV Girls: Whitney-Cerritos (27-9) vs. Half Moon Bay (23-7)
Noon —Division IV Boys: Fresno Christian (30-6) vs. Priory (25-6)
2 p.m. —Division II Girls – Rancho Bernardo (26-7) vs. Caruthers (25-6)
4 p.m. —Division II Boys – Chatsworth (26-8) vs. Jesuit (26-9)
6 p.m. — Open Division Girls – Etiwanda (27-5) vs. Archbishop Mitty (27-3)
8 p.m. — Open Division Boys – Roosevelt vs. Riordan (29-1)
This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 2:02 PM.