There were no surprises for the Harvard-Westlake boys basketball team when the CIF Southern Section released its playoff pairings Saturday.
The Wolverines, who are 27-1 overall and two-time defending state champions, received the No. 1 seed in the Open Division, as most observers expected for the section’s top division.
The pairings did include one small twist: the Open Division has 10 teams this year after being an eight-team group in recent years.
For the first time, all of the CIF-SS basketball divisions were created using computer rankings based on in-season performance.
Harvard-Westlake is in Pool A with No. 4 Santa Margarita, No. 5 Notre Dame and No. 8 JSerra. Pool B is led by No. 2 seed Eastvale Roosevelt, along with No. 3 St. John Bosco, No. 6 Sierra Canyon, No. 7 Redondo and No. 10 Heritage Christian.
The winner of each pool will meet in the championship game March 1 at Toyota Area in Ontario. Last year, Harvard-Westlake defeated Roosevelt in the Open final, 54-47, and the teams could be headed for a repeat finals battle in three weeks.
Harvard-Westlake, which this week won its seventh consecutive Mission League title, will open the playoffs at home Wednesday against La Mirada.
Harvard-Westlake’s Joe Sterling guards Notre Dame’s Tyran Stokes during the Mission League boys basketball tournament championship game Feb. 5, 2025.(Photo by Andy Holzman, Contributing Photographer)Notre Dame (22-6) begins the playoffs Wednesday at home against JSerra.
The Daily News area had two other teams receive the No. 1 seed in their division.
Crespi (20-8) is No. 1 in Division 1 and Canyon (19-9) is No. 1 in Division 2A.
Crespi will host Edison in the first round Wednesday.
Canyon will start the playoffs at home against El Dorado on Wednesday.
While the Open Division uses the pool-play format, all of the other divisions are single elimination.
The CIF-SS finals will be played Feb. 28 and March 1 at Toyota Arena, Azusa Pacific University and Edison High School.
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