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A look at Orange County boys basketball:

• The CIF-Southern Section playoffs begin with an important announcement Friday – the teams that are in the inaugural Open Division in CIF-SS boys basketball. A 14-person panel will select 12 or 16 teams to play in the Open Division. There are no enrollment parameters for the Open Division, so large- and smaller-school teams are eligible.

• Each week, the CIF-SS releases a “watch list” of Open Division candidates. Three county teams are on the watch list: Mater Dei, El Toro and Mission Viejo.

• The top eight teams in the Division 1AA rankings are on that watch list, led by 1AA top-ranked Mater Dei. If those eight teams are all sent to the Open Division that would create an easier path to the 1AA finals for teams that would remain in the 1AA bracket, teams like Mission Viejo, No. 9 in the 1AA poll, No. 11 Los Alamitos and No. 15 Orange Lutheran.

• The Open Division will be the only CIF-SS basketball division with a double-elimination format. First-round losers will be sent to the consolation bracket of the division.

• The winner of the Open Division consolation bracket wins a berth in the CIF Southern California Regionals, which is the qualifying tournament for the CIF State Championships. All first-round winners in the Open Division will receive berths in the Regionals, as will be all CIF-SS division champions.

• Before the season began, schools were placed in one of the 11 playoff divisions this way: first organized by enrollment; then a four-year playoffs point profile can move teams into higher divisions. Teams accumulate points by how well they have done in the playoffs over the past four years. So Division 1AA will have schools like Mater Dei that are not huge in enrollment but playoff success elevates them to higher divisions.

• Teams automatically qualify for the playoffs if they are among the top three finishers in five- and six-team leagues, or among the top four in seven-team leagues.

• Teams that do not finish high enough in their final standings to receive automatic qualification can petition for at-large berth consideration. There are no minimum criteria for at-large berth consideration. At-large entries will be accepted into divisions that do not have enough automatic qualifiers to fill a 32-team bracket; wild-card games will be created in a division only if there are more than 32 automatic qualifiers in that division, with the wild-card round designed to trim the number of automatic qualifiers to fit into a 32-team bracket.

• At-large teams, seedings and first-round pairings will be available upon release Sunday at ocvarsity.com. At-large playoff teams will be announced Sunday at 12:30 p.m. The release of brackets begins with the Open Division on Sunday at 1 p.m.

• The playoffs begin with first-round games and wild-card round games on Feb. 19. Championship games are March 7 and 8 at Azusa Pacific, Godinez High and Honda Center.

• How this panelist voted on the county top 10 going into this final week of the regular season: 1. Mater Dei; 2. El Toro; 3. Mission Viejo; 4. Los Alamitos; 5. Sonora; 6. Canyon; 7. JSerra; 8. Santa Margarita; 9. Orange Lutheran; 10. Foothill.

• Looking at this week’s top 11 – Dana Hills and Saddleback Valley Christian tied for 10th – and, from there, constructing a 12-25 ranking: 12. Orange Lutheran (13-12); 13. Edison (19-5); 14. Villa Park (15-10); 15. Western (20-5); 16. Tustin (18-6); 17. Corona del Mar (18-5); 18. Brea Olinda (18-9); 19. Trabuco Hillls (15-9); 20. Westminster (17-8); 21. Woodbridge (17-8); 22. Northwood (15-9); 23. Laguna Beach (19-5); 24. Servite (10-15); 25. Valencia (16-8).

• Servite appears to be the joker in that pack, being the only sub-.500 team there. Outside of the Trinity League, which has all of its six teams ranked in a CIF-SS division, Servite is 10-7. Servite has beaten three teams ranked higher in the top 25: Los Alamitos; Tustin; and Villa Park.

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com