Regionals format will change for 2010

It's been a hectic week for boys and girls basketball teams in the CIF Southern California Regionals. They finished CIF-Southern Section play late last week, many of them on Saturday, then launched into the state tournament, some as quickly as Monday.

For the teams in the Division I Regionals, there was the potential this week for four games in six days, with some long bus trips also possible. Given that schedule, some NBA guys would quit playing (and frequent viewing of TNT and Prime Ticket reveals that some already have, and in HD, too).

Next year, the Regionals will be spread out over two weeks. That means the season will be one week longer, by pushing the CIF State Championships back a week. But it would be better for the young people playing the games, for their health and their academics.

There will be more teams in the Regionals, too, with 16-team brackets in all five divisions. This year, only Division I had a 16-team bracket with the other four having eight-team brackets.

CIF Southern California Regionals tournament director Dean Crowley, also a former CIF-Southern Section commissioner, said the first week of the 2010 Regionals would be a first-round game on either Tuesday or Wednesday, the second round on Saturday, then the second week would have the semifinals on Tuesday and the Regionals finals on Saturday. Regionals finals winners, as usual, would represent Southern California against Northern California Regionals winners in the CIF State finals the following week.

"That will really help with travel," Crowley said. "This year, we had teams play away games on Monday night but spend the night around here to play the next night. We don't want kids missing school."

Crowley would like to see that first-round game on Wednesday to allow teams a bit more time to rest and decompress after going through the rigorous section playoffs.

A few things need to be worked out, like the number of entries per section in the divisions. The CIF-Southern Section now gets eight entries in Division I and four in the other four divisions (Division I has Los Angeles City Section entries). There still will be eight Southern Section entries in Division I next year, but in the other four divisions there could be six and perhaps even eight entries from the Southern Section.

Taking a look around Orange County high school sports:

•It did not take long for a huge game to pop up in baseball. At Hart Park in Orange, Friday at 6: Mater Dei vs. Capistrano Valley in the championship game of the Lerner Bracket in the Newport Elks Tournament. There are a zillion interesting aspects to this game, including Mater Dei at No. 2 and Capistrano Valley at No. 3 in our preseason rankings; Mater Dei coach Burt Call played under Capistrano Valley coach Bob Zamora when Call was a three-sport star at Capo; and Mater Dei beat Capistrano Valley in last year's CIF-SS Division I quarterfinals.

County baseball preseason No. 1 El Toro lost to Loara in the quarterfinals in the Loara Tournament on Tuesday. These season-opening tournaments are good for figuring out which teams have pitching depth and they establish momentum as teams soon jump into league play. But we have seen teams play great in the Loara or Newport Elks tournaments then play not-so-great when it matters most, in the playoffs, and we have seen teams stumble in the tournaments but catch fire in the playoffs.

Loara Tournament final: Saturday at 7 p.m., at Glover Stadium in Anaheim.

Bolsa Grande's baseball team ended a 35-game losing streak by beating Saddleback Valley Christian, 3-1, in a nonleague game last Friday. The Matadors then started a winning steak Tuesday with a 12-3 nonleague victory over Dominguez of Compton.

Ticket prices for Regionals finals games, in Divisions I, II and II for boys and girls basketball at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, range from $10 for children, students with student ID and senior citizens, to $16 for general admission, $20 for arena level seating, and $40 for courtside sitting. I saw Lew Alcindor's first game in Southern California as a pro, in 1970, Bucks vs. Lakers, at the Forum for $2.50.