ADVERTISEMENT

CCS Open update

colhenrylives

Hall of Famer
Sep 25, 2009
8,704
4,303
113
With Sequoia edging M-A, 68-65, Saturday in the PAL tourney finale, the question becomes: Will both teams wind up in in the CCS Open playoffs? Sequoia is a lock. M-A, the regular-season PAL South champion, beat Palo Alto. So is M-A a lock as well? Two teams from the PAL would be a bit of a shocker. Few saw that possibility coming.
 
With Sequoia edging M-A, 68-65, Saturday in the PAL tourney finale, the question becomes: Will both teams wind up in in the CCS Open playoffs? Sequoia is a lock. M-A, the regular-season PAL South champion, beat Palo Alto. So is M-A a lock as well? Two teams from the PAL would be a bit of a shocker. Few saw that possibility coming.

The PAL had more than one team last year, and is typically the only public school league that has had two teams on the board for consideration for the open. Typically it's been some combination of Burlingame, Half Moon Bay, M-A, and Sequoia. The PAL is a very large public school league, and traditionally Burlingame and HMB have been much better than this year. Not surprising IMO.

6 of the 8 teams are set - Bellarmine, SI, Mitty, St. Francis, Serra, Palma

I don't envy the people choosing 2 out of 3 between Sequoia, M-A, or Palo Alto. Sequoia is not a lock and it's quite possible they don't make it in. The problem are the head to heads and common opponents (key criteria in selection). Sequoia is 2-1 against M-A, but lost to Carlmont who Palo Alto drilled. Sequoia was not a league champion but a league tournament winner. M-A is 2-2 against Sequoia/PA and is the PAL South Champion. Palo Alto only has the loss to M-A (could make the argument if we played M-A 3 times like Sequoia we could've been 2-1 also), but has a much stronger resume than Sequoia and was a league champion.

How do you differentiate between them? M-A played a difficult schedule as did Palo Alto...Sequoia did not. Sequoia's only quality wins are the two wins over M-A whereas M-A and Palo Alto played multiple games against open teams. In the end I think M-A and Palo Alto have to get in over Sequoia based on their resumes. M-A gets seeded ahead of PA because of head to head win, and over Palma due to their win over HMB and Palma's loss to HMB earlier in the year. Bracket would be something like -

1. Bellarmine
2. SI
3. Mitty
4. Menlo-Atherton
5. St. Francis
6. Palma
7. Serra
8. Palo Alto
 
ncpfan,

I have to disagree with your picking M-A ahead of Sequoia. Sequoia won the head to head match up (2-1) which is the most important factor in my mind. In addition, they each won at home by about the same margin (11 vs. 10 points), but Sequoia won the most recent meeting on a neutral court, in the playoffs, with the tournament on the line. Enough said in my mind. Also, just because M-A scheduled tougher opponents in the pre-season, does not help them out in my mind, because they lost most of those tougher games (lost to Mission, Bellarmine, Mt Eden). So just because they scheduled tough opponents in the pre-season, so what? They lost those games. What are M-A's quality wins? Sequoia, HMB? Any others?
 
Sorry ncpfan,

I just realized that M-A did beat Palo Alto, but that was a Saturday, non-league game at M-A. To my mind Sequoia still should get the nod for Open because of the huge playoff win over M-A.
 
Regular season is given far more weight than a post season tournament

Hey Turtle,

It looks like you were wrong on this one. Sequoia got the #5 seed and M-A the #8 seed. So, it looks like the selection committee gave far more weight to Sequoia's post season tournament win over M-A than the regular season PAL South title of M-A.
 
Went to watch Bellarmine v SI. SI gave the game away late with bad shots and a bad timeout. How are the Bells so highly ranked, I realize their record is good, but quality wins are not there for me. Maybe they had a bad game. Should be interesting going into playoffs and Nor Cals.
 
The PAL had more than one team last year, and is typically the only public school league that has had two teams on the board for consideration for the open. Typically it's been some combination of Burlingame, Half Moon Bay, M-A, and Sequoia. The PAL is a very large public school league, and traditionally Burlingame and HMB have been much better than this year. Not surprising IMO.

6 of the 8 teams are set - Bellarmine, SI, Mitty, St. Francis, Serra, Palma

I don't envy the people choosing 2 out of 3 between Sequoia, M-A, or Palo Alto. Sequoia is not a lock and it's quite possible they don't make it in. The problem are the head to heads and common opponents (key criteria in selection). Sequoia is 2-1 against M-A, but lost to Carlmont who Palo Alto drilled. Sequoia was not a league champion but a league tournament winner. M-A is 2-2 against Sequoia/PA and is the PAL South Champion. Palo Alto only has the loss to M-A (could make the argument if we played M-A 3 times like Sequoia we could've been 2-1 also), but has a much stronger resume than Sequoia and was a league champion.

How do you differentiate between them? M-A played a difficult schedule as did Palo Alto...Sequoia did not. Sequoia's only quality wins are the two wins over M-A whereas M-A and Palo Alto played multiple games against open teams. In the end I think M-A and Palo Alto have to get in over Sequoia based on their resumes. M-A gets seeded ahead of PA because of head to head win, and over Palma due to their win over HMB and Palma's loss to HMB earlier in the year. Bracket would be something like -

1. Bellarmine
2. SI
3. Mitty
4. Menlo-Atherton
5. St. Francis
6. Palma
7. Serra
8. Palo Alto

I did misspeak here. I meant it's eye-opening to see two Open teams from the same PAL public school district. In essence, half the schools in the Sequoia Union High School District are in the Open this year. Nice work. I remain chastened.
 
Went to watch Bellarmine v SI. SI gave the game away late with bad shots and a bad timeout. How are the Bells so highly ranked, I realize their record is good, but quality wins are not there for me. Maybe they had a bad game. Should be interesting going into playoffs and Nor Cals.

The Bells might be the worst team to ever go through WCAL league play undefeated! I have only seen them a few times this year - vs SHCP when they should have lost albeit without Wojcik and last night against SI and haven't been impressed.

For NorCals they'll be in the Open Division so we'll see what they're made of soon enough. Maxpreps has them ranked #6 in state (highest ranked NorCal team) and 15 in nation.....
 
I did misspeak here. I meant it's eye-opening to see two Open teams from the same PAL public school district. In essence, half the schools in the Sequoia Union High School District are in the Open this year. Nice work. I remain chastened.

Gotcha - Sequoia Union District has Carlmont, Woodside, M-A, and Sequoia. Two teams from that district to be considered top teams in CCS (M-A back to back years) is an accomplishment.

While I thought Palo Alto would get in, I'm not surprised and you can't argue with Sequoia/M-A being the two teams that were chosen. Little baffled by Palma being seeded above M-A (especially since M-A was 1-0 against HMB and Palma was 1-1 against HMB).
 
  • Like
Reactions: pines6969
Bad decision to seed MA 8. It should have been Sequoia 5, MA 6, Serra 7 and Palma 8. I know that Palma has a legit point guard but stated previously they split with Hmb and MA handled half moon bay. Paly had no argument to get in once sequoia beat MA for the second time Saturday night in the PAL final.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pines6969
Leaving out Palo Alto of Open was disingenuous. PA lost to MA but that is a small sample. THey lost to Bellarmine at Bellarmine by 3 in a game that was back and forth. Very close in talent. PA lost to SF by 3 in their tournament. ANother game decided in the last seconds. PALO ALTO could easily win OPEN just like 3 or 4 other teams.

D1 is a lock for Paly. I know they lost to LG last week but it was one of those nights. Paly didn't shoot that well and LG hit some shots. I look forward to watching them play in the finals. I can see Piedmont upsetting LG in the semifinals.
 
Togos

First let me say that the selection committee had a very tough job selecting between M-A, Sequoia, and Paly.

But, I think they got it right. When I look at Paly's schedule, I don't see a signature win. And while they had some close losses against a generally down WCAL, they lost 2 of their last 4 games- the last loss to Los Gatos probably knocked them out of the Open. If they beat LG, I think they are in Open.
 
  • Like
Reactions: colhenrylives
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT