Pasadena City College and Santa Rosa Junior College Are #1 Region Playoff Seeds

[ February 21, 2005 Poll ]

The top-ranked colleges in last week's region polls are the top seeds in the regional part of the 2004-2005 COA Tournament. Pasadena leads the south in seedings as well as the state in the final CCCWBCA Poll. Santa Rosa is third in the state poll and received the number one seed for North Region. The rest of the top five in the poll remained the same as the previous two weeks with Antelope Valley College in second, Riverside Community College in fourth, and the number five ranking going to San Jose City College.

The South Region Game of the Week was all that stood between Pasadena and an undefeated regular season. Mt. San Antonio forged a small lead which Pasadena could not overcome. Mt. San Antonio clinched home-court advantage in their region bracket with the 70-68 triumph, shared the South Coast North Division title with the Lancers and moved to #6 in the state poll. El Camino College and Cerritos College are co-champions of South Division after both had a win and a bye last week. El Camino is the only state-ranked team of the pair at a tie for 16th.

Antelope Valley ran their California-leading winning streak to 19 games as they finished Foothill Conference undefeated. Pasadena (25-1) has the best win average, but Antelope Valley's record (28-2) is a game better. Chaffey College is the runner-up with their only two conference losses being to the champs.

Riverside completed their worst-to-first comeback in Orange Empire Conference. After dropping their first two games, they won the rest of their 14-game schedule to take the title by a game. Fullerton shares second with Cypress after both colleges skated to a pair of double-digit wins. Fullerton has the six seed and Cypress is right behind at seven. Both open regionals at home.

There were two three-way ties for championships in COA this season. The first came on Friday night. Mission College swept the season series versus Foothill College with a home 59-44 win. City College of San Francisco joined the tie with a De Anza victory with a 6-2 Coast Conference North Division record. The triumvirate were tied in an unusual fashion as Mission swept Foothill who swept CCSF who swept Mission. San Jose converted last week's South Division share clinching to an outright championship on Wednesday. They defeated second-place Monterey Peninsula College 74-69 to win their league by three games.

Santa Rosa guaranteed themselves a playoff position by scoring 100 against Los Medanos College's 27 Tuesday night. Solano Community College got second and came close to giving the Bear Cubs their only loss in Bay Valley Conference Bay Division, but fell 70-63. Contra Costa College qualified for the playoffs with their third-place finish and two 20-plus point victories. Sierra College shared the Valley Division crown with San Joaquin Delta College as expected. Delta got the higher seed as the number five team of the north. Sierra was awarded the seven-seed. Sacramento City College was the final school seeded at #18.

The other triple tie for a championship was in Golden Valley Conference. The tie was a conventional one as Butte, Lassen and Shasta colleges split their home-and-homes against each other. The clincher was the North Region Game of the Week when Lassen defeated Shasta at home on the final day of the season on Saturday by a score of 79-59. Lassen was seeded sixth with Mission making the long drive to Susanville. The seeding committee put Butte at #10, but moved them to 11th to avoid a same-conference, first-round opponent in Lassen. Shasta will hit the road as #12.

After clinching Western State Conference South Division, Citrus College lost their final two games, this week against Glendale Community College, and possibly missed having a first-round home game. They were seeded tenth in South Region. Runner-up Bakersfield College is #12 and College of the Canyons got fourteenth. The North Division top four finished in the order with the same division records as three years ago. Ventura College won the championship by four games over tied Santa Barbara and Moorpark Colleges. Only two of the three were seeded with Ventura in eighth and Moorpark squeaking by at #17 after a final-game upset by Cuesta College.

Reedley College stayed alive in the race for Central Valley Conference champion Wednesday night with a home 71-612 win over Porterville College.
The hope ended with Porterville defeating Fresno City College on Saturday, 89-71. Porterville took their title to a #3 North seeding. Central Valley Conference has the biggest representation in the playoffs for any division with five earning seedings. The other four were not seeded high enough to get a first-round home game, those being Reedley (9), College of the Sequoias (14, moved to 13), Merced College (16) and Fresno City College (17).

Imperial Valley College had no wins over the current ranked teams, but came close with single-possession losses to Foothill, Porterville, Lassen and Antelope Valley. The strength gained from those games had them sweep Pacific Coast Conference this season and earned them the 11th seed for the South. Grossmont College narrowly avoided an upset by Palomar College on Saturday to be second-place at 8-2. Grossmont got the final seed and Palomar just missed getting selected.

Playoffs expand to 18 teams per region this season. They begin with the Play-in Round on Wednesday. It is a bit of a misnomer as those teams are in the playoffs, but are playing into the next round. The first round takes place this weekend. The final round of regionals are Saturday next week. State Finals are going to be held at University of San Diego in the Jenny Craig Pavilion with quarterfinals on Friday, March 11 and the championship game slated for 3:30 pm, Sunday, March 13.

Greg Murphy gregm@altair.csustan.edu