war630

The War on the Floor, the big summer tournament held each year at Chatsworth High, got underway yesterday for pool play, and it was somewhat of a dubious start for some of the teams. In the second of the morning games, Dominguez and Tyson Chandler were scheduled to play Canoga Park, but the Dons were a no-show, reportedly because Dons coach Russell Otis was meeting with Kenny Brunner's lawyer in preparation for presenting Kenny's defense. In a sidebar, the Daily News reported this morning that Bunner is scheduled to go to trial this week, and confirmed that Dominguez didn't show because Otis was meeting with Brunner's lawyers.

Sylmar played the next game against Granada Hills, and really whupped them. George Wrighster (6'-6" Sr. F) had 13 points, Jeremiah Turner (6'-6" Sr. F) had 12, and Joe Youman (6'-7" Sr. C) had another 10, and the best part was they played D-E-F-E-N-S-E. Sylmar won the City 3-A title last year, but you'd never know it, and it seems they want to play with the big boys this year in 4-A and potentially compete for something beyond a City title (3A doesn't advance beyond City to CIF). Grant's Gilbert Arenas (6'-5" Sr. G/F) didn't play for Sylmar, or for anyone else for that matter, so maybe the reported threats from Howie Levine, Grant coach, got through to Gil. . . maybe they didn't, and he just decided to take the day off. We'll see what happens in the next few days, because Gil leaves anyway on Friday for the ABCD camp in New Jersey.

In some of the other games, Harvard-Westlake just squeaked by Chatsworth, Notre Dame also beat Burbank by just a couple of points, and Montclair got hammered by Simi Valley which was playing without Raphael Berumen who is out wth an achilles injury and without Brett Michel. Sean Michel played as did Branduinn Fullove, but Fullove looks to be about 10-15 pounds overweight and just seemed a bit sluggish in his play. But it didn't matter, since Montclair, which returns just about no one from their playoff team only had 2 points in the first half. . . that's right, only 2 points. We didn't stay for the second game, because the outcome was already a foregone conclusion, and it was the last game of the day.

Hopefully we'll have more today. Here's the pool play schedule for yesterday, today, and Wednesday. Once the pool play is finished, it will be single-elimination in the championship bracket. We've also got the pools, so you know who's seeded against whom.

Pool A	Pool B	Pool C	Pool D	Pool E
Dominguez Clovis West Crespi Canoga Park	Sylmar Buchanan Kennedy Granada Hills	Cleveland Cetennial Santa Monica Taft	Inglewood Notre Dame Burbank Valencia	Simi Valley Harvard-Westlake Chatsworth Montclair Prep

Here's the complete schedule for pool play. We'll try to post the complete results this afternoon or tomorrow.

Monday
10:30 a.m.	Crespi v. Clovis West
12:00 p.m	Dominguez v. Canoga Park
1:10 p.m.	Buchanan v. Kennedy
2:15 p.m.	Sylmar v. Granada Hills
3:20 p.m.	Cleveland v. Taft
4:25 p.m.	Centennial v. Santa Monica
5:30 p.m.	Inglewood v. Valencia
6:50 p.m.	Notre Dame v. Burbank
7:55 p.m.	Harvard-Westlake v. Chatsworth
9:00 p.m.	Simi Valley v. Montclair Prep

Tuesday

10:30 a.m.	Crespi v. Dominguez
12:00 p.m	Clovis West v. Canoga Park
1:10 p.m.	Buchanan v. Granada Hills
2:15 p.m.	Sylmar v. Kennedy
3:20 p.m.	Centennial v. Taft
4:25 p.m.	Cleveland v. Santa Monica
5:30 p.m.	Notre Dame v. Valencia
6:50 p.m.	Inglewood v. Burbank
7:55 p.m.	Harvard-Westlake v. Montclair Prep
9:00 p.m.	Simi Valley v. Chatsworth

Wednesday

10:30 a.m.	Crespi v. Canoga Park
12:00 p.m	Clovis West v. Dominguez
1:10 p.m.	Sylmar v. Buchanan
2:15 p.m.	Granada Hills v. Kennedy
3:20 p.m.	Santa Monica v. Taft
4:25 p.m.	Cleveland v. Centennial
5:30 p.m.	Notre Dame v. Inglewood
6:50 p.m.	Valenciav. Burbank
7:55 p.m.	Chatsworth v. Montclair Prep
9:00 p.m.	Simi Valley v.Harvard-Westlake