Final CCCSIA regular season rankings reflect upcoming regional playoff seeds

The California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) postseason begins tonight for women’s basketball.  San Joaquin Delta College (Stockton, Calif.) is the No. 1 seed for North Region.  Leading the South is Mt. San Antonio College (Walnut, Calif.).

The top seeds in the other North brackets are No. 2 Sierra College (Rocklin, Calif.), No. 3 City College of San Francisco and No. 4 Fresno City College.  Home court advantage in South Region also goes to No. 2 Irvine Valley College (Irvine, Calif.), No. 3 Moorpark College, and No. 4 Palomar College (San Marcos, Calif.).

San Joaquin Delta and Sierra tied for the Big 8 championship.  Delta swept Sierra, but Delta lost to Santa Rosa and Modesto Junior College to knot both at two losses.  The uppsetters tied for third.  Santa Rosa was awarded the No. 7 North seed, No. 11 for Modesto.  A tough schedule didn’t prevent Folsom Lake College (11-15; Folsom, Calif.) from being seeded No. 15 by the North Region Seeding Committee.

South Coast Conference North Division was swept by Mt. San Antonio.  No. 6 South seed East Los Angeles College (Monterey Park, Calif.) nearly shared the title with a season finale 59-53 loss.  Only one SCC North team did not make the postseason lineup with No. 13 Los Angeles Trade-Technical College and No. 15 Rio Hondo College (Whittier, Calif).

Long Beach City College defeated Cerritos College 68-62 to split their season series and share the SCC South Division title.  The higher seeding went to No. 9 Long Beach with No. 18 going to Cerritos.

Only Orange Coast College (Costa Mesa, Calif.) could come within 20 points of the Orange Empire Conference champ Irvine Valley.  No. 10-South Orange Coast and No. 12 Cypress College tied for second after winning on each others’ court.

No. 13-North Chabot College (Hayward, Calif.) prevented No. 8 Skyline College (San Bruno, Calif.) from matching San Francisco’s Coast Conference North Division leading record.  College of San Mateo was a distant fourth, but the strength of their preconference schedule landed the No. 12 seed.

Coast South was led by No. 18-North Monterey Peninsula College (Monterey, Calif.).  Four games had a single-digit margin and MPC won all four.

No. 11-South Ventura College reached up and snared a tie with Moorpark for the Western State Conference North Division crown.  Allan Hancock College (Santa Maria, Calif.) was seeded 16th after avoiding upsets and not upsetting Ventura nor Moorpark.

After starting their WSC South schedule in last place with two losses, Glendale Community College won the remaining dozen contests to get the No. 5-South seed.   No. 7 College of the Canyons (Santa Clarita, Calif.) and No. 8 Bakersfield College tied for second place with 8-4 records.

Unusually, the third place team in Central Valley Conference earned the highest seed amongst its membership.  Fresno slotted in two spots ahead of champion No. 6 College of the Sequoias. Second place Merced College was awarded the No. 10 North seed.  State host West Hills Lemoore College has a tough road to a home game at State with the No. 16 seed.

Palomar dominated Pacific Coast Conference.  The only other PCAC quintet to make the postseason was Southwestern College (El Cajon, Calif.) who tied for second and snared the last South Region seed.

Butte College (Oroville, Calif.) was given the No. 5 North seed after getting a perfect record in Golden Valley Conference.  No. 14 College of the Redwoods (Eureka, Calif.) was three games behind.  College of the Siskiyous (Weed, Calif.) had a .500 record and was seeded No. 17.

Bay Valley Conference only got one team into the playoffs.  No. 9-North Laney College (Oakland, Calif.) beat all-comers with 16 BVC wins.  COVID protocols had Laney end the season with eight games in 12 days.  Three had margins within ten points.

Mt. San Jacinto College (Hemet, Calif.) tied for the Inland Emprie Athletic Conference top spot.  They were seeded No. 14 South.  Co-champ Victor Valley College landed the No. 17 seed.

The 37 teams play regionals this week tonight, Thursday, and Saturday.  Next week is the CCCAA Championship at West Hills Lemoore College in Lemoore, Calif.  All rounds begin at 1 p.m. on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday; March 10, 12-13.

(Greg Murphy, CCCWBCA)