LJ BB: Power ranking chart

By Ed Piper

To La Jolla's credit, even though the Vikings were getting smoked 21-2 at the outset at St. Augustine Feb. 16 and it looked like they might never score again, they fought back and outscored the ranked Saints in the second quarter 13-11.

In fact, in garbage time in the second half after the game was well out of hand and the hosts had inserted subs, La Jolla once again didn't see fit to mail it in, instead trimming a 28-point bulge down to the final 15-point margin.

The "old college try" doesn't put another marker in the win column, but it may well do so down the line.

In Viking coach Paul Baranowski's brain, there is a chart. It is titled "Division II Power Rankings". It is a fax in his mind of the same chart on the CIF San Diego Section website.

On it are only teams La Jolla would have to vie with in the CIF playoffs beginning Wed., Feb. 24. At this writing, La Jolla has a 44.72 power ranking. That's good for third, behind West Hills (45.32) and Country Day (45.26). If those results were to hold up through Friday's finale at home against Scripps Ranch, the Vikings would enter the playoffs with a home game with the third seed.

That is what P.B. in P.B. is working toward. There is a method to his madness.

All the losses to Cathedral Catholic, and St. Augustine, and Mission Bay--they count, and they're important. But the only way they affect La Jolla's destiny is in the seeding dictated by the power rankings.

When these opponents do better in other games, it raises La Jolla's strength of schedule rating, and thus the power ranking. You can all pray for these teams to trounce their opponents Friday.

If you're not doing it already, you can follow this decimal-point-by-decimal-point parade by going to the cifsds.org website, clicking on Sport, clicking on Boys Basketball, then clicking on Power Rankings. (You can probably do it a much easier way.) Then in the provided blanks, supply Boys Basketball and Division 2, and voila, your up-to-the-minute chart. You can even put it in your own head.