ELAC 6th Straight North Men's Hoops Crown, Trio Grab Share Of South Title
East Los Angeles College continued its stranglehold on the South Coast Conference North Division in men's basketball, winning its sixth consecutive championship. The Huskies went undefeated in division play for the second straight season (8-0) and extended their conference win streak to 20 games going back to 2019.
ELAC, the state's current #8 ranked team, hasn't lost to a game v. fellow North opponents Los Angeles Trade-Tech, Mt. San Antonio, Pasadena City, and Rio Hondo going back to the 2018 season. The Huskies have 30 straight wins v. the four (its last division loss was v. Chaffey when the SCC hosted the college for a couple of years).
This season, ELAC's average margin of victory in division games was 33 points, including routs of 52 over Rio Hondo, and 57 and 62 over Pasadena. The Huskies are on a 16-game win streak overall.
Meanwhile, the South Division title was split three ways between state #21 LA Southwest (19-8), #27 Long Beach CC (16-11), and #35 Cerritos (17-9), all with 7-3 conference records. It was the third straight season that the South was a shared championship but first time that three teams tied for a conference title since 2014 (Cerritos, LA Harbor and Long Beach). A tri-champion has occurred four times in the 53-year history of South Coast basketball with the others in 2007 and 1982 (a whole conference that year).
LASW, LBCC and Cerritos all split their two games v. each other. Long Beach had a chance to win the title outright but lost to fifth-place LA Harbor, 63-57, in the division finale on Feb. 18.
For Cerritos, it was the Falcons 27th conference title in the sport, fourth in a row, and third straight shared championship. LA Southwest won its second in a row and sixth overall while Long Beach won for the 11th time in SCC history and first since 2019.
Compton (12-14) placed fourth in the South at 5-5, including earning close victories over both Cerritos (70-68) and LA Southwest (98-95). Harbor, 4-6 in the division, was 9-1 to open the '21-22 season, but had a see-saw conference run to finish with a 14-11 overall record. Hapless sixth-place El Camino gave up a 100 or more points in nine different losses this season, including four in division play and two others in conference where they allowed 98 points.
In the North, Mt. San Antonio (17-7, state #34) placed second (currently 5-2) with still one more division game remaining on Friday v. Rio Hondo. The bottom three teams in the North has had it rough with a combined overall record of 9-65 between LA Trade-Tech (third place, 4-4), fourth-place Rio Hondo and fifth-place Pasadena.
The SoCal Regional Playoff seedings of South Coast squads will be released via Twitter: @SouthCoastConf1. The All-SCC teams will be released next week on this website.
Release by Robert Lewis, SCC SID