Dave Rogahn with his northern California playoff team predictions

California JC basketball guru Dave Rogahn with his take on the upcoming community college playoffs:

The North:

1. San Francisco...um, pretty much unanimous. I mean, they're 27-1.

2. Feather River. 26-1 though with a lot less of a schedule than CCSF.

3. Fresno. Arguable for #2 though those 6 losses are a lot more than 1 loss.

4. Contra Costa. Despite the slip-up in the BVC tourney, at least in part because they beat...

5. Cosumnes River. Big 8 champs lost to Contra Costa in the Chabot tourney championship game.

6-8. I'd include both Chabot and Las Positas in this group, along with Coast-South co-champ Cabrillo. Not sure of the order except that Chabot goes in before Las Positas.

9-13. This group likely includes San Jose, West Hills, Butte, Monterey & Sequoias. SJCC goes in before MPC and West Hills goes in before COS for that conference finish rule.

14-16. Now it gets really tricky since it's time to talk about 2nd-place finishers Merritt (BVC) and Sierra (Big 8). They're both likely to get in, though they were a combined 10-20 pre-conference. I'm grouping them together for purposes of discussing this topic, but after Merritt (the likely higher seed) gets in I have Los Medanos going in before Sierra since I saw them beat Sierra in December.

17-18. The last 2 spots probably come down to two of Yuba, Santa Rosa & Columbia. I'm inclined to eliminate Yuba, which lost to Solano and Mendocino down the stretch, and they didn't beat any non-conference opponents I've mentioned here. Shasta gets in the discussion for its 15-12 record, but exits the discussion quickly as its only win against any other team on this list is its split with conference rival Butte.