CIF official addresses questions about 2026 state basketball tournament

The state basketball playoffs are set. 

After months of league games, showcases and a section postseason, the remaining teams will now fight to end their season at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, holding a state championship trophy. 

The brackets aren’t a perfect science and some teams will get a better draw than others. 

The CIF uses a competitive equity model for seeding that ranks teams from best to worst and divides them into separate divisions with the Open brackets being where the state’s strongest teams are placed. From there, the next 16 highest-ranked teams are placed into Division I and on down through Division V. 

The top seed in every division will receive home games throughout the playoffs while the No. 16 seed will have to go on the road for four games in order to make it to Golden 1 Center.

Archbishop Riordan (Open) and Mission San Jose (Division V) were awarded top seeds after winning section titles. St. Mary’s-Berkeley (Division II) and Carlmont (Division III) were in the unfortunate spot of receiving the last seed in their respective divisions. 

On the girls side, Archbishop Mitty (Open) and Cornerstone Christian received top seeds. Cornerstone is not eligible to win a state title as the Antioch school was put in the NorCal Division VI bracket. 

With seedings now finalized after the CIF state basketball seeding meetings – and plenty of questions from coaches, players and fans about how the regional pairings came together – CIF associate executive director Brian Seymour spoke with the Bay Area News Group on Sunday night to unpack the process and the biggest issues on the table heading into March’s one-and-done tournament.

Here’s the highlights: 

Nathan Canilao: De La Salle was awarded a spot in the Open Division even though it lost in the NCS Open semifinals. Clayton Valley made it to the finals, but was given the No. 2 seed in Division I. What was the reasoning behind giving De La Salle an Open spot and putting Clayton Valley in Division I?

Brian Seymour: De La Salle contacted both the commissioner of the North Coast Section and our office and expressed that they would like to play in the open division regardless of where their finish was in the NCS Open Division. We don’t often get that. We thought that was really kind of a cool thing. We knew that there was going to be room in that division, and so we went ahead and did that. The decision to put in teams in the open, or not to put teams in the open, we have a whole metric of things to weed that out. So it just so happened that De La Salle wanted to do that. So we said, no problem.

Nathan Canilao: Have you ever had a school reach out to say that we would like to be in a certain division regardless of where we finish in the section playoffs? Has the state ever had a request like that?

Brian Seymour: We’ve had some schools that have said that they would rather play in the highest division whenever possible. It’s not too far of a stretch to look at De lLa Salle’s overall body of work, and who they played, and how they did and how they fared one way or the other. It’s not a stretch for them to be competitive in the open division.

Nathan Canilao: In terms of Clayton Valley, was the reasoning for not getting the one seed the head-to-head loss to Buchanan? 

Brian Seymour: Yeah. And with Buchanan, with their section final against St. Joseph-Santa Maria, it was just better for the tournament for those schools to be placed in Division I. 

Nathan Canilao: Speaking of St. Joseph-Santa Maria, this is its third year in a row being placed in the South Division. Is it fair to say that’s where they’ll be moving forward? 

Brian Seymour: Yeah. They’re in Santa Barbara County. I do understand they compete in the central section. But if you look at our past history, for the most part, for all of the central section schools, and regardless of what sport it is, whenever we’ve had schools that are Kern county, Santa Barbara County and further south, we’ve tried to keep them closer to this to the south region. It doesn’t always work out, but that’s what we’ve attempted.

Nathan Canilao: When putting together the brackets, are multiple games played against an opponent factor into how teams are seeded, especially in the first round? 

Brian Seymour: We try whenever possible (to avoid rematches). Certainly in the first round. There are some times where it’s not possible. That wouldn’t be our preference. But we didn’t feel as if there were any other schools that were worthy. I don’t want to use the word worthy, because they’re all good. But it seemed like when we analyzed everything, it was just going to be those schools that are in the Open. For instance, this year in the girls Open Division, we have to have Carondelet and San Ramon Valley play again. Would rather not be that way with that wouldn’t be our preference. But it just, it just seemed like, when we analyzed everything, that was the end part, it was just going to be those schools that are in the open.

Nathan Canilao: How much stock is put into a section championship when it comes to seeding?

Brian Seymour: Look at it this way. So you’re at a point where someone maybe has an upset in the section final. And the section says, ‘OK, that team won the section final, we’re going to move that team ahead in our pecking order,’ and that has an outcome on where that team really should have been in our regional brackets. So we have to then kind of look and see, OK, how can we make this work? We’re dealing with 10 different sections that have 10 different section playoff formulas. There is not one that is the same as the others. It’s important for them at the section level to create a playoff program that works for their section schools. When you’re at the state level, you’re trying to take all 10 different variables and apply them to the regionals. And of course it won’t be perfect, right? So, we acknowledge that, but it is important. I think we are moving to more of a total body of work. I’ll give you an example, Oakland High school boys defeated Oakland Tech handily twice this year, but they played in the section championship and Oakland Tech beat them by one point. If we take Oakland Tech’s one win and we apply it and move them ahead of Oakland. They’re in a division that they’re not going to compete well in. I give very good props to the Oakland Section commissioner. He said ‘One game does not make a season. We’re still going to move Oakland High School as our top team,’ and you see that reflected in the bracket. Oakland’s in D1 where they belong Oakland Tech is in D2 where they belong.

Nathan Canilao: The state went with five Open Division teams in the NorCal side of the bracket. Did the state believe there was not a sixth team that warranted consideration into the Open?

Brian Seymour: Right. We did not think that there would be a sixth team.

Nathan Canilao: How much does travel play into deciding the matchups? 

Brian Seymour: With a 16-team bracket, 1-8 we try to protect the seeds. Once we get into seeds 10-16, we look at travel. And as you know, the state of California is massive and sometimes long travel is unavoidable. We have plenty of examples of teams going from the Bay Area all the way up to as far as Trinity (County). We have teams coming from Redding and Eureka and traveling as far down to Santa Cruz. But we do whenever possible, try to without altering the integrity of the bracket, we do take that into consideration.

Nathan Canilao: On the Southern end of the girls Open bracket, how much did Ontario Christian’s loss to Sierra Canyon play into effect when seeding the South? 

Brian Seymour: That’s what it came down to. Nathan, you understand what girls basketball is in this state. Ontario Christian, Sierra Canyon, Etiwanda, Mitty, those teams are elite national teams. There were four teams and the South that were very clear. That’s what it’s going to be. It’s unfortunate that it’s a repeat of the section’s own section playoffs, but that’s the way our current system works, and that was the right decision.

Nathan Canilao: It certainly felt like Riordan’s section championship made them the clear favorite to be the No. 1 seed in the boys Open Division. Did the state feel the same way when deciding between Riordan and Salesian? 

Brian Seymour: Yeah, but it was clear with everything that we looked at that Riordan had the better metrics. Slightly above Salesian. 

Nathan Canilao: Final question for you, Granada got the No. 3 seed in Division II. With the schedule they had and their performance in the NCS Division I final, was there any thought into putting them as one of the last seeds in Division I? 

Brian Seymour: The top half of the Division II bracket, we debated them for hours. Granada was one of those teams. So, with the bottom of the Division I bracket and the top of the Division II bracket, we went back and forth with all the information. It was by a very, very, very small margin that Jesuit was the end point for the D1 and so the other schools started at D2.