Most of the intrigue among the big boys in California was where will Central Section juggernaut St. Joseph of Santa Maria end up in the CIF California State Tournament.

The California Interscholastic Federation just released its brackets and placed the Knights (31-1), ranked as high as No. 15 nationally, in the South as the No. 2 seed behind Southern Section Open champion Roosevelt (32-2) at No. 1. The Knights went ahead of No. 3 Notre Dame-Sherman Oaks (26-7), No. 4 and two time defending Open champion Harvard-Westlake (30-2), No. 5 St. John Bosco (26-6) and No. 6 Montgomery (29-2), the San Diego Section champion.

Central Section teams can be slotted North or South and it’s something the Knights know all too well. This is their fourth straight year being selected to the Open, and for the third time they’ve gone South. The other two years they were eliminated either in the first or semifinal round.

To the press, including their star player Tounde Yessofou, the state’s career scoring leader, the Knights say they were happy to go either direction. Privately, it’s known they would have preferred the pass of lesser resistance to the North, though it’s no cakewalk there either.

That made Riordan (27-1), with perhaps the most dominante team in Central Coast Section history, the obvious choice at No. 1 in the North, which is only a five-team Open tournament.

Joining the Crusaders are No. 2 De La Salle, No. 3 Folsom, No. 4 Salesian and No. 5 Modesto Christian, the latter two meeting in a first round game on Wednesday. The rest of the North have first-round byes.