UPDATE, 10:59 a.m. Tuesday: I've just been corrected on this post, so if you saw it last night when it first went up, here's the correction: Bakersfield has been awarded the CIF State Basketball Championships for 2010 only. The finals return to Sacramento in 2011 and then will be put back up for bid in 2012. I've changed all references to the CIF's normal three-year window below, but I wanted to avoid any confusion in case you'd already read this.

ORIGINAL POST: So I just spent a frantic, fun, four-day March Madness weekend in Las Vegas, watching about 30 hours of college basketball alongside chain-smoking people who had a heck of a lot more money riding on the game on TV than I did — and yet somehow remained a lot calmer than me throughout the whole thing.

So, other than watching my team reach the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since I was a freshman there (good) and getting no sleep (expected, but not so good), I found time to check my e-mail one night and saw that Bakersfield had been awarded the CIF State Basketball Championships for next year (March 2010). The tourney will return to ARCO Arena in Sacramento in 2011, then be put back up for bid, as I understand it. I'm told the 2010 tournament in Bako is a kind of test run for the CIF — if attendance increases and the tournament runs smoothly (and perhaps if some big-wig coaches like or don't mind the drive here) you could see it coming back in 2012 and/or beyond.

That's a pretty nice boon for the Bakersfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, the community and for Rabobank Arena, which is quickly becoming the high school championships capital of California (well, at least for winter sports next year). It also means that as long as my job duties remain the same, I won't be taking a return March Madness trip to Vegas, considering the state tournament is the same weekend.

That's OK. The high school state tournament is a March Madness event of its own. And there will be, no doubt about it, some great players coming through Rabobank next year (who knows about after  that — the tournament has been in Sacramento for the past 12 years).

Here's a partial list I compiled of guys who have been to the CIF state games — and keep in mind, the games have only been held since 1981, meaning Californians like Bill Russell, Gail Goodrich, Marques Johnson, Paul Silas and Dennis Johnson never had a chance:

Tyson Chandler
Baron Davis
Drew Gooden
Chuck Hayes
Amir Johnson
Jason Kidd
Andre Miller
Reggie Miller
Tayshaun Prince
DeShawn Stevenson

That's a pretty nice list, and like I said, it's only partial. There are certainly some guys who have played in the last few years who will be household names in the next five or 10 years, too.

So the California high school version of March Madness ain't bad. And the best part for those of us in Kern County is that it's coming to an arena near you.