In some seasons, it is easy to select the Orange County boys basketball player of the year.

Stanley Johnson made that choice an easy one in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons, his junior and senior years at Mater Dei.

County boys basketball has no Stanley Johnson this season.

Here are the top three candidates, as of now and in alphabetical order, for county boys basketball player of the year for the 2023-24 season …

Luke Barnett, Mater Dei, So., G >> He has become Mater Dei’s most-reliable offensive player since injury took Branon Martinsen out of the Monarchs lineup last month. Martinsen would be a county player of the year candidate had his broken tibia not kept him out of the playoffs. Barnett is a great outside shooter, with 102 3-point shots made, and is improving on the defensive end.

Aidan Fowler, JSerra, Sr., G >> Fowler had one of the season’s better individual games when he scored 36 points in the Lions’ first win over Mater Dei on Jan. 24. He is an excellent outside shooter and quick on the drive, but has tapered off in recent weeks. JSerra is the No. 1 team in the final Orange County rankings. Often the best player on the county’s best team is the county player of the year.

Collin Haugh, Dana Hills, Jr., G >> He leads Orange County in scoring at 26 points a game. Haugh made 55 percent of his shots and led the Dolphins to a 24-5 record and the Sea View League championship with a 9-0 league record. And Haugh made 135 of his 285 3-point shots, for 47 percent.

Notes

• JSerra’s boys basketball team was 13 of 48 (27 percent) on all shots and 2 of 19 (11 percent) on 3-point shots in the Lions’ 41-39 loss to Rolling Hills Prep in the CIF Southern California Regional Division I first round Tuesday. …

• Maybe Mater Dei girls basketball assistant coach Jody Wynn, who was head coach for Long Beach State and Washington women’s basketball, runs the Monarchs program while Kevin Kiernan, who got his 900th career win Wednesday two days after he announced he is resigning, gets his vocal cords and other body parts repaired … and Kiernan, 64, resumes coaching Mater Dei in 2025 or ’26 or …

• If the discussion is greatest coach in Orange County high school sports history, Kiernan has to be in the first sentence and without many commas preceding his name. …

• The Fountain Valley boys wrestling’s ninth-place finish in the team standings in the CIF State meet is the first Top-10 finish for an Orange County public school since Villa Park did so in 2002. …

• In girls wrestling team scoring, Newport Harbor, led by senior Duda Rodrigues’ dominating run at 155 pounds to a second straight state title (she never lost a high school match in her two seasons of CIF wrestling), finished second with 87 points to first-place Walnut’s 96 points. Santa Ana was 10th with 42 points. …

• Corona del Mar’s boys volleyball team, No. 1 in the Orange County preseason rankings, defeated No. 7 San Clemente in three sets in the best-of-three finals to win the Tesoro Tournament’s Gold Division championship. No. 4 Newport Harbor beat No. 6 Edison in the third-place match. Corona del Mar senior Sterling Foley, who signed with USC, was named tournament MVP.