Every year, on the Sunday after the Kentucky Derby, the Louisville Courier-Journal features its Super Five high school basketball teams.

A first team of five players is named, along with second, third, fourth and fifth teams.

This year’s top five players are not really a surprise for those who follow basketball, but what is unusual is not one has signed with an SEC or Atlantic Coast Conference school.

Yet, two signed with Pacific-10 teams.

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O. J. Mayo, widely considered the top player in the country, is a 6-5 scoring machine who finished his high school career at Huntington, W. Va., where he averaged 29. 6 points. Next year he will play for Tim Floyd at Southern Cal.

Kevin Love, 6-10, is from Lake Osego, Ore., where he averaged 17 points. He will attend UCLA.

Eric Gordon, a 6-4 guard from Indianapolis, averaged 29 points. He will be staying close to home after choosing Indiana.

Michael Beasley, is a 6-9 forward / center from Fitchburg, Mass., who averaged 28 points. He will play at Kansas State.

Derrick Rose, a 6-3 Chicago guard, averaged 25 points and nine rebounds and will play at Memphis next season.

So far the SEC has inked only two of the top 25. Nick Calathes, a second-teamer, will play at Florida and Anthony Randolph, named to the fourth team, will play for John Brady at LSU.

Of the top 25 players, Duke scored the most players with three.

Only one of the top 25 players, Patrick Patterson, has not committed. He was heavily recruited by Kentucky’s Billy Gillispie and others.

Cleaning out the Kentucky Derby notebook: If seven was your lucky number and you bet a $ 2 Pick 6 ticket with all sevens last Saturday, you would have won the consolation with five winners, which paid a nice $ 1, 263.

The actual numbers were, in order, were 7, 7, 3, 7, 7, 7. Forecast for Derby Day was scattered showers, but the thirdlargest crowd in Derby history (156, 635 ) showed and got nary a drop of rain on them.

The record attendance of 163, 628 was set on the 100 th anniversary of the Derby in 1974. In the past couple of decades, Derby Fever has turned the Run for the Roses into crowded fields and long payoffs.

Carl Nafzger is a trainer who is immune to the dreaded Derby disease.

Nafzger has run only three horses in the Derby and won twice.

His first Derby horse, Unbridled, won in 1990. His second, Vicar, ran 18 th, and Street Sense won last Saturday.

In the week leading up to the race, Nafzger was asked daily about the curse of the 2-yearold Breeders Cup winner never winning the Derby. He remained silent until after the Derby.

“What do you think of the jinx now ?” he asked with a smile.

After 133 derbies, only 18 trainers have won more than once. After 6 furlongs Street Sense was 17 th, but with horses just moving out of his way he moved to third in the next 2 furlongs.

At that 1-mile marker (8 furlongs ) Curlin was sixth, 10 lengths back.

Curlin made up 2 lengths and finished third, but the horse that was running the best at the end was Imawildandcrazyguy, who rallied from 11 th to fourth down the stretch.

Trainer Todd Pletcher was featured in the annual cartoon on the cover of last Saturday’s Daily Racing Form because he had five horses in the 2007 Derby.

Circular Quay and Scat Daddy were thought to have a shot at winning, but Pletcher’s five horses ran sixth, eighth, ninth, 18 th and last.