And Here We Go!

Usually the Thursday "soft open" of the basketball season is only a couple of games, so few that you can be forgiven if you didn't realize the season had actually started.

But this year, there's 17 games on the schedule, so there's a not-terrible chance there's a game near-ish where you live.

As for Friday? 80 games. Eighty! We're back!

If you're a basketball season-only subscriber, it is officially time to restart your subscription.

The paid subscription (only $6/month) gets you the Model's prediction for every game this season, Tourney Odds, the good version of the Heal Points, the Tourney Week Media Guide, and so much more.

If you're already a subscriber, you're awesome and you help make this site possible.

Or, if you have a business that would like to advertise on the podcast or sponsor part of the site, email me: mainebasketballrankings [at] gmail [dot] com.

On the podcast, we did the first Wins Draft, which I think is a keeper of an idea.

Tyler Krusz (Fox-Bangor), Mike Mandell (Varsity Maine), and Adam Robinson (formerly of the BDN) joined me to draft teams based on how many games they'll win. It serves as a fun season preview.

We chose 6 teams each in the following categories:
2 boys teams
2 girls teams
1 Aroostook County team
1 team that missed the playoffs

We also chose a tie-breaker of a team that we think will have the largest blowout win and since I had them all, we speculated on who might end up with Cooper Flagg and considered the question that came up: would you trade Jaylen Brown for Cooper Flagg?

It was a fun conversation.

I think we did pretty well, but you can see for yourself.

And, on Spotify you can vote in a poll about who "won" the draft.

Speaking of podcasts, part 2 of my appearance on the Lincoln County News podcast is up.

I'm not involved in this in any way, but Lincoln County TV has a new show/podcast covering high school hoops. This episode features Oceanside boys coach Larry Reed (who is a very nice guy).

Got a podcast I don't know about, send it along?

If you're new to the site, you might want to check out the Scoreboard. Parents, coaches, and media folks have made it a habit to enter their own scores in it, rather than wait for an AD who may not do it until next week. As a result, it's faster and more accurate. Some nights, the entire thing is filled out by the time I get home.

You have to register for a free account to access it ('tis a guard against bots), but if you're here, that's likely a hurdle you've already cleared. Also, to enter scores, you need to be on a computer. That's a Google Sheets issue.

There's also the "Notable" field where people tend to put in players that had a big game, which helps get them featured in the newsletter.

I'm working on updating the streaming links, so if you know of a change, let me know.

Heal Points will probably go live this weekend. You don't need them after one game.

I'm also getting everything else updated. The schedules come in late and I can't do much without the schedules. I also just want to thank Jay Baines, who decided this year to tackle schedules (you know him from his awesome brackets) and that has saved me a ton of work.

Anyway, I'll get up to speed in the next couple days and then we'll get a blizzard and it'll all be chaos again.

This is an awesome story about how the Celtics have embraced the fact that their players have kids. It's not just about Deuce.

As someone who has a kid who is now 8 (jfc, really?) this hits hard and I love it.

Edward Little will have a new football coach next season.

Construction has started on Fitzy.

I hope they make sure there's still room for the food trucks.

So let's start this with a reminder that the Game of the Day is determined by the Stax Index, a formula I devised and named after Sean Stackhouse that uses a number of factors to tell you how interesting a game might be. Should you drive 2 hours for this? Or is it more of a, well I'm already across the street, kind of game?

The Game of the Day is the game with the highest Stax Index.

The other caveat is that the Model right now is 100% a snapshot of where we ended last season. There's no adjustments for graduation or incoming freshmen or injuries or anything. It doesn't care about preseason polls because those tend to not be very reliable. It doesn't care about hype videos because those are even less reliable.

With that in mind, the Model doesn't know that Grace Jaffray skipped her senior year and is crushing it in college.

I don't have a lot of information for you here, but this is a really, really good Stax Index number, so it might be worth your trouble.

The rest of the Model's picks for tonight's games are after the jump.

Again: this is 100% a snapshot of last season.