Brrrr

In the Game of the Day, Sierra Carson's 5 3-pointers and 27 points made short work of Gorham as Oxford Hills bounced back from their first loss of the season in a 72-47 win.

Elsewhere in a pretty light schedule.

Days after watching a double-digit lead disappear against Gardiner, the Cony girls rallied down 18 against Camden...Chance Mercier had 34 as Ellsworth won again...Elise McNair's 33 led OOB to victory...Callan Franzose had 29 & 12 in a Madison win...Jace Bessey had 26 as Spruce Mountain beat Hall-Dale...Bella McLaughlin led Hampden with 24 in a win over Deering.

The tournament is fast-approaching and that means it's almost time for the Media Guide! If you're new around these parts, here's an example of what it looked like back in the olden, pre-pandemic times.

There will probably be some tweaks this year, but as you can see it's a LOT of information.

This will be available for every team in the tournament--in pdf form--for paid subscribers, along with some other tourney-specific stuff.

It also comes with an explanation of what all this means.

Essential reading for in-between games.

Terrible news out of NYA.

Huntsman was having a fantastic year and hopefully she can recover quickly. This is obviously a big blow to NYA's title chances.

In good news, Cooper Flagg is a semi-finalist for the Naismith Prep Player of the Year

Wow!

The full list of winners is a mix of people you've definitely heard of (Jared Sullinger!) and some you might have (LeBron James?).

In case you were wondering, it has gone to a senior every single time.

I'm at a loss as to how this happened.

No one checked the ball? The refs didn't notice?

Maybe the craziest part of this story is that FSU and the ACC are disputing it happened at all.

It's insanely cold out, so if you're going to a game tonight, don't do anything stupid.

Apparently every game in the County has been postponed, so our scheduling chaos continues. We've already got a game that's been moved to the 10th.

It does look like nearly everyone else is making an effort to squeeze these games in.

So in a fun quirk, the Game of the Day and the, uh, Game to Check the Steam For the Score, Just In Case (i.e. the lowest Stax Index number of the day) involve the same 2 schools. I think this is a first?

It's tricky. In order to be the Game to Check the Steam For the Score, Just In Case (probably need a better name), you can't just have two bad teams. Because that might be close. You need a game between a team that's at least pretty good and a team that very much is not. To have both, you need a really good team and a really bad team at the same school.

Enter Winslow.

The Winslow girls are -664 in scoring differential on the year--that's 3rd worst in the state. They've got 7 freshmen on the Varsity roster, so hopefully it's just a rebuilding year. But the Winslow boys are an entirely different story. They've got the 20th best scoring differential the state.

The main reason for that is the play of the dynamic Jason Reynolds, who leads the KVAC in scoring (30.1 PPG) and rebounding (14.3 RPG). Reynolds has had a monster year and I feel like it's kind of slipped under the radar. Maybe people didn't take Winslow seriously early in the year. They lost to Lincoln Academy on December 20th before we knew that Lincoln was actually good this year and they beat Oceanside on December 27th when we weren't yet sure how good Oceanside is.

So maybe that's why the win over Lawrence was the win that got people's attention (or maybe it's class bias, I dunno).

But the point is: Winslow is really good.

Should they be ranked higher? Yes. Their schedule isn't very good and that's holding them back, but when they've played good teams, they've done well. They beat Leavitt by 11. They beat Lawrence by 2. And they beat Mount View by 26.

They're currently 3rd in a very tough B North. They can't get to 1. Ellsworth ran away with that a while ago, but they could get to 2 and they've got a little bit of work to do to avoid 5th and a play-in game.

They'll get their first opportunity against Medomak Valley. The Panthers have struggled a little lately. They were as high as 10th in the Power Rankings, but have fallen after a sub-par showing the last time they were in this space and a loss at home to a Leavitt team that's clinging to the 10 seed.

The Panthers locked up a bye with a win over Lincoln Academy. A win here would go a long way toward getting them to the 3 seed in B South.

The rest of today's schedule is after the jump.