Chaos in Scheduling

This was supposed to start with a game report from the Hall-Dale and Spruce Mountain girls game on Saturday, but as I was getting ready to get in the car, someone sent me the score.

You see, they'd moved the game from 6:30 to 1:30 because of some availability issue with the gym. Only, it still said 6:30 over at Varsity Maine and there was nothing in Hall-Dale's booster Facebook page. So if you weren't on Team Reach or whatever, you might have just shown up at 6:30 for a 1:30 game. There's got to be a better system.

Speaking of which...

The score should be somewhere by the time the people who went to the game get home, either MaxPreps or Varsity Maine or the Scoreboard on this site. Just send it somewhere.

The Spruce/Hall-Dale game turned out to be a good one.

Alaina Kachnovich scored 22 for Spruce in a game I'm told was a classic Hall-Dale/Spruce street fight.

The win gives Spruce the early lead in B South in the Heal Points, which are up and functional now!

Elsewhere:

Jaxson Desjardins had 20 and 17 to lead Forest Hills past Vinalhaven...Maranacook's Celia Bergdahl dropped 25 & 12 on Oak Hill...Telstar's Reiley Hedden nailed 9 3's for 27 points to out-duel Buckfield's Trenton Haskell, who also had 27, in Telstar's 80-71 win...Buckfield's Sara Devoe almost out-scored Telstar by herself, scoring 17 in Buckfield's 47-18 win...Forest Hills' Kelsey Rancourt did out-score Vinalhaven by herself. She had 16 as Forest Hills won 42-6...Alianna Mazza had 20 in Mountain Valley's win over Lisbon...The Presque Isle boys rallied down 11 behind Kason Bua's 21 points to beat Presque Isle. The Old Town was led by Emmitt Byther's 24...Rylee Moulton had 23 in Penobscot Valley's win over Penquis.

On the podcast, Jay Baines joined me to talk about scheduling and instead we talked about...everything.

We did stumble upon a fantastic idea: what if teams had City Connect jerseys and what would they feature? For my hometown team of Medomak Valley, for example, there would probably be a Moody's Diner theme.

The file got to 99% last night and then failed, so it might be up by the time you read this. But maybe not.

I don't usually only put stuff from the last day's games in the newsletter, but I always make an exception for buzzer-beaters.

Be like Windham! Move to BlueSky! The water is warm.

Long-time Wiscasset coach and Midcoast Hall of Famer Timothy Flanagan passed away this weekend.

Tim’s contributions extended beyond the classroom to the sports fields and courts where he was best known as Coach Flanagan. He coached basketball, golf, cross-country, track, baseball, tennis, and even the math team. Among his many accomplishments, he is best remembered for leading the Wiscasset’s boys’ basketball team to Wiscasset’s first state Men’s Basketball State Championship in 1991. Under his guidance, Wiscasset teams also won multiple State Math Team Championships, a State Golf Championship, and numerous conference and regional championships.  

We've got the first update from our Wins Draft.

Naturally, I'll be updating this as the season goes on. What, you ask, is a wins draft? Check out the podcast.

The 2024-25 Wins Draft

Podcast Episode · The Maine Basketball Rankings Podcast · 12/04/2024 · 44m

Apple Podcasts

The first edition of the Power Rankings are out. Keep in mind this starts at last season. It doesn't know that Bailey Breen took her talents to Florida, for example.

Power Rankings

This spreadsheet hates your team.

Maine Basketball RankingsLucas McNelly

It's great to see the Peter Webb All-Stars working G League games now.

I'd like to report a murder.

The Buckfield girls are already 2-0, with wins over Temple and Telstar. They're convincing wins, but against #109 Telstar and #115 Temple. So, you know.

They'll get their first test of the season in Valley, a team many expect to contend for a Gold Ball and Mike Mandell picked as his second girls team in the Wins Draft.

It's early, so we'll see, but the Model thinks this could be pretty close.

For subscribers, this is available for all of today's games.

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