In the Pit

Let's start in the Pit, where Orono and Old Town traded punches like heavyweight prize fighters.

But the defending champs would not be denied. Mr. Basketball candidate Pierce Walston hit back-to-back 3s to put the game away in a fantastic atmosphere.

Can we get more games at the Pit, please?

Looking at the Tourney Odds, that takes us from this (yesterday's update):

To this:

This is pretty messy for late in the season.

You're going to hear a lot of opinions this week on how the Heal Points will shake out. Some are good. Some are just flat-out wrong. I saw a half-dozen yesterday from people who should know better (and don't subscribe to Tourney Odds).

This stuff is hard. There's 562,949,953,421,312 different Heal Points scenarios still in play on the girls' side. Hell, just this morning I eyeballed something and almost gave someone bad information before double-checking the spreadsheet.

At the Stable, Mount Blue visited Hampden-still without Zach McLaughlin-for a chance to lock up the 1 seed in A North.

Hampden's Liam Heneghen, after a full game of holding Evans Sterling to 11 points, stepped to the line and drained a free throw to give Hampden a 48-47 win.

Now, with the win, Hampden is in second place in A North and find themselves in the driver's seat for the 1 seed. That's quite a turnaround from the loss to Messalonskee on the 1st.

Falmouth's legendary coach Dave Halligan won his 598th career game last night in Falmouth's 56-30 win over Freeport, which means we are now on a 600 wins watch.

I think it's fair to say the Belfast boys haven't had the...best season.

They entered last night 0-17 with a point differential of -608 and they got dragged into a media firestorm by an Instagram account who had nothing better to do than start trouble where there was none.

So you'd understand if they had mailed in the final game of the year.

AND YET.

Let's go to Waterville, where Belfast is up SEVENTEEN after 3.

This is the point where you could excuse Waterville if they packed it up. They'd already been eliminated from the tourney, but pride is a hell of a thing.

They proceeded to go nuclear from 3. Freshman Eli Cullen hit 5 3's in the 4th quarter as Waterville went 10-12 from 3 in the final quarter and cut the lead to 74-73 with a minute to play. After a Belfast turnover and a missed Waterville 3, Belfast missed both free throws to give Waterville a final chance. Their shot in traffic came up short and Belfast hung on for their first win of the year.

Andrew Haas led Belfast with 27.

You love to see two teams playing their hearts out in a situation like this.

But with the magic of Heal Points, it begs the question: does this swing a seeding somewhere?

Down south, GNG's Nate Hebert opened the scoring against Fryeburg in the best way possible: by scoring his 1,000th point.

GNG would win 70-50. Hebert finished with 18. Lorenzo Catana had a game-high 27 for Fryeburg. GNG will be the 1 seed in A South. Fryeburg will host Mt. Ararat in the 8/9 prelim. That region is pretty much settled.

Elsewhere...

Carter Galley dropped 33 on Winslow...Houlton's Isaiah Erwin went for 27 against Fort Fairfield...Dylan Burpee's 20 wasn't enough as Southern Aroostook lost to Katahdin...Jacob Thompson had 20 for Kennebunk...Casey Duncan had a double-double (15 points and 10 rebounds) and Lincoln Academy finished on a 12-2 run to put away Mount View...Gabe Galarraga's 23 led SoPo by Bonny Eagle...Natalie Santiago scored 25 in Deering's win over Greely...Isabelle Tice went for 21 for Marshwood...Cony's Morgan Cunningham score 22 against Messo...Oxford Hills got 25 from Ella Pelletier in a win over Lewiston...Stella Jarvis' 21 led Windham...Easton's Owen Sweeney had 37 points and 10 steals against Central Aroostook, who got 25 from Jahleel Joseph.

It looks like we missed a 1,000 point scorer yesterday.

The MABC's Coaches of the Year awards were announced yesterday.

Maine Association of Basketball Coaches Announce Coaches of the Year

The Maine Association of Basketball Coaches announced their Coaches of the Year for the 2023-24 season. Coaches of the Year were voted by their peers. Congratulation to the 20 Coaches Selected

92.9 The TicketChris Popper

Congratulations to all the recipients.

Hampden grad Bailey Donovan broke Husson's 45 year old rebounding record last night with 26 rebounds against UMaine Presque Isle. 26!

Women’s Basketball vs University of Maine at Presque Isle on 2/6/2024 - Box Score - Husson University

The official box score of Women’s Basketball vs University of Maine at Presque Isle on 2/6/2024

Husson University

She finished with 32 points and 26 boards and is averaging 13.7 RPG on the year.

Sam LaFrance at CelticsBlog took a look at the value(?) of a 2-for-1 opportunity.

Is the 2-for-1 possession good for the Celtics?

I went back and rewatched all of them (so far) so you don’t have to.

CelticsBlogSamLaFrance

There's some interesting stuff in here, although I'd really like to see how the Celtics' Points Per Possession was impacted in those possessions. The C's currently score 1.21 PPP, what does that drop to in a 2-for-1? 1.09? That'd be the worst number in the league. But 1.09 x 2 is still better than 1.21 x 1. It'd have to be pretty, pretty bad for the math to not work out.

It'll be really fun, when we finally get a shot clock, to see how quickly coaches (and players pick up this strategy.

Let's head up to the meat grinder that is C North girls, where there's a lot left to decide (basically everything from 1-5) and Penobscot Valley hosts Mattanawcook.

You don't need me to tell you this is very much in flux.

But check out the Tourney Odds anyway.

A Mattanawcook win puts them in position to grab the 1. A loss drops them to 4 and looking for help to get to 3.

Penobscot Valley is hoping to avoid falling to 5 and getting a prelim. They could also get to 3 with a win. It's a mess!

Regardless of where they end up, this region should be a bloodbath in Bangor.

These are two of the three highest-scoring teams in class C, so there should be buckets aplenty and a ton of seeding at stake. Penobscot Valley won the first matchup on the road. Can Mattanawcook return the favor and steal the 1 seed?

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