Intentional Foul?
It's another round of Ellsworth and the Refs
In the Game of the Day, Ellsworth took a 17-point into the locker room at the half against unbeaten Old Town. That would normally trigger a major upset alert, if the Model hadn't picked them to win.
Mr. Basketball contender Chance Mercier scored 20 of his 28 in the first half.
But Old Town wasn't going away.
Let's go to the 4th quarter where Ellsworth has the ball up 59-56 with 19.3 seconds to play. Obviously Old Town is going to foul. We all know this.
Tyler Krusz was kind enough to provide a better angle.
video credit: Tyler Krusz
And that's gonna be called an Intentional Foul. And then a technical foul on Old Town coach Garrett Libby for expressing what we're all thinking. That's at minimum a questionable call in a crucial spot in a game with major seeding implications. Don't give someone a technical because they disagree. Time & Score! Old Town has every right to be angry about this.
So now, Old Town is down 62-56 with 19.3 seconds to play and Ellsworth still has the ball. Old Town obviously has to foul, but this foul is deemed acceptable. Ellsworth misses both free throws. But the math is completely different now for Old Town. Down three with 19 seconds left is a long shot, but doable. According to this calculator, you win in that situation 3.1% of the time. They could miss both free throws (like they did with 17 seconds left), which would improve the odds to 9.2% and Old Town could hit a three to force overtime. Down 6 with 19 seconds left is 0.1%. That's Reggie Miller miracle territory.
With the win, Ellsworth moves into 2nd in the Heal Points.
We'll see how this shifts the Tourney Odds later today, but I would expect this to put Ellsworth in the driver's seat for the 2 seed and open a window for them to potentially get all the way to 1 (but they'll probably need to run the table and get another Old Town loss).
Elsewhere...
Hunter Mason's 21 kept Richmond undefeated...All 5 St. Dom's starters scored in double figures in their win over Dirigo...Anna Oliver had 22 as Hodgdon blew out East Grand...Tristen Robbins' 24 led Caribou over Bucksport...OOB's Cate Clark dropped 26 on Kents Hill.
An update on the race to break Oceanside's scoring record.
I wrote a couple of days ago that both Carter Galley and Bailey Breen were in range of Audrey Mackie's school scoring record. Coming into tonight's games, the leaderboard looks like this (courtesy of Don Shields):
Audrey Mackie 1269
Carter Galley 1258
Bailey Breen 1244
Both teams play Lincoln Academy tonight (boys @ Oceanside; girls @ Lincoln) and both tip at 6:30, so Galley will probably get there first.
Don is covering the boys game for Frank FM, so I'm going to go to the girls game and do LIVE stats, in case Breen manages to beat him.
Speaking of Oceanside, I wrote for the Bangor Daily News that maybe the biggest lesson from this whole fiasco is that we need to find a way to get some of these games off the schedule.
Lucas McNelly, Sports Contributor
We're heading to Camden (well, Rockport) for an A North battle between the Windjammers and Cony.
As recently as 2018, these were the 2 worst teams in A North, so for them to both be in the top 25 and the Game of the Day is a real testament to the work a number of people have put in.
These teams are separated by less than a point in the Heals, with Cony sitting in 2nd and Camden in 3rd, but Hampden is also less than a point from Camden and then there's a big game before you get to Brewer.
So there's a couple of levels to this.
You want to stay out of the 4/5 game, because you don't want to be on Lawrence's side of the bracket. You also want to get the 2, because the difference between Brewer/Skowhegan and Gardiner/Mount Blue is significant.
The Tourney Odds say the order of 2-4 is pretty much up for grabs, so whoever wins this one will get a major boost.
They already played once this year, with Cony winning by 2 at home on Opening Night.
Can Camden return the favor?
The rest of the Model's picks for today are after the jump.