Some Season Previews

Let's do some quick housekeeping as we all scramble to get ready for the start of the season (for the love of god, triple-check the schedule you uploaded on the MPA's site).

I went to some of the Yankee Ford Tip-Off Classic at South Portland and I don't love to overreact to preseason games, but I have some thoughts:

Windham looks legit. They blew out a short-handed Noble and led Medomak Valley by 15 in the second half before the Panthers rallied to make it a game. They've got a lot of athletes and are going to give people trouble. Also, full disclosure, they gave me a shirt (in honor of the late Pat Moody).

Jamier Rose wasted no time in doing Jamier Rose things against Cheverus. Seemingly every couple of possessions he was making a great pass. The Stags were able to come back and win in the end, thanks to some hot shooting, but Rose was clearly the best player on the floor.

Spruce Mountain took care of Nokomis handily. Spruce is small, but fast, and it'll be interesting to see how they matchup in B South, but they look like a top 3 seed to me.

Speaking of B South, Medomak lost both games I saw--to Windham and South Portland--but were within 5 in each in the final minute and could have won both. Gabe Lash was everywhere on defense and while they didn't shoot well, they still went over 60 in both games.

Wyatt Benoit looked very much in control as TA took care of Messo. Also: TA has a short white kid with very short hair who wears #11 and I'm just saying keep an eye on him at the end of quarters.

Manny Hidalgo is going to be a big problem for SoPo's opponents this year. He seems like he's gotten faster?

If I had to pick a "guys I saw Saturday" team, it's Rose, Creighty Dickson, Gabe Lash, Benoit, and Hidalgo.

I joined some people smarter than me for the Eastern Maine Sports yearly preview.

I just want to preface this by saying I'm bad at remembering names and was blanking left and right. Still, this was fun and insightful.

Also, in making the rounds, I stopped by the Lincoln County News' new podcast to talk about their local teams (Wiscasset, Boothbay, Lincoln Academy, and Medomak Valley). It went a little long, so part 1 is about the boys and part 2 covering the girls will drop later this week.

6. A High School Basketball Preview (Part 1)

Podcast Episode · Beyond the Broadsheet · 12/02/2024 · 54m

Apple Podcasts

I also got roped into talking about the Movie Pizza Shoppe that caught fire in Waldoboro the other day.

5. Remembering the Movie Pizza Shoppe

Podcast Episode · Beyond the Broadsheet · 11/25/2024 · 20m

Apple Podcasts

There's a lot of podcasts to go on these days.

Obviously you should subscribe to all these places.

On my podcast, I'm doing something a little different.

Tyler Krusz (Fox Bangor), Mike Mandell (Kennebec Journal), and Adam Robinson (St. Dom's JV coach) will join me to draft teams from around the state on the simple criteria of how many games we think they'll win this year.

We'll pick 6 teams each:
2 boys teams
2 girls teams
1 Aroostook County team
1 team that missed the playoffs last year

And we're going to do it LIVE at 9pm or you can watch/listen later at Facebook and all the various places.

It should be a lot of fun!

The draft order is determined by our preseason predictions of what Jayson Tatum's 3P% would be when we recorded and let's just say someone was way off.

Smash that subscribe button!

Some bad news for the Ellsworth girls.

There's also some bad news for Bangor radio.

Stephen King’s Zone Corp radio stations will cease broadcasting this month

Zone Corp announced Monday that the company’s radio stations, including WKIT 100.3 FM, WZLO 620 AM and WZON 103.1 FM, would stop broadcasting on Dec. 31.

Bangor Daily NewsEmily Burnham

There's no nice way to put it: the media landscape is really, really bad these days. And by days, I mean the last 15(?) years.

There's tanking for Cooper Flagg and there's TANKING FOR COOPER FLAGG.

This is fun.

There's been a ton of preseason tournaments around the state.

What are your impressions of the upcoming season? Put them in the comments!