Windham Starts Their Title Defense

First, Happy Thanksgiving. Once again, I'm thankful that so many people pay attention to this website/newsletter/podcast/whatever and listen to my weird rants on basketball. I did not foresee this when I started trying to figure out if the midcoast teams could beat the Big East teams in the B East tourney. Thanks for following along.

Hopefully everyone had a better Thanksgiving than the Bears coaching staff. Yikes.

We're on to Black Friday.

The season starts next week!

With the season upon us, I thought it would be fitting to have Chad Pulkkinen, the coach of the defending AA champions, on the podcast to discuss the Eagles' title defense, which he does not view as a title defense, per se. There a real Joe Mazzulla vibe to it.

We also talked about Pulkkinen's experiences playing professionally in the UK, going straight to the varsity head coach as his first coaching experience, and a whole lot more.

Check it out!

Side note: I need more photos of empty gyms so I can rotate different backgrounds, so if you've got a good one, send it to mainebasketballrankings [at] gmail [dot] com.

I'm also opening up some limited sponsorship slots for the upcoming season. If you're reading this, you know what sort of smart, charming, and good-looking audience this is and if you'd like to grab one of the sponsorship opportunities, reach out at the email address above.

As always, you can listen to the podcast on Facebook and the usual places

Or wherever you consume podcasts. As always, subscribe, leave a review, all that jazz.

If you're the type of person who likes to wax poetic about the "good old days" and how much better basketball was when you were young and how it's a shame "kids these days shoot too many 3s", the folks at Camden Hills have you covered.

Today at 5:30 they'll honor their '74 and '99 Gold Ball teams with an alumni game.

My first thought was the '74 team would play the '99 team and where can I bet on the '99 team, but it's actually a collection of alumni from a wide range of teams, which is probably for the best.

Still, it promises to be a lot of fun. I'm planning on being there.

The Yankee Ford Tip-Off Tourney at South Portland looks like a nice lineup.

Ellsworth's Grace Jaffray was supposed to be on the short list for Miss Basketball this year, but instead she reclassified up a year to start her college career early and so far, it's been a good decision.

In only her 5th game, she went off for a program record 43 points.

43 points! In her 5th game!

Portland QB Louis Thurston is your MaxPreps POTY.

And that wasn't all he did this Thanksgiving.

Portland fights off valiant Deering to win Turkey Day showdown

Newly crowned Bulldogs take a 63-42-7 all-time edge in the storied series by virtue of a 21-18 victory.

Press HeraldMichael HofferForecaster/Leader/Sentry

Haley Jones mic'ed up some of the Falmouth players prior to the Gold Ball game.

This also gives you a better look at the food trucks that we need to figure out how to bring to the Expo.

If you're a stat nerd like I am, you might find this new NBA Game Report helpful.

You also probably will enjoy this new website.

Shotcreator - Home

Shotcreator is a basketball stats site showcasing stats from the NBA and WNBA. The stats are linked to the underlying play by play data, meaning the stats you click on lead to a video playlist

Shotcreator

There's stats, of course, but also a Hudl-like feature where you can see all of Derrick White's FGA against the Clippers, for example.

Or Payton Pritchard's shot chart vs. the League Average (spoiler: it's good).