Wiscasset Fires Their Coach

You can't make this up.

17 days after snapping a 122-game losing streak, we learned that Wiscasset fired Daniel Wall on Friday, well before the end of his first season on the bench.

In a letter sent to parents (first reported by the Wiscasset Newspaper), Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kim Andersson wrote:

Effective Friday, Jan. 24, the Wiscasset Athletic Department has made the decision to part ways with (Girls Varsity Basketball) Head Coach Daniel Wall. This change comes as part of our ongoing commitment to uplift our athletic programs and support our student body in achieving their fullest potential.

We are pleased to announce that Coach Jamey Roy will step in as the Interim Head Coach for the remainder of the season. Coach Roy brings a wealth of experience and a positive attitude that we believe will greatly benefit our athletes and the overall program.

We appreciate Coach Wall's contributions during his time with us and wish him the best in his future endeavors. As we move forward, our focus remains on fostering a supportive and successful environment for our student-athletes.

Thank you for your continued support of Wiscasset Athletics.

Well that's one way to do things.

You can read between the lines here, I think.

In a article at Varsity Maine, we a lot more, including the anger of some parents, the fact that "no specific incident led to a coaching change", and the not-small detail that Wall actually went to their game last night to support the players.

They lost 46-12 to Temple, despite only being a nine point underdog.

It's all very weird. The school is saying lots of generic things and Wall hasn't made a public statement.

Also there's a surprising number of people who seem to think Wall was the coach for all 122 losses.

Honestly, it's a pretty bad look for Wiscasset. It's hard to imagine a more badly-run program over the last several years, so it's difficult to give the school the benefit of the doubt here. The stories over the years are not great. If you asked me to pick a school that might do something like this, it wouldn't take me long to get to Wiscasset (but I'd have to sit in traffic for 20 minutes first).

It sounds like Wall was bringing a level of coaching and accountability to a program that was sorely lacking any and some people didn't respond well to it. Was it too much? Did he lose the locker room? That's probably what we're going to learn over the next few days, as the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. But it's hard to imagine they'll be getting a half-decent coach in there, because would you take this job after this? Maybe they already have someone in mind. That would sort of make sense. Otherwise, without an incident to trigger it, this is just bizarre, the sort of thing that happens with a lack of leadership. The sort of thing that happens to the Jets.

I got into it a little bit more on the podcast.

Also on the podcast, I revealed the results of the now-annual Mr./Miss Basketball straw poll. It's simple: I poll people from around the state, mostly journalists, who have a good sense of who the best players in the state are. There's people from Portland, Bangor, the County, Central Maine, and Midcoast Maine, so everyone is represented.

I got back 6 Miss Basketball ballots. Apologies for any misspelled names.

This obviously would have been Bailey Breen, had she not taken her talents to Florida.

I got 11 Mr. Basketball ballots back.

This obviously would have been Cooper Flagg, if he wasn't busy willing Duke to victory over NC State.

In the Game of the Day, Sam Thibeault had 24 points to keep Madawaska undefeated and give them some much-needed Heal Points. The Owls held Aden Jeffers to 14 points.

Elsewhere

Davis Mann had 24 and Falmouth hit 11 threes to overwhelm Freeport...John Patenaude had 15 of his 21 in the third quarter of GNG's win over Yarmouth...OOB's Brady Plante had 23, but it wasn't enough to overcome Jacob Linkletter's 5 threes for Madison...Monmouth's Levi Laverdiere had 23 as they blew out Richmond...Telstar's Brody Morgan went off for 27 in a win over Carrabec...Grant Thomas had 22 in Ashland's win over East Grand...Jahleel Joseph dropped 29 and Kellen McCrum dropped 27 in Central Aroostook's blowout of Southern Aroostook...Reagan Wright had 23 in Houlton's win over Hodgdon...Lily Oliver had 19 in Fort Kent's win...The Madison girls used a 25-0 third quarter to put away Boothbay.

The Mt. Ararat girls have been a force this year. They're 12-2 with one of the best offenses in the state, scoring over 57 points a game against a tough schedule. They've done well as the games get harder, ranking 4th in the state in %Perfect against teams in the Top 25 (in 7 games!). They've almost certainly locked up the 1 seed in A South.

Oceanside's offense is on par with Mt. Ararat's. They're 10 in the state and have played the 2nd hardest schedule in class B thus far (Biddeford)

In the Tourney Odds, they're very likely either the 2 or the 3, with a very slight chance of getting the 1.

They'll obviously need to win out and get some help to have a shot at the 1, but it's in play.

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