A Buzzer-Beater Waved Off

In Wednesday's newsletter, I wondered if 2025 would go out with a bang or a whimper (apologies to T.S. Eliot) and it definitely went out with a bang. Let's go to Augusta and the final game of 2025.

You may have already seen the video on Facebook. There's a lot of people more than willing to tell you in the comments that, no, they do not know ball. But there's also refs from other states and some volleyball discussion. It's a lot.

But if you haven't yet seen it, Maranacook had the ball at the end of the half against Spruce Mountain (I believe down 2). Before the big play, there was a smaller play that made a huge difference. Maranacook initially inbounded the ball with 0.8 seconds left and Spruce knocked it out of bounds. But the clock didn't start because the timer didn't see the ref's arm move to indicate it should start. It was a very quick play, but the clock didn't move, so the refs huddled and they had to do something. They couldn't leave it at 0.8 seconds. I figured they would just say the half was over, but they settled on 0.3 seconds--a crucial number, as true ballers all know.

I'm not sure what the high school rule is, but in the NBA, you have to take at least 0.3 off in that situation.

NO LESS THAN :00.3 must expire on the game clock and shot clock when a ball is thrown inbounds and then hit instantly out-of-bounds. If under :00.3 expires in such a situation, the timer will be instructed to deduct AT LEAST :00.3 from the game clock and shot clock. If, in the judgment of the official, the play took longer than :00.3, he will instruct the timer to deduct more time. If under :00.3 remain on the game clock when this situation occurs, the period is over. If under 0.3 remain on the shot clock when this situation occurs, a shot clock violation is called.

So at most, it could have been 0.5 seconds, which probably creates a much different comment section on Facebook.

If you're unclear on the 0.3 seconds distinction and don't want to make a fool of yourself on Facebook, at 0.3 seconds, you can't--by rule--catch and shoot. You must tip the ball. This is the rule at every level and has been since this:

The FIBA rules read like this:

The game clock must indicate 0.3 (three tenths of a second) or more for a player to gain control of the ball on a throw-in or on a rebound after the last or only free throw in order to attempt a shot for a field goal. If the game clock indicates 0.2 or 0.1 the only type of a valid field goal made is by tapping or directly dunking the ball.

Let's go to the tape, which I've slowed down and zoomed in on for your viewing pleasure.

Let's just start with this: Elijah Freeman absolutely, 100% gets that shot off in under 0.3 seconds. It's either 5 or 6 frames (in a 30 fps timeline). That's 0.2 seconds. If the refs had put 0.4 seconds on the clock, that's good. But they didn't. The only question is if it's a tip or not. I don't think it is. I think it's a catch and shoot. You may see it differently. The officials huddled and made the call that it wasn't tip. Again, I think the slow-motion supports that. The Trent Tucker rule then takes the rest of it--whether the clock was started on time, the buzzer, the light on the backboard--all out of equation. Tip or no tip. That's it.

Now you could say in a replay world where even I'm shooting this on a 4K camera at 120 fps on my phone that the rule could use some updating. That's more than fair. And I wonder how much longer it'll exist. It would not be that hard in the very near future to take the human error element of the clock starting late out of the equation entirely (shout out to the old Boston Garden crew) and put a clock on the replay from the frame it touches someone to the frame it leaves a shooter's hand, because as we know, you can can and shoot in under 0.3 seconds.

As for the game itself, Spruce prevailed in a bit of a rock fight. Cai Dougher was in foul trouble the whole game, but had this nice bucket and a clutch layup in the final seconds that finished the scoring.

Not to be outdone, Brunswick beat Lewiston in double-overtime after Lewiston's Cohen Strachan sent it to double overtime in style.

Thanks to the Brunswick High Sports Network for the clip. Make sure you subscribe to them on YouTube.

Logan Gray led Brunswick with 21 in the win.

Elsewhere

Levi Laverdiere had 18 points and Monmouth held Harry Louis to 4 as they blew out Valley...Natasha McDonald had 17 and Maddie Grimaldi added 14 in her first game back from ACL surgery and Spruce dealt Maranacook their first loss...Delia Hill had 18 as the Valley girls stayed unbeaten.

Tourney Odds

January 1st is traditionally my target date for Tourney Odds, which are very popular, and they're nearly done. People who have been here a while know that the Tourney Odds traditionally take very, very long to generate every day and I've been trying to use Python to speed up that process, only I don't really know how to code in Python, so it's a lot of me talking to AI programs to try and figure it out. (I hate AI, for the most part, but I think this is a great use of them.) I got a functional version (the York boys are 84.3% to get the 1 seed in B South), but then I got greedy and something broke. So I would expect them to work this weekend, hopefully.

Here's what it spit out for D North boys before I broke it.

Will Ferrell gets the importance of supporting officials.

2025 Wrapped

It's a popular thing to wrap up the year with a bit of a humblebrag and I am not above that. So...

Web traffic is up 33% over 2024
Podcast downloads are up 85%
16 million Facebook views in 2025
Newsletter subscribers are up 66% year-over-year
YouTube Subscribers are up 251

And, most importantly, the metric of "people who say hi at games" is way up in 2025. A couple of years ago it was 2 or 3 a year. Now it's 2 or 3 a game.

Thanks to everyone who reads this newsletter or sends me scores and videos or says hi at games or picks fights with people in the Facebook comments.

Onward to 2026!

2026 is starting out hot. Maranacook @ Cony! York @ Edward Little! Mattanawcook @ Fort Kent! Bangor Christian @ Valley girls!

But the easy pick is the rematch of last year's AA State Title Game between Windham and South Portland. Sure, Creighty Dickson and Manny Hidalgo have graduated, but there's still plenty of talent on the floor, including 2 Mr. Basketball candidates for Windham and one of the standout freshmen for SoPo.

I think it's safe to say Windham won't put up 101 in this one, but that offense is legit.

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