Caribou Starts Their Title Defense

As expected, Saturday was a lighter day, with the highlight being the start of the Caribou boys' title defense (sorta, as they're no longer in B). Caribou nearly gave away a late 5-point lead to Ellsworth, but Landen Belanger hit the game-winner to move Caribou to 1-0.

Ryan McLaughlin was there.

Elsewhere

Quentin Warrick's 19 led GNG by Freeport...Jaxon Desjardins' 21/14/5/5 helped Forest Hills overcome 27 from Vinalhaven's Aiden Farnham...Avery Clark's 22 helped Bangor close on a 22-3 run to put away a pesky Brunswick team. Grace Roak had a double-double for the Dragons...Lizzie Boles had 13/6/4 in Ellsworth's win over Caribou...Julia Goodine dropped 20 in Bapst's win over Fort Kent.

The fourth and final podcast in the season preview series drops tonight at 8PM on YouTube.

After 2 preseason polls and the Wins Draft, we're making predictions about who will win Mr. and Miss Basketball. It's a convenient way to talk about the top seniors in the state, but we also run through some of the "Diaper Dandies" in this Year of the Freshmen.

Dylan Rottkov from Blue Wave (and Falmouth football's defensive coordinator) and WHOU's Steve Carmichael join me. Steve brings the Northern Maine bias and Dylan covers the Southern Maine bias.

Tune in tonight to see if your favorite senior gets drafted.

Speaking of the Wins Draft...

If you want to follow the results of the Wins Draft, I'll have that as a recurring feature all season long. We're off to a pretty good start. Well, everyone except Adam. This is why you don't auto-draft, kids.

Windham will be honoring Pat Moody on Tuesday.

The Pat Moody Foundation has been a great fundraising effort that benefits, not just Windham kids, but kids from around the state.

Moody Foundation to honor beloved resident during boys’ basketball home opener

Ed Pierce

With the uptick in talent (and Instagram influencers, I guess), there's bound to be an increase in people trying to make money off your kid's dreams.

You see this in a lot of fields. Screenwriting is particularly egregious. As is acting and YouTube and anywhere else you can get wildly successful. There's a ton of people who will find ways to sell you on the idea that they can help you level up. Most of the time they cannot. What can level you up is doing the work.

If you've got talent, people will notice. Long gone are the days where a kid in, say, Madawaska can fly under the radar.

Friday night, I knew SoPo and Cheverus both had impact freshmen and I knew the names, but I hadn't looked at the rosters, so I didn't know who they were.

I spotted Despacho in warmups.

And it took me about 2 minutes to spot Khaelon Watkins.

If you can play, people will notice.

I've got the spreadsheets cooking now.

I don't have a full archive of every Game of the Day, but I think it's safe to say the Lewiston boys are making their first appearance. They opened their season with a win over Mt. Ararat. They'll head to Mount Blue, where the Cougars are also 1-0 after a win over Messo and, I'm told, will surprise a bunch of people this year.

We'll see.

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