Cony and Lawrence and the Battle for B North
The Rams and Bulldogs highlight a slate of big Week 5 games.
The newsletter plan has been to have a newsletter on any day there's a football game--that's similar to the basketball schedule--and there was a football game yesterday. But those teams have one combined win, so I didn't bother with the newsletter. And considering that it's nearly midnight and the score hasn't been reported yet, the schools must not have thought it was a high priority either. (Sacopee Valley won 44-34)
Let's skip ahead to this week's Thursday podcast that dropped yesterday morning.
One of the stories of last football season was Greely's successful bid to become the first team to win an 8-man and 11-man state championship in consecutive years. It was an impressive feat, made all the more unlikely because Greely didn't even have a football team a couple of years ago and had to co-op with Falmouth (who also won a state title...imagine that co-op team).
Greely head coach Caleb King joined the podcast to talk about how they revived the program, his decision to jump head first into coaching, why QB Luke Piper deserves award consideration, and more!
You know the drill. You can find this on YouTube or wherever your consume podcasts.
And, hey, we're now over 500 subscribers!
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That does unlock a few small things, which is nice. Now I just need to double it to get to the good features.
Volleyball Rankings!
Volleyball rankings are now up and running and they are complicated. The first step was getting the MPA to unlock the sets on their website, which they did. It's not a perfect solution because a number of teams don't report the sets, just the match total. Between Varsity Maine, my Scoreboard, and the MPA site, we've got set information for 60% of the games. More, please!
The Model treats each set as a separate game, but for the matches with no sets, I have it assuming the average set score of a match with that final result (so average of matches that finish 3-0, 3-1, 3-2). It's a whole thing.
Volleyball is now in the spreads section at the bottom of this email (for paid subscribers), so if you haven't upgraded yet...
Maine Basketball Rankings is only made possible by our subscribers
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One of my favorite NBA writer is Matt Moore (a.k.a. Hardwood Paroxysm) and he has an interesting preview of the Celtics upcoming season.
One reason I admire Mazzulla is that he has an ethos and a commitment. He likes threes, he likes open threes, and believes it’s a team strength of the Celtics. He talks about the details, the margins, the commitment to doing the little things. The mathematical edge he’s provided Boston works. It just does. There’s very little argument against it.
Hardwood Paroxysm
If you're looking for a time suck of a game that fuels your NBA obsession, HoopsMatic has you covered with their new NBA Career Map game.
You get a map (like so) and then 4 options.
That is Tyrone Hill.
Be prepared to burn an hour of your day on this.
Mike Mandell has a video preview of 3 of the big games on this weekend's slate over at Varsity Maine.
They say we should keep politics out of sports, but they keep dragging sports into politics. But they keep screwing it up.
Sophia Bailly
Schmitt clearly does not know ball. And you should never trust someone who doesn't know ball.
I didn't think I could be more out on Giannis to Miami, but turns out I can.
Between this and the "Grease" ad, can you be a MVP and have negative aura?
File this under "things I saw on social media that you'll all probably enjoy".
The Norm entrance jokes on Cheers were famously tough to write.
— The Sting (@TheStingisBack) September 29, 2026
George Wendt delivered 200+ of them over 11 seasons. As the show’s popularity grew, so did expectations. Writers said the real genius wasn’t always on the page; it was Wendt’s physical comedy, delivery, and timing. pic.twitter.com/mSOwJra88Y
You don't need a fancy spreadsheet to tell you that today's Cony/Lawrence matchup is the Game of the Day. Everyone in B North has had this one circled on the calendar since August, if not earlier, and both teams have lived up to the preseason billing and are in a dogfight (Bulldog fight?) for the 1 seed in B North.
Add the rivalry element to two teams who are next to each other in the rankings and you can only hope the game lives up to the hype, because the hype will be off the charts at Keyes Field.
The rest of the Model's picks for today's games are after the jump.