It's Tourney Time*

The Tournament is here!!!

We made it through the wilderness and now we embark on the best time of the year, only this year we're starting a couple of days early with the Class S (schools under 100 students) in Bangor.

You can get your tickets here:

GoFan - The largest high school ticketing solution in the U.S.

The largest high school ticketing solution in the U.S.

Tomorrow, Augusta will tip off S South.

And then on Thursday, Bangor and Augusta will finish off the S quarterfinals and we'll start in earnest at all three venues.

We also have the vast majority of the girls prelims today.

It's gonna be epic.

Every year, going all the way back to when this was just a Tumblr account, I've done a gimmick called "Let's Pick a Cinderella!" It's a simple gimmick: you go region-by-region and try and figure out who could win the region if the favorite faltered. The last couple of years, Jay Baines has done it with me, which has really taken it to the next level.

Up first: the girls.

The boys will be in a day or 2.

I'm trying to figure out what the podcast component of the tourney coverage will be, but it'll be something, so make sure you subscribe on YouTube for whatever I come up with.

Speaking of Jay, his best-in-class brackets are out. They're a lifesaver.

TOURNEY 2026

Google Docs

No one covers basketball in the County better than Steve Carmichael and the folks at WHOU, so they're exactly who you want to have preview the Bangor tournaments for you.

Luckily, they did just that.

Once again, you'll be able to follow along from home with LIVE stats from Augusta, Bangor, and Portland, courtesy of a collaboration between yours truly and the MPA.

LIVE Stats

Live stats of selected games

Maine Basketball RankingsLucas McNelly

The Tourney Guides are starting to roll out.

If you're new here, the Tourney Guide is an overwhelming amount of information about every team in the state--their season at a glance, their stat rankings, tourney history, and so much more--for every single team in the state.

It looks like this:

The Tourney Guide is available for paid subscribers and it's rolling out region-by-region as I get them done. As of the writing of this, S North and South are done. By the time you read this, there should be more.

It's officially "how do I watch the games?" season. Here's a reference you can share with the people in your life who will ask you 15 times.

NFHS has the quarterfinals (ugh). If you aren't already subscribed to NFHS, here's a handy affiliate link:

One of these days, NFHS will be behind us, but not today.

Then we move to WHOU for the semifinals and regionals. Maine Public has the state games.

Over at Varsity Maine, I broke down the favorites in each region. It's about as nerdy as you'd expect.

Nolan Ames and friends have been the favorites since they beat Edward Little at the buzzer on opening night. The Windjammers led the region in scoring, point differential, and %Perfect, a stat that measures how dominant you are against your schedule. Edward Little (18%) and Brunswick (10.9%) have pushed the Windjammers and could play spoiler. The Eddies were third in the region in point differential (+186) against the third-hardest schedule. But after Ames hit not one, but two buzzer-beaters in Camden’s final regular season game, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t the Windjammers’ year to win their first regional final since 2011.

The Maine high school basketball tournament is here. Here’s who can win Gold Balls

The data shows many top seeds have a good shot to reach state finals, but there’s a few other teams lurking that could play big spoiler roles.

Centralmaine.commodify your screen name here

Our man Cooper sat down with Dirk Nowitzki.

And with the Winter Olympics back, it's time for curling!!!

We kick off the S North tournament today in Bangor and while we might get a blowout or 2, the 4/5 games look pretty interesting.

Ashland and Deer Isle-Stonington didn't play in the regular season (that'd be a 3 hour and 43 minute drive each way, in case you're wondering). Unless I'm missing something, they only had one opponent in common--East Grand--and they both handled them easily.

These teams are pretty close to each other, statistically, so the Model has this as a toss-up, but who knows?

This will be on NFHS.

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