Oceanside vs. Orono, Part II

It's a rematch of a Gold Ball classic.

As you might imagine, I kind of collapsed at the end of Tourney Week, but let's do a quick summary of Saturday's Regional Finals.

In Portland, Maddie Fitzpatrick spent the first half in foul trouble, yet nearly had a triple-double in only 18 minutes as Cheverus beat Oxford Hills. It was an incredibly impressive performance. In the other game, Ellie Gay had 18 and Gorham held off a Scarborough rally to punch yet another ticket to the Gold Ball game.

In the boys' game, Portland had Windham on the ropes, but instead of going for the kill, they opted for a stall and it backfired. Windham went on a 13-2 run to take the lead and then went into their own stall, which gave me time to do some quick math: 75% of the 36 games I saw last week had a stall. I swear to God I saw a team stall up 5 in the third quarter. It's getting painful.

The new free throw rule has only made things worse. Getting rid of the 1-and-1 was a terrible idea.

In Augusta, Mount Abram held Sammy Calder to 5 points and went on a 10-0 run in the final 2 minutes to tie the game, but Monmouth got a bucket from Lucas Harmon to seal it.

In Bangor, Mount View continued their Cinderella(?) run through C North.

Noah Hurd. DAGGER. No. 7 Mount View leads top-ranked Calais 38-22 at halftime of Class C North regional final! Hurd with 20 for the Mustangs.#mesports pic.twitter.com/WZbHoUcXn9
— VillageSoup Sports (@VS_Sports_ME) February 25, 2024

It's nice to see a series of upsets in tournament play that completely makes sense. I'm sure there's a lot of people surprised to see a 7 seed in the State Game, but people in the know have been pegging this team as a spoiler since mid-January when it looked like they might be the 12.

I'll be in Bangor tonight for LIVE stats of both games, which are now brought to you by the new presenting sponsor, First National Bank. Their "First Hoop" program does amazing things for the schools in their coverage area, so I'm thrilled to partner with them.

The Tourney Guides have a new Gold Ball Edition available for paid subscribers. It updates all the stats for the 20 teams playing for Gold Balls this weekend, but it also has some additions for the teams that we were able to do live stats for.

Like so:

Now imagine if we could do this for the entire tournament. Or, in a perfect world, the regular season.

Gold Ball Edition

For example, we could have individual and team stats for every player in the tournament. I've added a number of teams to this already and am slowly chipping away at it.

Tourney Stats

The Mr. Basketball finalists are out and there's been some controversy, to put it lightly. There's a LOT of people who feel that Pierce Walston was snubbed from the list of finalists and that, should Orono win tonight, he has a very strong case to win the entire thing.

Adam Robinson caught up with Walston before today's game.

Partly because of the Mr. Basketball drama and partly in anticipation of today's Oceanside/Orono game, I dusted off the podcast video recording setup and talked to Adam about who should be the three finalists and his thoughts on whether or not Orono could take down the Mariners.

We had a couple of issues with the internet cutting out, but hopefully we covered it well. Also, I'd been wearing a Medomak Valley hat all day and it was a choice between wearing the hat or the disaster that was my hair.

I need more hat options.

It's also available wherever you podcast.

Speaking of the podcast...

Thomas Curtis and Cole Purvis recorded a new podcast episode breaking down the AA State games.

As often happens in the Maine High School Basketball media ecosystem, I'd only talked to Thomas and Cole online prior to Tourney Week. I was able to spend a little bit of time with them and came away impressed with their professionalism and work ethic that far exceeded their ages and experience.

They've both got bright futures.

For the Bangor Daily News, I wrote about some of the players who impressed in the games at the Expo last week.

Tournament week has a way of elevating a player in the eyes of the state. Throughout the year, you hear about players doing exceptional things — gaudy stat lines or a video clip on social media — and as great as that can be, it’s not the same as the bright lights of the Tournament. It’s one thing to score 30 points on a random Tuesday in January. But it’s an entirely different thing to do it on the Big Stage in front of thousands of people. I like to joke that “Portland points are worth more,” but there’s a truth to it. Performances mean more during Tourney Week.

For the State Games, we switch to Maine Public Television.

But, if you've gotten used to WHOU, you can also find it there.

Once again this year - WHOU will be simulcasting with MPBN for all the State Championship games. A great partnership between two local companies.
— Steve Carmichael (@Carmichael15) February 27, 2024

I love this.

Having different rounds be on different platforms is a hassle for everyone, so anything we can do to make that experience as simple as possible for people who just want to watch the games is more than welcome.

If you haven't yet, don't forget to submit your players for All-State consideration.

If they aren't submitted, they won't make the team.

We're up to 34 members of the 1K club this year, the largest number since @TheStatsGuy started tracking it 20ish years ago.

Recently learned of 1 more 1000 point scorer from 2023-24 making a total of 34. #updated #mesports pic.twitter.com/Pmj8FsKisv
— TheStatsGuy (@TheStatsGuy262) February 28, 2024

Mackenzie Holmes hit another milestone.

Her first bucket of the night and she's now second all-time in all-time scoring at Indiana (men or women). pic.twitter.com/IsUaTu8R1o
— Indiana Women’s Basketball (@IndianaWBB) February 28, 2024

If you haven't gotten on the Indiana State and Robbie Avila train, there's still time. And he now has the best nickname in college basketball.