Tipping off in SoPo

One of the highlights of the preseason is the abundance of preseason tournaments around the state. It's a chance to get eyes on a bunch of teams at once and see who's improved over the summer and who might surprise some people this year. And perhaps the best one of them all is the Yankee Ford Tip-Off Tourney at South Portland. If you remember, that was the site of the epic Cooper Flagg vs. JP Estrella showdown a couple of years ago.

They do a great job of curating the teams and this year was no different. I managed to catch 4 1/2 games. Some thoughts:

Madawaska vs. Spruce: Madawaska travels. They probably had 30 people there for a game 5.5 hours away. One of the Madawaska guards (#1...no rosters) shot lights out in the first half and Quinn Pelletier got going in the second half as Madawaska beat a Spruce team playing their first game after a football state championship game.

But the biggest Madawaska question was...

They're in D North.

Windham vs. Edward Little: The Eddies look like they'll give a lot of teams trouble this year. They hung with a very good Windham team. AJ Moody was a defensive pest all over the place and Tyrie James looked awesome as the hub of the offense.

Medomak vs. Falmouth: There's no Davis Mann this year for Falmouth, who are clearly young and inexperienced. Medomak's press gave them trouble and while they don't have Gabe Lash anymore, there's a lot of talent left on the Panthers.

Camden vs. Portland: Nolan Ames picked up three fouls in the first half and Portland built a 15-point lead. #20 for the Bulldogs will give a lot of teams trouble. Then Nolan Ames came back in the game and took over. He had 25 in the second half to key the Camden comeback. He's the real deal.

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Cony vs. Portland: Parker Morin wasn't available for Cony, but Carter Brathwaite was. I was only able to stay for the first half but my big takeaway was Brathwaite passes really well for a freshman. Cony won in overtime.

Last week, I started the preseason coverage with the reveal of the girls and boys preseason polls with Jay Baines. Last night, it continued with the annual Wins Draft.

Just like last season, Mike Mandell, Tyler Krusz, and Adam Robinson joined me to draft 6 teams from around the state who we think will win a lot of games this season in the following categories: 2 boys teams, 2 girls teams, 1 Aroostook County team, and 1 team that missed the playoffs last year. Plus, this year we were allowed an extra keeper from last year's draft. It's a fun way to preview the season.

This year's draft had a twist: Adam Robinson, who's the JV coach at Edward Little this year, forgot he had a game. So we drafted for him. We resisted the urge to screw him over.

You know the drill. You can check out the entire thing on YouTube, presented by Vertical Raise.

Or wherever you consume podcasts.

It seems that every year a team announces just before the season is about to start that they don't have the numbers to field a team and this year it's the North Haven boys.

Maine island doesn’t have enough players for boys basketball team this season

North Haven Community School cancels boys basketball season due to lack of eligible players. Small school enrollment and lack of interest contribute.

Bangor Daily NewsMark Haskell, Midcoast Villager

There's only 16 kids in the high school, so it's a small miracle when they're able to put a team on the floor.

The girls will play this season, but they've only got 6 on the roster, so it's a small margin for error. On the plus side, there's no shortage of minutes.

To the surprise of very few people inside the 207 area code, Cooper is starting to figure it out at the highest level, but this week he leveled up in a big way in a back-to-back.

Friday against the Lakers, he came up 3 rebounds shy of a triple-double with a 13/7/11 line (plus 3 steals and only 1 turnover). He was 13 days younger than LeBron was when he first got 10 assists in a game.

The next night, in a win over the Clippers, he scored a career-high 35 points (with 8 boards). He was 5 days younger than, you guessed it, LeBron.

Pretty good, I guess.

Varsity Maine sent Drew Bonifant to Dallas to witness the Cooper experience in person.

It’s whiskey, catfish and Texas vibes watching Cooper Flagg play in Dallas

The Maine native has become a source of excitement and hope for the thousands of Mavericks fans who turn out each night to watch him compete.

The Portland Press HeraldDrew BonifantStaff Writer

Hopefully Drew was able to eat some Texas bbq while he was there.

Isn't S Starting a Week Early?

Yes and no.

Class S (the schools with fewer than 100 students) had the opportunity to start a week early, on November 28th, but that's Black Friday and do you really want to do Opening Night on Black Friday? Apparently not. The first scheduled set of games is today (December 2), but I'm not sure any of these are going to happen with today's weather forecast.

But maybe!

There's only one game scheduled for Wednesday and then everyone else can play on Thursday, so I'm going to wait a couple days to pull the schedules. And then hopefully all of the schools will have uploaded their complete schedules (Please upload your schedules!)