UNH has been Banana land all week, beginning with a crazy Oyster River/Pembroke overtime classic in front of an overflow crowd at Lundholm and seemingly not slowing down a bit from there.

 Saturday at noon the first of two championship games will tip, each game featuring a team no expected to still be hanging around on the last Saturday of the basketball season versus the tops seed.

 Today in our last preview of the 2017-18 season we will tell you how the two Cinderella teams can be the last team standing.

 Next week we will have the all-state selection for all four divisions, my Final Statewide Power Rankings with a look back &  a look ahead for each team plus my year-end Thursday Thoughts Parts I & II….and after this season….trust me I have a lot of thoughts..

 A reminder that you can hear both of these games live, right on our website as Justin McIsaac and I are joined by Sam Natti (three man booth!) the coach of America’s team, the Lisbon Panthers, for the call of the game on MOSN.

 Division I

(11) Dover vs (1) Portsmouth

 Let’s cut to the chase……

 How can Dover beat Portsmouth?

 Matt Fennessy’s team is going to have to be able to defend for 60 second or longer possessions. The Clippers know the looks they are supposed to get and if they don’t see it early they will work the offense until they do.

 Dover is going to have to be aware of the Alex Tavares slip-screens (which they’ve been running since Zac Abrams was working them with John Mulvey) and Cody Graham drawing in the defense and kicking out to Mike Sanborn.

 Dover will be able to rebound because they’ve got the athletes to do it and Portsmouth is a good rebounding team, not a great one. Johnny Cantwell matches up well with Alex Tavares and whether it is Devin Cady or Ryan Coleman, they have a few players that can match-up with Graham and Sanborn.

 Dover needs to keep pushing the ball on offense and running every possession through Ty Vitko on the perimeter and Devin Cady in the interior. Cady can post up players his size which makes me think they put the taller Max Lincoln on him.

 Strategy aside this is a pretty incredible match-up… Dover said goodbye to Ollie Adams Gymnasium and hasn’t lost since. Devin Cady lost his father last week and has battled through it & if you’ve been around this Dover team for even five minutes you know what a fun group it is. Matt Fennessy has toed the line between letting them play and reining it in when he needs to in only his second year after taking over for Mike Romps.

 On the other side, Jim Mulvey is one win away from going down as one of the all-time greats in New Hampshire high school basketball. A win Saturday would be his 5th championship in 10 years, 3rd in a row and would leave him 40-2 in Division I since voluntarily moving up after a 22-0 season in 2016.

 I’ve been teased by other coaches for my fawning over my friend Jim Mulvey but here’s the fact: if he wins Saturday, when you talk about the all-time great coaches in New Hampshire he’s in the first paragraph. He’s in the first line.

Division II

(7) Oyster River vs (1) Hollis-Brookline

 How can Oyster River beat Hollis-Brookline?

 First of all, they are going to have to rebound, and that is not Oyster River’s strength. At one point in the game, Monday night against Merrimack Valley Cole Etten’s Cavaliers had scored 30 of their 32 points in the paint (most of them care of Mr. (Matt) Simco). \

 Cole Etten is many things and dumb is not one of them, he’s not going to try and re-invent the wheel. He’s going to run the high/low with Matt Dowling and Simco until it isn’t working.

 Going into the pre-season everyone knew Hollis-Brookline had the best frontcourt in the division but after losing Nick Fothergill and Steve Giaconia it was fair to ask how they were going to get the ball up the court. Enter Jonathan Brackett, who made the decision to not play basketball his sophomore & junior seasons and has been a difference maker at point guard all the way back to their win over Bedford in our Coaches for a Cause Jamboree.

 Brackett can handle pressure and at 6’2 he can see over the defense when teams throw zone pressure at him.

 Oyster River is going to mix up their looks quite a bit and Lorne Lucas has been here before, winning a title with Somersworth in 2011. He can recognize which defense is working and understand when to pull it off to bring it back later during a key stretch when his team needs stops.

 Joe Morell will defend Brackett and it’s going to be on Brennan Oxford & Max ‘Onions’ Lewis to handle Simco and Dowling, although I’m certain Lucas will send more than two defenders at them.

 6’3 reserve Dan Judge did not play many minutes against a quick/perimeter oriented Pembroke team on Monday but he’s going to play a role Saturday. Judge has the size to bang with Simco & Dowling and for an Oyster River team that only goes about seven deep (Tyler McKenna gave them very good minutes in the semifinals), he’s going to need to be ready to contribute.

 Oyster River is facing the polar opposite of what they saw Monday night. Pembroke rained three’s behind Noah Cummings, Sean Menard and Jake Sherman….Hollis-Brookline could win Saturday without hitting one.

 For Hollis-Brookline they face a very similar trapping/aggressive defense that they saw from a very good Merrimack Valley team in the semifinals (I thought Tim Mucher coached his tail off Monday and Caleb LaClair is my new favorite Glue-Guy).

 The last aspect to look for……as I told the Hollis-Brookline kids in the locker room after the game, they’re playing a road game Saturday. Expect Durham to be out in full force…….we’ll be there too.