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 Every year the two week Holiday break gives us a pause in the regular season and an opportunity to see teams from two or three different divisions competing under one bracket.

 Experience will tell you that you need to look at holiday tourneys from the proper perspective. Sure the results can be a glimpse of what's to come this season but they also can be affected by coaches playing every guy all the way to the end of the bench and doing more teaching on the sidelines than actual coaching. Sometimes the opening round games feature more effort and enthusiasm than the championship match-up that ends up as the third game in as many days.

 The games don't count in the standings and the bigger picture is to learn and improve for when the games count. Still there is insight to be gleaned from the ‘exhibition' games.

 Today in our last  article of 2017 we take a look at what we learned over the past 10 days.

 

 We were right on Memorial and other observations from the Queen City Tournament………

 When people are saying to you throughout the summer, ‘Who do you like in Division I? Besides Memorial…I know you’re big on them,’ then you know you’ve been pretty vocal about a team. Danny Bryson’s Crusaders didn’t disappoint on the big stage, winning the Queen City Tournament over Exeter 69-67.

 Manny Alisandro won tournament MVP honors and Bryson rolled out a veteran team that was highlighted by very good performances by Michael Roumraj, Jake Santiago (who could have easily been the MVP) and Elvin Barbosa, who gives Memorial essentially 6 starters by coming off the bench.

 Memorial plays defending champion Portsmouth at home on Tuesday night and Jennifer Chick-Ruth & I will bring you all the highlights & post-game interview with the winning team. Gold Level members will get the entire game.

 They’ll face a Portsmouth team that is mending their defense on the fly and will be well prepared for the showdown.

 Exeter looked very good in an easy win over Lebanon followed by an overtime victory over Bedford.

 Head coach Jeff Holmes is using the early season games to find his 8 or 9 man rotation.  As that competition works itself out the Blue Hawks remain the favorite in Division I. Exeter shoots the ball well enough to overcome just about any deficit and forward Ryan Grijalva is a very good sophomore who will play a big role in any run to Durham.

 Cody & Josh Morisssette ran a high pick & roll against Lebanon so well that Merrimack’s Tim Goodridge & I cut our conversation off to watch it. Cody hit the screener (Josh) who then in a single touch pass hit the forward coming from the weak side (Bobby Cliche) for an easy lay-up.

 Two brothers with about 1,000 hours in the driveway together, who can go for 20 a night, running that play with shooters in either corner is going to be near impossible to stop.

 That one play illustrates why Exeter has a higher ceiling than any other team in the state.

 What caught my eye about the Blue Hawks also should send up a red flag, albeit one in December with 16 games to go in the regular season.

 Trailing by two in the closing seconds of their semifinal game against Bedford (another top 4 team in the pre-season) the Blue Hawks got the ball to the freshman Josh Morissette and let him create his own shot with the game on the line.

 Senior all-state guard Max Chartier defended Morissette well but the freshman hit a very tough fall away as the ball went through the net at the buzzer to force overtime.

 I re-watched the video five times to confirm who was guarding Josh and on the third viewing something stood out, and now when I watch the play it’s all I can focus on.

 When Morissette hits the game tying shot only two of his teammates on the Exeter bench even stand up or immediately react to the shot. The ball goes in, the buzzer sounds, and there are four to five players on the Exeter bench who never move. Never stand to cheer or celebrate their teammate extending the game to an extra session.

 Now…I’m not going to speculate what’s happening with that team right now but it didn’t take a breakdown like the Zapruder film to see it. What you see is fairly obvious, and if you don’t think team chemistry means anything I can sit you down and tell you about 20 different teams that never got to the winners circle because of it.

 The last freshman to step into a big time program and contribute right away was Cody Graham when he was a freshman on Portsmouth’s Division II runner-up team in 2015. Seniors like Charlie Lehoux, Devonn Wilson-Miles and Loden Formicelli embraced Graham as a player who could get them over the hump and there was very little friction between seniors and the star freshman.

 You can watch any NBA team and see where the chemistry looks good, the Celtics seem to have it with an almost entirely new roster. It is also easy to see in high school teams as well.

 It may be nothing, it may be something, but it bears watching.

 Bedford is going to be fine, even after a 0-2 start to the season.

 When Nolan Anderson is a force in the paint it opens up the perimeter for everyone else and improves their spacing.  

 They’re missing the knockdown shooter that they had a year ago in Troy Meservey, and the more I watch Liam O’Connell the more I think he is at his best attacking the baseline and less as a spot up shooter. Point guard Chris Chartier is giving Mark Elmendorf very good minutes off the bench and as the season moves along Bedford will be in the mix for a second straight Top 4 seed.

 Salem needs shooters to space out the floor and  give point guard Trevor DeMinico more room to operate. Might be Nick Hayes, or it could be an underclassman that emerges……….I love what Dave Keefe is doing with Manchester Central after watching The Great Jon Kesty’s  video of the Memorial game. I can’t wait until they play Merrimack and it’s  a battle of who can control pace (Merrimack usually does..).

 

The NHsportspage Players Locker Room

 

 Kearsarge gets a good win, Concord is improved and Merrimack Valley & Pembroke go old school……….

 Dave Chase’s Concord team got hot from three early and hung around all night against the pre-season #1 in Division II.

 Nate Camp’s Kearsarge team did what veteran teams do; they executed in the last three minutes. They are a team that has played four final four games in two years and so when the game was on the line they acted the part while Concord made some critical mistakes.

 That’s still very encouraging for Concord. The Blodgett brothers (Teddy & Tyler) have stepped into bigger roles and we may be in the early stages of the Tyler Bruns breakout season. The Tide walk away feeling like they coulda/woulda/shoulda won that game but show up to the next practice 2-0 in the Division I.

 It’s a good lesson and a positive start. Dave Chase knows how to coach in big games, his players are going to figure out how to close them out along the way.

 We’ll be in North Sutton Tuesday night when Kearsarge hosts Lebanon, Pete Tarrier and Devin Poslusny will bring you all the highlights and post-game with the winning team.

 Pete snuck over to NHTI to watch one game and ended up seeing basically two when Pembroke and Merrimack Valley went to three overtimes.

 Pembroke pulled out the win but Pete came away raving about Merrimack Valley guard Jake Hebert. As we said on the radio show yesterday head coach Tim Mucher was looking for someone to step into that closers role in tight games and Hebert may have emerged over the holidays as that guy. Merrimack Valley/Pembroke games were once the biggest games in the entire state when Matt Alosa and Scott Drapeau were squaring off.

 With former Pride coach Rich Otis now at Pembroke it would be fun to see that rivalry become a game you circle on the schedule annually.

 

Nute was handing out career highs last week……………

 Two days after newest player’s locker room member Jayden Torres went for 46 points in an 85-41 win over Nute, Lin-Wood’s Brandon Harrington saw Torres’ 46 and raised him a 3-pointer. His 49 points broke the tournament record and put an exclamation mark on the fact this is going to be a very long year for a very good head coach.

 Sean Young moved over to Nute to become their AD and in doing so took on one of the great reclamation projects in New Hampshire high school basketball.

 When I met the Nute players at a fundraiser I was kicking off with them (for Adrenaline Fundraising) Sean laughed that when he mentioned NHsportspage none of his players knew who I was  or had even heard of the website. I took zero offense to this and nearly told them they were off the hook because to be fair I couldn’t name one of them either.

 For someone like Sean, who was a very big presence around the state in his time at Epping, it has to be difficult. But with Billy White and My Man Colby Wilson helping him he is building the program back up from the youth levels. For now they’re going to take their lumps, but there is a bright future as long as Sean is there.

 Alvirne's ears had to be burning all week..........

 Day one of the Queen City was a coach’s clinic with Division I having the afternoon to scout Exeter, Bedford and  Salem.

 The team that came up most often though was playing up the highway in Nashua. The curiosity factor is high with the Broncos and the results from this week will only intensify that curiosity.

 Alvirne survived a scare from a tough Goffstown team in the first round and then went on to win the title with three wins in three days. The final being a double digit win over Merrimack. Max Bonney-Liles was named to the all-tourney team and there seems to be a Connor Lambert post on Twitter highlighting a Bonney-Liles dunk on a daily basis.

 First year head coach but longtime Division I assistant Marty Edwards is letting his players thrive in a sort of controlled chaos. Alvirne will pressure you, push the ball up the sidelines and when they have time to square themselves up they are as good a shooting team as there is in the state.

 Merrimack is not where they need to be but I can’t remember a December when they were. They’ll be there in the end and hope the opening night loss to Pinkerton was their wake-up call.

 Souhegan showed they could be a sleeper in Division II. Anderson Geffard impressed the coaches I spoke to and in Ryan Hickey & freshman Matt McCool the pieces are in place. Pete Pierce runs good offensive sets and if the Sabers can negate their lack of size they’re in good shape in Division II where 2 thru 10 looks to be WIDE open.

 

 McIsaac says a lot of crazy things but calling the Division III race ‘The Berlin invitational' is not one of those things…and other random thoughts………

 I had a Division I coach tell me on Tuesday that after watching Berlin battle Memorial in our Jamboree he felt like the Mountaineers would be a Top 8 team in Division I.

 After a 70-26 regular season win over Belmont and a 68-42 win over Inter-Lakes (it wasn’t that close..it was 42-14 Berlin before they called off the dogs) a peek at the schedule tells you the only true  tests for Dave Morrissete’s team might come from a pair of match-ups against Somersworth, the first one coming this week.

 Groveton hung with Berlin on their home floor for a half before Evan Arsenault, Seth Balderrama  & Co. took over for the win.

  The search for the top four teams in Division III will continue on through January but right now the gap feels pretty wide between 1 and 2 with Hopkinton &  Somersworth leading the group (Conant isn’t playing enough defense, ditto Mascenic, ditto Campbell and there isn’t a team in the Lakes Region that stands out).

 In Division IV we are going to learn the current pecking order when we cover both Newmarket at Pittsfield and Woodsville at Littleton on Friday night.

 I’m excited to see the Engineers. I’m big on Garrett Olsen’s ability to win you games late and if Cooper Davidson stays out of foul trouble they have the shooters to space the floor and a very good center on the low block.

  Littleton head coach Trevor Howard is figuring out his 8-man rotation and in Parker Briggs & Danny Kubkowski he has enough scoring to win on Friday night. More on those two games in the Thursday thoughts but Littleton has been a better team since  Todd Krol-Corliss has returned from an injury…………..it is weird seeing Jim Migneault coaching Trintuy after years on the Bishop Guerin sideline but then again it’s no stranger than seeing Dave Keefe on the Central sideline…….I think the Farmington Holiday tournament had 7 rounds…………..I’m hearing good things about this Oyster River team. Brennan Oxford has been a very good addition and they played Winnacunnet tough for four quarters…………Portsmouth breaks down their defensive mistakes into clips and watches them together as a team. Last year they had an average of about 5 or 6 per game to go over. After the Dover game there were over 30... Back to back strong defensive performances in the BABC tournament against Cambridge Rindge & Latin (a 44-42 loss) and a win over New Rochelle (NY) seem to point to Jim Mulvey & company figuring it out. We’ll get to see for sure Tuesday night at Memorial………….Dover has to figure out how to close out games, frankly there’s still plenty of time……..Londonderry lost a pair of games to Andover (76-72) and Lawrence (66-50) but that’s a pretty battle tested team heading into January with wins over Spaulding & Bedford on their resume. Nate Stanton is reminding people that he is one of the best coaches in the state……..Belmont beat Kingswood to win the Lakes Region Holiday Tournament and with Matty Pluskis, Griffin Embree & freshman Nate Sottack producing they have a chance to compete for a second straight Top 8 seed………..Profile won the Gorham  Holiday Tournament as Justin Stroup's team looks to bounce back from a slow start in December........... Wells (ME) beat Marnaronek (NY) for the Keene State Holiday  Tournament…in other words we didn’t learn much in Keene….I would not want Groveton coming to me in the quarterfinals. Mark Collins will have that rotation down and the roles defined. A team that can rebound, defend and has a scorer who will not shy away from the moment (Austin Lesperence) is a nightmare to face. Also you go toe to toe with Matt Mason in March at your own peril. ……….Josh Woods of America’s Team the Lisbon Panthers went over 1,000 career points in Gorham as did Newmarket all-state guard Anthony Senesombath, who did it in a win over Nute….seriously it was a tough week for Nute.

 

Happy New Year from Jen, Pete, Jon, Eliot, Justin & I!