Feb. 19th Games

"end of the third Central runs a double team at him he shakes both goes toward basket draws another defender and kicks it to Dunham for a 3. Brilliant basketball ."

Gbear


Totally agree with you Gbear. T. Preston gets double teamed by Plentzas and Hansen he fights to get some what clear, dishes to Dunham in the corner who swishes a buzzer beating 3 at the end of the 3rd to give South the 57 to 45 lead. Huge play by the player of the game who has definitely played his way into the POY mix. The thing that helps Tim Preston's case is the amount of time he has the ball in his hands and what he does with it. The decisions he makes are so crafty, better than any point guard in D1. This alone might vault him into the lead for POY talk at this stage of the season.

Things are getting interesting! Anyone have a score from Bedford v Dover game. Just read Trinity over North where Lates scored 25pts but it wasn't enough for North. BG over Concord with high scorers Niarhos, Lunn and Zimmerman. Any update on Londonderry-Timby game - was hoping Timby would get a win.

Bedford 69 Dover 58
Londonderry 71 Timberlane 38

Final score in Londonderry

Timberlane: 38
Londonderry: 71
Ugly game from the start and Londonderry was a completely different team than I saw against Trinity

Bedford beat the Green Waves 69-58
Memorial ran Pinkerton out of the gym: 63-49
Winnie edging Alvirne 72-68

Bedford is starting to round into form

they will be dangerous

Now Now Justin..... I don't want to see a Forum fight here. Good win for Spaulding.

T & F

I'm a lover, not a fighter T&F

And I'm sure Mrs McIsaac could vouch for you.

For the Finals coming into the NHIAA website

Salem beat Exeter 57-53
Keene traveled a long way and it didn't affect them one bit: beat West 78-53

Great win for Salem coming off their 39 point loss to Alvirne. Salem is turning into Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide.

Keene and Bedford are the sleepers going into the tournament.

The South @ Central games was quite exciting to watch. South dominated most of the game because of the excellent and POY performance by T. Preston. However, Pelletier had an equally impressive performance. They both scored outside and slashing to the hoop. What impressed me about Preston was his ability to muscle off the defender and get his shot off after contact. What impressed me about Pelletier was his new found post game. Who here can honestly tell me they've seen Pelletier post-up like he did tonight? And he held J. Preston to 7 points very rarely being helped. To me they were both great and had POY performances.

T&F, I heard from some friends and sources that Salem might be a team that could be a Cinderella time in the playoffs but I haven't seen them myself to make my own Assessment. Bedford also being a potentially scary team for a team to face at the right time

Totally agree with Salem. Ruffen inexcplicably didn't score in their 39 point loss to Alvirne last Friday. With McLaughlin prepping his team for the playoffs I would be very leery of being an upper seed and seeing Salem on my playoff schedule.

More thoughts on South's impressive win at Central last night after some strong coffee:


- You could tell early in the game Big Bro Preston didn't have it while Little Bro Preston did have it. Little Bro felt it and expounded his game. Now, on most teams if you have a 1 and 1A and they're not related. The 1 and 1A might fight for the ball or fight to take shots and force their individual game into the team concept. With the Preston Brothers, this is why I say their blood symbiotic relationship on the court serves them and the South Panthers well. Big Bro was more than happy to take a back seat last night and let Little Bro have a POY-Like night at the Simon Gym. This is a very very important intangible for this edition of the Panthers.


- Scary to think that Jack Preston had a pedestrian game last night with scoring 7 points and South still goes into one of the toughest places in the state to play against the top ranked undefeated team and comes away with the solid victory. On the other hand Preston was NOT pedestrian with his rebounding and defense.


- One of the most disappointed people with Central's loss, outside of a Central player, coach or fan, has to be Jack Quirk. He can no longer say his Memorial team has beaten "Undefeated Central."

- 6'2 Central junior Tyler Kelley had a quietly nice game. He had 10 points and battled the strong Panther bodies all night.

- Mike Plentzas of Central just had a very silent game. He scored the first basket of the game on a jumper from the FT line a few seconds into the game. He then proceeded to go scoreless for the next 31 minutes.

- Dickson being held scoreless in the first half was huge. Like I said in my NHN article, no team uses incidental contact to their advantage like South does. They used incidental contact to take Dickson out of his game. They cut off his dribble drives. They cut off his passing lanes. South made Dickson just be a mostly stationary point guard at the top of the key in the Little Green offense.

- The 3rd period was a great period. Central outscored South 22 to 21. The key to this period was in most games if Central comes roaring out of halftime and lays 22 on you they either put a game away or if they are down like they were last night they get back in the game or forge a lead. South had 5 people who scored their 21 points. Most other teams would've had 2 to 3 players score and might have folded some what with Central laying 22 on them.

Nice article in the Concord Monitor on Kaleb Marquis getting his 1000th point in the BG game. BG barely survived this game.

Lunn had 9 points.

Marquis has scored 1000 points during his career while his team has gone 10 - 60 during this span. That is pretty amazing.


http://www.concordmonitor.com/sports/highschool/4523054-95/points-rebounds-win-game

Big Brother Preston did not have it because Central was doubling with out the ball all game long. They left Auger, Joyal, and Knight open behind the line all night.

Jack and Tim relationship is pretty darn good, and they are as different as their games.

Tim as been a 3 year starter and always the star on the teams he played growing up while Jack was on JV as a sophomore and never the go to kid on his teams growing up.

Jack did not even start all the games last year while Tim did, I am so glad for Jack's breakout year and and Jack as always been in Tim's shadow until this year and I think it as pushed Tim to be even better, he as always been so talented he as kind of coasted a bit and he as seen the work Jack as put in the last year and how far his game as grown, it is really starting to rub off on Tim.

I have know both for 7 years now and could not be happier for them.

According to doc, Central's gameplan was to try to make the other guys, particularly Knight, beat them. He ended up torching them for 16. a lot of them came off fast break opportunities fueled by good D, but he also showed the ability to create shots off the dribble. Dunham also posed match up problems on the perimeter. So did Tim Preston. I think although Jack Preston didn't shoot well, he was disruptive on defense and rebounded well. They are going to be tough in the Tourney. Good match up vs Spaulding on Tues!

Double team on Preston most of the night could not be further from the truth. Pelletier did an excellent job pushing Preston away from the hoop, and making him faceup. Preston saw a double team when Pelletier fronted him, but most of the time it was just Pelletier. Players were open because T. Preston was playing so well, not because J. Preston was double teamed.

I am not sure what game you watched but they clearly double Preston without the ball all night in the post, the 5 times he caught the ball on the perimeter, Troy did a good job shutting him down, Jack did settle for the jump shot 4 out of 5 times and Coach Maz shouted at him to go bye him all of those times, though I am not sure Jack could beat Troy off of the dribble because Tory does have quicker feet.

But if you watched the game you would have seen Dawson and Mike P lay of their man and be right by jack in case he got the ball in the post.

I was shocked that Mazz did not adjusted and use Dunham (as a post entry after a reversal to get the ball down low) though he did not have to because how well Preston played.

Though in rematch I think you will see Mikey P play Tim Preston.

OK, although I didn't concentrate on how many times Jack Kevin Love Preston was doubled by Central defensively I do remember Central had a healthy blend of double D on him with Pelletier holding his own in singular D. The main point to be taken is the nightmare defensively any team has moving forward with this South team. If you double Tim Preston he will find Dunham for the 3 or his Big Bro in the paint. If you double Kevin Love Preston he will find the open man with a quick pass and more often than not it'll be his Bro or Dunham knocking it down. If he goes to Knight he can do some nice things with the ball also. They are just a tough team to match up with in D1.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I saw a lot of help side defense, and guys shrinking down space from the perimeter, but not a lot of guys completely disregarding there man to force J. Preston to give-up the ball to a wide open man. If that were the case he would have had 10 assists? My problem is that you only give credit to your own team, and sum it up that J. Preston must have just had a bad game, because there's no way anyone could have slowed him down. When I watch a game I give credit where it's due, whether I am a Central fan (which we all know I am from previous posts), whether I am neutral, or whether I am a fan for the opposing team. From an earlier post you can see that I gave T. Preston huge props. He is an excellent player and had a tremendous game, but Pelletier had a great game as well, and a large part of that was playing defense on J. Preston.

I am giving Central credit it had nothing to do with Jack's bad game it was great team defense he rarely got the ball in the post because of the great team defense by central, and outstanding scheme put in by Doc to control him.