D1 POY With a Week To Go

POY Update

The upper candidates:

The Preston Brothers: Jack Kevin Love Preston has been more inconsistent, but when his game is on it is ON. Tim has been remarkably consistent throughout the season. Tim is hands down the best point guard in D1 boy's. 2nd place point guard could be argued all you want, but the chasm to who ever you chose to be the 2nd best point guard in D1, would be very wide to get to the basketball Tim Preston has played this season.

Troy Pelletier: He carried Central to stay within 6 to 12 points of South last Tuesday for the majority of the 2nd half. Pelletier has been consistently good as the Central schedule has gotten tougher in the 2nd half.

Dominic Paradis: He has been consistently good as Spaulding has kept pace for a Top 4 seed. He's done it all and makes his mates keep up with him. A quiet leader.

Mabor Gabriel: Even though Carmen G has all of a sudden become the Go To Guy for the Pioneers, Gabriel has been very consistent throughout the season with double doubles. One stat I assure you he leads of all D1 in is physical and mental shot alterations.

Eric Gendron: He was near the top a couple of weeks ago, but it seams the word is out on Merrimack on how to defend them. My only question is why wasn't that word known earlier in the season with some other teams and some other coaches?

Jeff Lunn: The 6'6 senior was very consistent until the last 10 days when he scored 6 against Pinkerton as BG eeeked out a victory and 9 against Concord as BG eeeked out another victory. A Cardinal fan could say he can't play all 5 positions for BG. That is true, but when other POY candidates are producing during this 10 day period, well the separation becomes quite evident in POY candidates, in my mind.

Kaleb Marquis: He is finishing up a great career as one of the all time great Crimson Tide players. If you haven't seen him play you truly are missing out on seeing one of the best players in the state. He has a Jesse James release. He has great court vision with nifty passes setting up mates when he draws the defense. He is a great defense player with quick anticipation to making a few steals/game. He is a sportsman and a nice kid on the court. Mark it down. He should be 1st Team All State.


Not Upper Candidates:

Carmen G: Even though he's been heating it up as of late, he still had a slow start (Football muscles morphing into basketball muscles) to the season.

Tyler Livingston: The NH Sports Page has him scoring in double figures in the 14 games that have been reported. He has had a very good season.

Tong Akot: Too much going on with Tong and Memorial that negates him being in the Upper Candidates, but you all know what the lost son of Oliver Miller brings to the table.

Tie - Jordan Lates of North and Cameron Meservey of Bedford. These 2 are having quietly very good years for their respective teams. They both deserve some good Pub.


As an FYI the above POY list is how I would break it down to choose my POY/All State Teams. This is how I would fill out my POY/All State ballot if I had one. There are 6 players who make 1st team and 6 players who make 2nd Team. Your top All State vote is basically your POY pick. They do it on a points system corresponding to where you have the players ranked on your ballot. It is conceivable a player can win POY, but yet there could be 1 to 3 players that have more 1st place POY votes than the POY winner. There are 20 first place votes up for grabs. It is also conceivable a coach, who has a hair across his clipboard could leave out a definite 1st team all stater off the 1st team all state and this would greatly affect the voting process. This would be similar to the 1940s and 1950s when NY baseball writers would leave Ted Williams off their Top 10 ballot for MVP so they would ensure Joe DiMaggio would win it. Is it right to do this? No, but it is part of the process which is called the human element. Did I just say this? OK, you didn't hear it from me. It's amazing the things you hear at Billy's sometimes, but you didn't hear it from me.

Now, I have 13 players because I wanted Lates and Meservey to get some much deserved Pub.

Oh and before the Forum natives get restless and start beating the let's go to war with T & F war drums, now you see how difficult it is to fill out an all state ballot.

My top 8 players are the Prestons, Pelletier, Paradis, Gabriel, Gendron, Lunn and Marquis. So, 2 of these 8 players will not make first team, but will be near the top of the 2nd team all state. Which 2 players are not in 1st team? Gendron and Marquis? Jack Preston and Lunn? Gabriel and Paradis? Now, you see the quandry some coaches face. The 2 players you don't put on your first team all state sound like DEFINITE 1st team all staters with their consistent performances this season. Add how a coach votes for HIS player or how a coach DOESN'T vote for an opposing player and you have a set of dynamics which is truly fascinating.

Remember, Tyler Gendron won the POY last season. I wouldn't say a lot of people I talked to were shocked over this, but they were extremely surprised, which I guess you could say is a smidgen below shocked.

As I have stated in the past on this Forum, Kaleb Marquis really should be considered for POY. If he played for
a Trinity or Central there would be no doubt. Has played his heart out for 4 years for an extremely poor program
in Concord.
If you take away his offensive and defensive skills, I don't believe Concord would have won more than 4 games in the last
three years. As it is now, they have only won 11.

And I realize that the POY will undoubtably come from a quality program. Too bad!

SJ, I hear you. You are preaching to the Kaleb Marquis choir when you talk to me about Kaleb. Even though the possibility is slim he will win POY, I think at this point if he has a place on the 1st team all state, then that would be a great accomplishment.

I am not trying to down grade Kaleb he is a very good player but Concord did win a game with out him, and they a have not beat a good team all year.

1st team maybe but player of the year no, just cant do it.

My first team would be Tim Preston
Troy P.
Jeff Lunn
Paradis
Gabriel
Gendron

With player of the year being Troy P just a slight edge over T. Preston it depends on how they finish. If Central wins out and finish first going to have to go with Troy P.

Golden Bear you are correct that Concord won a game without Kaleb this year. It was a 1 point victory against a bad
Nashua North team. You have just confirmed my previous comment. Concord lucky to win without him.

Also, no chance because all you people believe the POY should be from a good team. Oh and by the way Concord held
Mr. Lunn to 9 pts. - how often has that happened this year?

The top players make their teammates better and therefor their teams win. Larry Bird led a bunch of nobodies to the National Championship game in 1979. We have seen a lot of scorers who put up points but play for losing teams and they never win MVP or POY. It took Jordan and LeBron many years in the NBA to finally win a title. It happened when they figured out how to incorporate their superior skills into a more team friendly style of play. It has and will always be the way. The top three players this season in D1 are Troy Pelletier, Eric Gendron and Tim Preston. Paradis and Lunn are right there as well. These guys not only score, they also guard the opposing teams top players, they rebound and they win.

Kaleb is an all state player for sure and scoring 1000 points is an impressive accomplishment. If he was at a program that was well coached and had some success it's possible he would not of reached that milestone but he would of won a lot more games. I'm guessing he would gladly make that trade.

In my mind after last night's games there is an even further separation in the line for POY.

The Top candidates heading into the last week:

Preston Bros

Troy Pelletier

Dominator (Thank U Justin) Paradis

Eric Gendron


Near the Top:

Jeff Lunn - Unfortunately, BG losing to Spaulding and the Dominator won't help his cause. 2 of the last 4 games he hasn't hit double figures.

Carmen G - Although he might not win POY he is making a big push for 1st Team AS. He had a monster performance on the road in Dover last night.... 31 points and 15 rebounds.

Kaleb Marquis - He might not win POY, but if things fall right in the voting process, he could make 1st team AS.

Not near the Top:

Tong Akot - When your head coach is receiving more publicity for his quotes than your play on the court then your POY possibilities are minimal and sinking fast.

Tyler Livingston - Probably won't win POY, but with the process could sneak into 1st team AS.

Thanks for the clarificatikn, RamFan.

Coaches cannot cast votes for their own players on the All State Ballots.....

My first team would be T.Preston, Pelletier, Lunn, Paradis, Gabriel, Gendron
My POYs going into final week: Pelletier, Lunn, Paradis, T.Preston

I find it ironic in some of the posts that some features of a specific player's game bolsters their POY status but diminishes it for others. A little confused as I read through the posts. Just an observation on my part. My three favorites for POY are Pelletier, Paradis & Lunn because of their on-court leadership & hard work, as well as what I hear about their character off the court. Again, I know, I know coaches may not careless about all this, but as a "casual fan" - I do.

I think its interesting when I hear about a kid playing sick or not 100% that they are still out there giving it their all, but on the forum unfortunately we don't realize this may affect numbers from game to game. But thumbs up to those players that do! Many close games the last few weeks that many on here never saw coming.....it's great isn't it! On any given night, anyone can come out on top!

After the 12 kids who make 1st and second team all state how to the coaches decide who makes honorable mention

It is cut and dry. It's based on a points system with votes.

The Top 12 vote getters make 1st and 2nd team.

The next 10 vote getters based on a points system make Honorable Mention. A certain coach could vote a certain player for 1st or 2nd team AS, but if that certain player gets a certain amount of points based on other coaching votes then he makes HM.

How many votes does each coach get is it 1-6 and that is all or is it 1-12 or is 1-22

Although there are a lot of worthy candidates for player of the year, I would like to offer my biased opinion from what I have observed all season. Having watched him all season, I definitely believe Troy Pelletier has proven to be the top player in D1. He has been incredibly consistent in all phases of the game. Offensively, he is one of the top scorers and he has made clutch shot after clutch shot for his team. Defensively, he can guard the biggest guys in the state even though he is really a guard. Some nights he's defending a big inside and other nights he's defending an athletic guard or forward on the perimeter. He plays excellent defense without getting into foul trouble which is huge for Central. Troy is an excellent ball handler and can beat most anyone off the dribble. He has also developed a nice post game inside which is something he didn't have last year. He can hit three and has a great mid range jump shot as well. A friend of mine, who used to play ball with me, watched Troy play against Trinity (objective opinion from a guy who knows the game) said he was by far the best player on the floor. The fact he is so versatile in all areas seems to give him the edge over everyone else (a close race for sure) in my opinion.

Something that doesn't get talked about is his leadership. He is highly respected by his teammates. He is a quiet leader and those are the best kind. I have seen a lot of fake leaders who do it for show but not Troy. He is unselfish and extremely humble and hard working. After the tough Bedford loss on Friday night, Troy was in the weight room for two hours on Saturday. He was working with his Sophomore teammate Brett Hanson and pushing him through a grueling workout when they were both tired and sore from the previous nights game. Thats's what leaders do and Troy sets a tremendous example for his team on and off the court.