D2 Saturday Night

Time to take a look at D2 for Saturday. Here are the matchups and how I see them breaking down.

1) Milford host 9) Bedford I see this being much closer that the regular season meeting where Milford was up after the first quarter by something like 37 to 14. I see Milford holding off Bedford and winning by say 12.

4) Pelham Host 12) Oyster River This is the toughest matchup to call. Pelham has been playing great even without Spirou but I was also impressed with Oyster River. Pelham takes a close match up with a chance at OT to decide it.

2)Pembroke host 10) Souhegan I think this is a bad match up for the (green) Spartans. Cordts should be able to bother Welch with his length and solid D and Gilligan could have a nice game as Pembroke does not match up well with his size.

3)Portsmouth host 6) Hanover Portsmouth wins this by more than some expect. I like the match up with Carney and Walker. The one chance Hanover has in this is getting Walker in foul trouble. If Carney has the chance to be defended by him I would want him to be very aggressive. If Portsmouth has a issue at all it is when Walker is off the floor. They do not have anyone who can start the offense and they seem to struggle if he is not on the floor. Portsmouth wins by 10.

You picked every game except for the Pembroke - Souhegan game.

Sorry I think I justified Souhegan but never named them as the pick. I will take Souhegan in a close game that could be a barn burner. Souhegan is just a little bigger and more physical. This and the Oyster River vs Pelham game make me wish it was like a few years back when this would have all been at UNH so I could see them all. Souhegan by 7.

Is Bedford healthy they do have all 5, 6-6 kids ready to play.

I would love to see Bedford sit back in a 2-3 with three bigs in at a time and slow down the game

No idea if they have everyone but the way Milford is shooting the ball lately that may be the wrong way to play it. You also have to realize that Milford can speed up the game with the press. It will be a good game but I would be surprised to see Milford lose. Bedford sat in a zone the first time they played at Milford killed them from the perimeter. Pick your poison I guess.

I agree with Chi-Kid that Milford is shooting the lights out so a 2-3 may not be the best idea but I can't imagine them going man as it'd be far worse than any zone defense Bedford could throw at them so I expect to see a lot of zone out of Bedford. This game should be a lot better than the last. Also if you're planning on attending get there early. I know the playoff rule is doors open at 630 but I expect there to be a huge line. Milford Laconia was pretty much standing room only and that was with the 16 seeded Laconia (there were seats but if you were with a group of people definately weren't getting a seat) Now it's Bedford obivously a much shorter ride, and I wouldn't say it's a rivalry yet but in almost all sports it's going in that direction so there's usually very good turnouts. So get there early!

I'm headed to Pembroke on Sat night and will be covering the Pembroke/Souhegan game for NHSportspage.com. I haven't seen Souhegan in person this year so I'm looking forward to it. I've seen Pembroke a few times and can't wait to see how Welch and company handle a team many people believe is ALOT better than the 10 seed they carry into the game. One other note, I heard Gilligan is still out with an injury. Anyone got confirm on this?

He played last game and is expected to play this game unless he hurts himself in practice of course.

I really enjoyed watching that last 1. I am hoping to watch it on my computer again.

I almost positive all of the remaining games will be broadcasted on that link GNG. And for those who live in Milford and don't want to be squished in the oven (everygame is hot in there but this will probably be bad) you can watch it on Channel 20 (comcast)

Hope your game is a little easier then the ones played last night.

I think it'll be alot closer than the 30+ blowout last time. Last time Bedford had no fan support this time I expect there fans to be out in force. They're comming in on a role like an 8 game win streak winning 8 out of there last 9. There bigs really worry me, as they're very consistent and far bigger overall than Milfords, but if Milford can get solid play out of Nelson and Barlow (they have been playing a lot more consistent at least in the last few games) I think that's the key to the game. If Beaulieu doesn't get rattled by the pressure milford brings could be in for a very tight one. But if Milford starts out early trapping with even half of the defensive intensity they had against Laconia.. It could get ugly again.

There must be something in the water in Bedford but rumor has it that Glassman won't be playing tonight in the game he was apparently suspended from the team by the school. He is their best outside shooter. If true that won't help Beaulieu or Bedford for that matter.

Here are boxout's picks for the Quarter Finals of DII:

6 Hanover @ 3 Portsmouth This is my game of the night. Two-sport star Sam Carney will try to lead Hanover in an upset of Kamahl Walker's Portsmouth team. Walker is a tall point guard and should be able to use this as an asset. As we know though Walker can get into foul trouble, and if that's the case Portsmouth just may get clipped. This should be a thriller, may not live up to Central/Salem, but could be close. Kyle Dicesare is probably playing the best basketball of his career. He is benefiting from a point guard who thinks pass first and score second. I like the home team in this one: Portsmouth 58 Hanover 56. Player of Game Kamahl Walker.

12 Oyster River 4 Pelham The Bobcats are looking to continue dancing into the Final Four. Pelham is looking to get back to UNH. This is a tough one to call, if the Pythons have to rely of Spirou and Defranzo to do all the scoring, it could be a tough. If Brett Bailey can get double figure points to lesson the load for those two it is over. Still I will go with the Bobcats in this one to keep dancing. Walker,Diveglia, and Goodwin are feeling it. Player of Game Chris Walker

10 Souhegan 2 Pembroke Gilligan is back and played well in his return with 13 points. Gilligan's injury has left him as a game-time decision for about a month now. Someone mentioned Brandon Len earlier (great insight), the kid has great talent for only being a Soph. My opinion he is the best Soph. point guard in DII. He will have his hands full with Maher. The problem sometimes is the Sabre's bigs have awful hands. Len can throw some great passes and those guys will catch it, but it can be bobbled allowing the defense to get in position. Pembroke is a young team, but to be honest the Sabre core is young too. Tough to go against Pembroke in this one, so I won't. Pembroke 72 Souhegan 66 Player of the Game Matt Persons

1 Milford 9 Bedford Once again it will be the same issues for the Spartans, the Bulldogs are tall up front. If Nelson and Barlow as well as Desmarais don't win the battle of the boards then the Spartans could be bitten. O'loughlin and Holder need to be running the floor, so the big fellas need to get the outlet pass to Mitchell. I hope we don't see Hack a Shaq but we could, Bedford Coach John Langlois will have something up his sleeve, you don't have 4 state titles under your belt for no reason. Milford Coach Dan Murray may stop the bleeding in this one early. No Glassman will make it tough. Milford 77 Bedford 57 Player of the Game Jamie Holder

See why I never make predictions the days before games. It is kids playing this game, and kids will be kids.

I'd give my own analysis on the games but Chi-kid and boxout have so I'll just state what I disagree with on what boxout said.

I have to disagree with Pembroke winning, they have mis-matches with Souhegan all over the place almost all to Souhegan's benefit Gilligan could/should have a monster game, not to mention Souhegan has more depth, I think Souhegan wins this one by 7-10.

As far as game of the night I think it'll be Oyster River, Pelham could see this one being the D2 "epic" game of the night, I think Spirou carries the Pythons to the win.

Not having Glassman certainly doesn't help Bedford's chances. I've obivously had Milford all along but I think it could be closer than Boxout says even with out Glassman, but I've also said if Milford brings the intensity on D like they did in Laconia this game won't be close...at all. I think Milford wins by 10-12.

Can't wait to see what happens.

Oh I thought I was reading more of a Bill Raferty, HS is hard to predict, just like NCAA brackets. I like to pick upsets and I always pick the wrong ones. LOL Have fun tonight. Go Spartans!

Lol...No I hear ya HS is very hard to predict and Oyster River certainly could win, and I wouldn't be shocked at all.

Looks like a few of the forum members tuned in on TV but for those who didn't i'll start my recap in about 5 mins. Portsmouth won, Souhegan won as did Pelham. Portsmouth and Souhegan met earlier and lost 62-41, without Gilligan should be a better game around, and Milford has played the pythons 2 this first game was a 10 point game the next was a blowout but Spirou didn't play but should be another great game.

I think the 4 best teams in D2 are in the Semifinals. The way it should be. As some of our members have stated - look at Pembroke's schedule this year, cupcake city. Souhegan, Pelham, Portsmouth and Milford all played very good schedules and deserve to be here. Good stuff, hope to read some reports in the morning.

I just got home from the Pembroke/Souhegan game which the Sabres won 53-45 to advance to the Division 2 semis at UNH. It was a tale of 2 halves. The 1st half belonged to Pembroke who had a 23-17 lead at the break, but the 2nd half was dominated by Souhegan and Devin Gilligan. Gilligan poured in 18 of his game high 21 points after halftime as the #10 Sabres downed 2nd seeded Pembroke on their home floor. He also had 9 rebounds and hit on 9 of 10 free throw attempts. Seth Cordts also came up big for Souhegan with 15 points and 6 rebs.

Pembroke was led by sophomore point guard Rene Maher with 14 points. Matt Persons had 13 and Patrick Welch 12. After the game Pembroke coach Matt Alosa said "we just didn't make shots" and noted that his team was a woeful 5 for 24 on 3 pointers.

1. 2. 3. 4. Final
Bedford- 14 9 15 14 52
Milford- 12 18 17 17 64

Milford: Mitchell-17, O'loughlin 17, Holder 16, Nelson 7, Barlow 7

Bedford- Trevor Fahmy 18, Maher 17 there were like 8 other people surrounding the book so that's all I saw for bedford I apologize

I also apolgize if I forget some stuff or say something happened in the wrong quarter doing it all off memory.

So I arrive at 6:03, and the doors opened at 6 the place is already packed. My choice of seating was front row in front of the Bedford student section/fan base or jammed in with the Milford fan base I choose the front row bleacher seat. Place was absolutely packed they were turning people away at about 6:30 ish maybe a little later. I asked the assistant principal what the capacity was he said 800-900 people were in there since they had to keep track so no fire hazards were created. If you've ever been to Milford you know 800-900 people in that gym...is way to many I'm sweating just thinking about how hot it was in there so there was a great enviorment standing room only obviously.

1st Half
Milford started off running getting a lot of transition buckets a early Holder dunk I believe (finished with 4 dunks) all these transition buckets were created off solid Milford defense but they didn't trap them early as they did Laconia. Bedford tried applying a little pressure then dropping to there 2-3 but it didn't work at all as Milford opened up the game to a 10-0 lead I still didn't think it was going to get out of hand I figured Bedford would settle down and they did after a timeout. Bedford started to sprint back and getting in there zone and it was working as Milford really struggled shooting the jump shot. Generally when O'loughlin and Holder struggle with there jumper they can penetrate and get easy buckets but Bedfords bigs altered a lot of shots and were a force in the paint and really kept Milford from getting to the whole in there Half court set. Bedford got there offense going by going inside to Maher and Fahmy and chipped away. After the 10-0 run to start the game Milford only scored 1 bucket and Bedford took the lead late in the first. Milford got a lot of good looks but were missing horribly. Also Milford got some solid minutes from Sophomore big man Ben Smith, he banged down low as Nelson was in foul Trouble in the first. Milford as a team was in some bad foul trouble in the first quarter as they had 8 team fouls in the first quarter alone.

Bedford had taken the lead I was a little nervous. Going into the second quarter Milford was struggling shooting even when they got good looks. I thought they got good looks but in the 2nd quarter at the beginning it looked to become a little stagnant. In the first half a lot of there offense came from transition because of the poor shooting. This quarter was a lot like the 1st many transition buckets for Milford and almost all of Bedford's offense was coming from the bigs. Holder was guarding Matt Bealieu in the 2nd (may have in the first and didn't notice) I think his length and great defense really bothered him and it didn't allow Bedford to get there offense in rhythm. Milford's offense started to move a little more I think it became a little stagnant as the big 3 didn't really have any breaks. I think Holder got one in the 2nd after one of his dunks he began to cramp up and Jovi P game in but I don't recall any of them getting any breaks in the first half or the second. With Jamie bothering Matt B Bedford's offense struggled and with Milford's half court offense picking up as well as there transition buckets they went into the half with a 30-23 lead I felt a little better but knew Bedford wouldn't go away. I thought Milford's bigs (Barlow, Nelson, Smith, Desmaris) did a good job on the offense boards got some extra oppurtunities for Milofrd but struggled on the Defensive boards Nelson altered and blocked a lot of shots which was huge probably finished with at least 5-7 blocks or atleast it seemed it. Bedford's big did the same thing exceptional on the offensive boards a lot of put backs for them, but I thought they did a better job on the defensive boards. This game could've been closer in this half maybe Bedford could've maybe even had a lead had they hit there freethrows, they were in the bonus in the first quarter but really struggled from the line.

2nd Half
Now with both teams more settled in the basketball got better. Milford still struggled getting shots to fall but not nearly as bad as it was in the 1st half. I think the 2nd half was really when Mitchell made a huge impact on the game (played well all game but really played well) The game continued as it was in the first half Bedford getting almost all there points on 2nd chance put backs and pounding it inside, and Milford overall struggle shooting. But this is where Mitchell stepped in. I've said all year and even last year he would be dropping buckets on almost any other teams. About half way through the 3rd Quarter Mitchell had the ball at the top of the key and pulled up and hit a 3. After this I thought his on-ball defense was outstanding and his good shooting continued. After this not only was Mitchell running the offense setting others up he was looking to score for himself and when he's doing both he's very tough to guard. I really thought this was sort of a turning point in the game. In the last 10 seconds Matt B got the ball for Bedford and hit a buzzer beater to narrow the game to 47-38 I believe I was a little worried here as sometimes buzzer beaters lead to a run in the next quarter. Overall the 3rd quarter was very solid, thought Nelson again did a good job blocking shots as well as Holder got a few blocks including another dunk. I thought Milfords post D was sub-par in the 3rd/4th yes they blocked shots but most of it was help d which is great but when Fahmy and Maher caught the ball posted up it was a simple drop step and score. O'loughlin and Holder started to be able to get to the whole a little better in this quarter.

The 4th quarter again was back and forth. Bedford narrowed the gap a few times to 6 or 8 I think it even got to 4 one time but Milford expierience really showed, great composure everytime Bedford got it close Milford would get the lead back to 10 never getting rattled. I think Bedford was just worn out at this time. Although Milford didn't use there bench as much as normal (from a guard stand point) Milford guards didn't look tired at all looked very conditioned, Bedford's guards began to look gassed and Milford began to trap and force turnovers. The big 3 also were able to penetrate easier now, which allowed them to set each other up a lot easier and get some easy buckets. Fahmy and Maher did all they could do but they really needed an outside threat to have a chance to win.

Overall, I thought this was a very good game to contrasting styles Bedford wanted to get it inside and did it very well, thought Fahmy's play was outstanding great game for him. Milford's bigs played very well for most of the game doing a lilttle of everything. Big 3 were outstanding all of them even though there were struggles at time they had to play big minutes and it didn't phase them. Generally Milford struggles from the FT line but shot the ball very well from the line. Again apolgize if I forgot anything, feel free to add if I did.

Bigman nice post. I agree with everything you stated. Except Milford was only 11 of 20 from the line. You. Hit on every point though with both teams. Are you one of those annoncers for Milford?

Oh well it seemed like they shot better from line my bad. Lol and no I'm not one of the announcers...I'm younger lol probably a lot younger than most forum members would expect.

I totally agree with you Asst on the four best D2 teams making it to the Final Four. Those 2 semi final games should be excellent games. I know we spend a lot of time here on the Forum complaining about schedules and point systems for these divisions and teams. After arguing a lot of things on paper it's nice to see the teams work it out finally on the court and in this instance of the D2 Final Four, appropriately do so.

Bigman just to add to your analysis which once again was very good. Milford had zero points from their bench. Not saying they won't win it all, because I think they will. Probably just jinxed them. The problem with no scoring off the bench is two-fold. It means you are relying on your starters to do all the scoring, and if one of those starters gets into early foul trouble the scoring could be an issue. Otherwise a very good effort by the Spartans.