There was plenty of tourney drama on Thursday

This story was originally published in contributor Lucas McNelly’s Maine Basketball Rankings’ newsletter. To receive his newsletter directly in your inbox, subscribe here.

Let’s start in Augusta with the drama you’re definitely going to hear about if you haven’t already.

So there’s a lot here.

First, to lay out the backstory. In the third quarter, Mount Abram’s Killian Pillsbury was called for a flop and the team was issued a flop warning, which is, of course, the point of emphasis rule that everyone hates. By rule, any additional flops are a team technical foul.

From the National Federation of High School Associations:

“Faking being fouled is defined in Rule 4-49-1 as when a player simulates being fouled or makes theatrical or exaggerated movements when there is no illegal contact. Examples include, but are not limited to, embellishing the impact of incidental contact on block/charge plays or field goal attempts, using a ‘head bob’ to simulate illegal contact and using any tactic to create an opinion of being fouled to gain an advantage.

“The new language also establishes a procedure for officials to issue a team warning on the first instance of faking being fouled. The warning is recorded in the scorebook and reported to the head coach. Any additional instances will result in a team technical foul and not a player technical foul, which was previously the case.”

Pillsbury clearly flopped again on the play. Now, normally my rule of thumb in plays like this is that’s the sort of thing you don’t call in that situation because it’s the ref putting a thumb on the scale in the final 2 minutes of a close game and I hate that. I want something to be egregious to call a tech in a 1-point game in the final 2 minutes.

But the ref did call it. Clearly. And then just … didn’t.

If you want to swallow your whistle in the final 2 minutes, great. I approve. But if you’re going to make a call, actually follow through on the call. This is exactly the fuel of the fire of the unruly fans that have been the scourge of our season. People are going to get mad at anything, it seems, but if you essentially call a technical foul and then don’t enforce it, people are going to get VERY angry

Then partly because he’s getting up off the ground, Pillsbury is able to get behind the defense for the bucket that would end up being the game winner.

Hall-Dale has every reason to be livid. If it was just the flop, OK, but for the flop to indirectly lead to the game-winning bucket? Oh man. That’s brutal.

Of course, there’s a minute left in the game and the Bulldogs had chances to re-take the lead and couldn’t do it and I know there are people who think that excuses a botched call, but it doesn’t. This isn’t the first quarter. The way the final 2 minutes of a game play out are very much dictated by time and score.

If we expect 17 year old kids to understand time and score, we should expect actual adults to be able to handle it.

Girls’ bracket

After a chaotic Wednesday, the girls’ side of the brackets was pretty quiet.

In Augusta, the St. Dom’s girls opened up a 19-6 lead after 1 and did enough to hang on and eliminate Forest Hills in a 3 over 2 upset (although the Model had St. Dom’s by 0.027).

Up in Bangor, Penobscot Valley continued to lay waste to girls C North with an 86-26 win over No. 5 Calais in which Rylee Moulton set a new tournament record with nine threes (on 16 attempts) as part of her game-high 34 points.

They also broke the team record for 3’s in a game with 15 and the team record for a regional tournament with 25. And they still have another game to play.

In other action

Calvin Richardson’s 24 led Katahdin past Central Aroostook … Brayden Osborne’s 24 helped Schenck eliminate the champs from Bangor Christian … Madeline Hill had 20 as Valley blitzed Pine Tree … Jade Graham’s had 17 and Hall-Dale raced out to a 27-4 lead against Winthrop … Jacob Harmon’s 17 & 10 paced Monmouth past Madison … Mattanawcook needed all of Megan House’s 16 to outlast Dexter … The Madawaska boys kept their dream season alive with a win over Calais. Isaac Beaulieu led the way with 14 … Andrew Oliver’s 21 was more than enough for Mattanawcook to handle Fort Kent.

No. 1 seed ousted

In the long, storied history of Class AA, we’ve only twice had a boys No. 1 seed lose in the semi-finals. All the rest have made it to at least the regional final.

On Thursday, that number doubled.

In the early session, Edward Little opened up a 9-point lead on Cheverus in the second quarter on a Diing Maiwen 3. Cheverus answered with an 8-0 punctuated with a Leo McNabb 3. In the third quarter, Edward Little opened with their own 8-0 run and, again, Cheverus answered, tying the game at 37 on a Shema Rwaganje put-back. Akol Maiwen’s steal and dime to Diing Maiwen gave the Eddies the lead back.

Diing Maiwen got out in transition up four, but couldn’t finish at the rim, Cheverus raced down the floor, and Leo McNabb hit a clutch 3 with 40 seconds left to cut the lead to 1.

All game, we’d been waiting for the Diing Maiwen highlight reel play and he’d had a couple of opportunities that he hadn’t been able to convert. With a minute left, he got out in transition up four, but couldn’t finish at the rim, Cheverus raced down the floor to set up Leo McNabb for a clutch 3 to get Cheverus within 1.

And then, with the season on the line, he delivered.

McNabb missed an off-balance 3 on the other end, AJ Lauture was tied up with 0.3 on the clock, which as you know, is the minimum for a catch and shoot. Could Cheverus find McNabb to send the game to overtime?

Nope.

Edward Little pulls off the upset and the first No. 1 seed bites the dust.

In the later session, the “cellar dwellers” from Bonny Eagle showed up with signs and a chip on their shoulder. They came out motivated, holding TA to 10 percent from the floor in the first quarter and stretched out to a 23-10 lead late in the second quarter.

It was a steady diet of Bonny Eagle’s 2 bigs, 6-foot-8 Brody Taylor and 6-foot-9 Max Bouchard, as the Scots controlled both ends of the floor all night, and if you didn’t know the seeds, you would assume Bonny Eagle was the No. 1 seed. It just never felt like TA was going to win the game.

Down the stretch, there wasn’t a ton of urgency. Out of a timeout with roughly a minute left, Bonny Eagle drew up a play where Bouchard found Taylor for a layup that TA seemed completely unprepared for to go up 7 and TA seemed resigned to their fate after that, sort of going through the motions of late game situations. More than one person on media row said some version of “what are they doing?”

And then Bonny Eagle ended the game with a punctuation mark (that didn’t count).

Brody Taylor finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds.

If you like big guys dominating on the block, this Bonny Eagle shot chart is right up your alley.

The biggest winners here are Windham and South Portland, both of whom handled their business and find themselves as favorites to meet in the Gold Ball Game.