Wow, seven hours of boys hoops at North Andover High absolutely flew by.
Instantaneous thoughts on the opening round:
Two great, intense games in Lawrence-Pinkerton and Central-North Andover.
Another typical Salem-Andover fist fight and a tidy Methuen win over Greater Lawrence Tech.
In case you missed it, Lawrence roared back from a second-half deficit of 18 points to knock off Pinkerton, 76-62.
Methuen outlasted the Reggies, 39-22.
Central, without Adrian Gonzalez, Rory Blinn and Walson Constant, stopped North Andover, 63-49.
And Salem fell to Andover, 60-45.
If I had to pick an all-quarterfinal team, we’d go with day 1 MVP Justin Nieves of Lawrence, who dumped in 31 of his Saturday high 38 points in the second half.
He’d be in our backcourt with Central’s Billy Marsden, who tossed in 25 in the win, and our third guard would have to be North Andover’s Steve Boudreau, whose refuse to relent attitude nearly fueled what would have been one of the great upsets in area history.
Up front, it’s a tough choice to take two of three, so we’ll go with Pinkerton super soph Ben Proulx, who’s a double-double waiting to happen every time he steps on the floor.
Proulx, in his Christmas tourney debut, finished with 18 points and a dozen rebounds.
And our fifth man has to be Andover’s Tristian Shannon, who made all 16 of his points count in the win over Salem.
If we went seven-deep, it would have been Central’s Carson Desrosiers and Andover’s Derrick Beasley, who were huge in their teams’ wins.
Best coaching job of the day had to go to Lawrence’s Paul Neal, whose teams year in and year out find ways to crawl off the floor and win.
Strangest game was the Methuen-Greater Lawrence game, in which neither team could find a rhythm.
Best crowd was the Central-North Andover game, with the collision of the Central Crazies and the Crozier Crazies.
Toughest loss to take had to be Pinkerton, which was victimized by at least 3 or 4 tough, OK awful, calls at the worst times. At one point, Colby Verge was shoved to the floor and lost the ball, without a call.
Still, the way little Justin Nieves went off, it probably didn’t matter.
More great action continues after the holiday at North Andover Thursday with the all-MVC semifinals, Lawrence vs. Methuen followed by Central Catholic vs. Andover.
