SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — When Leo Papile thinks about the trajectory of his Boston Amateur Basketball Club’s (BABC) season that led to this week’s Adidas 3SSB national championships in South Carolina, the college football playoffs come to his mind.
BABC had another strong year in its second season on the Adidas circuit this spring, and it boasts a 24-4 record heading into its first tournament game of the Adidas 17U championships on Thursday. But after winning the annual Boston Shootout in mid-June, they took a three-week break due to the live scholastic period, when college coaches can watch potential recruits in person. They returned for some tune-up games at the “Basketbull” event last weekend here at Western New England College, but there was some rust.
“It's almost like the college football bowls,” said Papile, the longtime head coach at BABC. “You play your conference championship game at the end of November, and then you’re off 5-6 weeks to the first week in January.
“It’s like, ‘Wow, who are we? Who are these guys, you know?’”