Podcast: Previewing the MIAA boys state tournaments with Boston Herald’s Matt Feld

Winchester's Jack Charchaflian makes a play against Newton North this season. (Ethan Fuller/NEBJ)

The MIAA boys basketball tournaments tipped off on Monday and Tuesday with preliminary round games, but it really gets into high gear on Thursday with the beginning of the round of 32.

Across all five divisions, there’s so much to unpack as teams across the state begin their hopeful journeys towards a championship. To help us break it all down, the Boston Herald’s Matt Feld hopped on the latest episode of the HoopWise podcast.

Feld, who has covered MIAA basketball for the last 10 years at the Herald, went in-depth with hosts Ethan Fuller and Steve Hewitt on what to expect in this year’s tournaments. They discussed a loaded Division 1 field, teams and players to watch across the state, and Feld offered some fascinating nuggets of info about this year’s tournaments.

Hewitt and Feld also give their championship predictions for every division – and they weren’t in agreement for most of them.

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Highlights

What are your initial thoughts on the Division 1 field?

Feld: “I think all told, one of the big things all of the top contenders have is they really necessarily throughout much of the year, haven’t really blown most of their competition away. They’ve dominated at the defensive end of the floor, they’re physical, they play really good defense, particularly Franklin and Newton North, but by and large, we’re not talking about teams that necessarily have three or four explosive offensive weapons. They’ve been able to get by because they all have one superstar — Caden Sullivan at Franklin, Javi Lopez at Central Catholic, Teagan Swint at Newton North, the backcourt at Lowell — and they play really good defense and they’re really, really well-coached but they may not have four, five, six scorers that other teams in the past have.

“That’s what makes most of these games throughout the tournament so competitive — most of the teams aren’t going to get to 75, 85, or even 90 points, which some of the top teams in the past have. These are teams that like to grind the game out in a lot of respects, they’re winning games in the 50s, maybe the 60s, and when you do that, and you play that style, you’re certainly hard to score against, but if an opposing team does shoot the ball well, you also become vulnerable.”

Why do you like Lowell to win Division 1?

Feld: “At the end of the day, Lowell was three things. Their backcourt and the fact that they’ve played in so many big games the last handful of years, particularly playing in the conference they’re in. They had the big win against Bridgewater-Raynham this year. And then Bobby Michalczyk is one of the better coaches around and has overseen the Lowell program when they’ve been at their best and when they’ve struggled as well, so I just feel like this is their year. I was high on them at the start and I am sticking with that.”

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