Last season, Putnam Science played five games against teams from Overtime Elite as part of its national schedule. The Mustangs won all five.
The league must have been paying attention.
Putnam Science announced earlier this week that its boys basketball program will be joining OTE – the Atlanta-based national league that features some of the best teams and players in the country – starting in the 2026-27 season. It’s a massive step for the five-time national prep champions.
“This is a game-changer for Putnam Science Academy,” coach Tom Espinosa said. “Everyone who says something to me, I say this is the NBA of high school basketball, in my opinion.”
Putnam will continue to play a local schedule that includes New England teams, and the program has confirmed it will return to the New England Basketball League, which features the best teams from the region. It will also remain eligible to play for the national prep championship.
But the opportunity to join OTE is one it couldn’t pass up. Espinosa said they’ve been in talks with the league the last few years, and it finally came together this year. OTE is transitioning to become a national prep league that also includes the addition of Southeastern Prep, which features two of the top four 2027 recruits in the country, per ESPN’s rankings.
OTE will include eight teams from around the country, and Putnam will have the opportunity to travel. As part of the regular-season schedule, Espinosa said they’ll go to Atlanta five times, Florida once and Texas once, and they will also host an event locally in New England. Then there’s the playoffs, which include a best-of-3 first round, best-of-5 second round and best-of-7 championship series. It could be an exhausting schedule.
Joining OTE will give Putnam a significant boost in both exposure and competition level. There will be more college coaches and even NBA scouts watching their games. OTE also has a massive social media presence, which includes 1.4 million followers on Instagram and 4.1 million followers on TikTok.
“The exposure is off the charts,” Espinosa said. “They told us this is the second most popular league behind the NBA. Social media is insane. They post something, and the next thing you know, it’s 200,000 likes. It’s wild.”
But the biggest game-changer for Putnam, Espinosa believes, will be the talent level of recruits they’ll be able to attract to their program. With the best of the best players in OTE, it’s a major pull.
“We can tell kids that we’re basically playing in the NBA of high school basketball,” Espinosa said. “We’re going to be able to travel, play in the OTE arena which is phenomenal. It’s really going to help us with recruiting. The majority of the kids want to play in OTE. When we can pitch that, it’s one thing to say do you want to play at Putnam and we play in the Big 6. It’s just different to say we’re now playing in OTE. …
“At the end of the day, we didn’t get Top 50 (kids), it was hard to get Top 100 kids here. … But now I think (those) kids will come here because we’re OTE. I think it’s going to help with recruiting big time where we couldn’t get certain kids before but now I think we have a good shot at getting them.”
This is a defining moment for Putnam, which allowed Espinosa an opportunity to reflect. When the school opened in 2002, it didn’t even have athletic programs. Espinosa changed that. The first varsity basketball season came in 2007-08, and nearly 20 years later – after winning five national prep titles and becoming one of the best prep programs in the country – the Mustangs are now in one of the top high school leagues in the nation.
“I don’t take it for granted,” Espinosa said. “I appreciate everything we’ve gotten up to this point and what we’ve accomplished. It’s hard to imagine. If you told me what we’ve accomplished in 20 years, I would have never believed it. I’ve always dreamt of it and hoped for it and that was our goal. I remember saying we want teams to play us, like the South Kents and the Tiltons with Nerlens Noel and all those guys. We wanted to be somebody. And then we became somebody. …
“I’ve had a lot of good people around me and I think that’s the biggest key in why we are where we are today,” Espinosa continued. “I’ve had great assistant coaches. Josh Scraba has been with me forever, we have a great staff, great administration that’s always supported us. I feel like we do it the right way and we’re honest people and we’re honest with coaches, we’re honest with recruits. We know who we are and we don’t try to sell anything that we’re not. The kids that we recruit are kids that are hungry and have something to prove. Those are the kids we’re successful with. We recruit kids with D2 offers who want to be low major or we recruit kids who are low major who want to be mid-major. …
“We get tough kids who have something to prove. All those kids over the years have put us in this position. But it’s hard to believe and I’m very appreciative of everyone who’s helped us get to this point.”
