Basketball was born in New England, and throughout the game's 120-plus years of existence, the different pockets of the region have come to define its rich history.
But what towns and cities have the hot hand now?
Steve Hewitt and I wanted to look across the landscape of both boys and girls basketball to find where talent is pouring out of schools and youth programs. Are Massachusetts cities or Connecticut cities winning between each other? Where are the hidden-gem hoops hotbeds?
It's a subjective conversation, but one we were excited to share. Below are our thoughts.
Ethan:Â We have to establish some parameters first. What's the timeline we're pulling from? Steve and I have decided to look at players from the 2025 high school graduating class and younger (including reclassified prep school players). It's arbitrary, but it encapsulates all of the talent we've watched since we launched New England Basketball Journal.
Then: What's our criteria? This is where the debate begins. You could argue AJ Dybantsa is so good that any next four high school players from Brockton, Mass., would still make a team better than any other city. His star power is that great. Or, you could look at depth of quality, college-bound players as proof that a town is doing more than happening upon one star.
I've met in the middle. I'm looking for the best starting five from a town or city. Steve, what are you weighing as we think about this?
Steve: I agree with you, Ethan. I lean more towards the depth of a city or town. It's awesome that Brockton can claim Dybantsa or Newport, Maine, can claim Cooper Flagg — and I'd like to think both of them will inspire more talent out of those places in years to come — but for the spirit of this exercise, we're looking for more than one singular star. We want to see groups of multiple established talents.
On the boys side, and this might seem obvious, but I'm starting with Boston. Ethan and I agreed that we'd group all of the city's neighborhoods under the Boston umbrella, and that probably makes them unfairly loaded. (Side thought: Maybe we can do the best Boston neighborhood for a future project.) But it's hard to compete with the talent the city has churned out in recent years. Jaylen Harrell, Alex Wilkins, Isaiah Langham, Jaylin Williams-Crawford, Jaylen Hunter-Coleman, Josiah Adamson and Ladanion Payne all fall here, among many others. At the least, I'm not sure if you'll see guards better than the ones coming out of the 617.
Where do you start, Ethan?
Ethan:Â Boston's an easy pick. We can add in Christina Pham to lead the girls' side, plus Bleu Kerr, Cathedral stars Keyona Raines and Hijjah Allen-Paisley. Sheer population means Boston will have some of the best depth of any city or town.
But we're going back to the birthplace! Springfield has been churning out girls basketball talent this decade. I could build a lineup of five Div. 1-caliber prospects in Zahara Wilson, Maya Ocana-Saunders, Giavanna Mars and Zi'Yan Wallace (all still in high school) with Columbia sophomore Alicia Mitchell. And I know we can sub out one of those younger players and sub in TCU boys freshman Sam Fleming, at least. That's a pretty strong group.
Steve: Springfield is a strong one. URI sophomore Javon Perry and Tufts sophomore Ricardo Nieves can be included there, and the Springfield Central trio of Tahir Bey, Aden Cabrera and Allen Miranda, which just led the Golden Eagles to the MIAA Div. 1 Final Four, warrant a mention.
I'll stay in Massachusetts with Worcester. I'd be remiss if I didn't include some of the players that helped Worcester North win back-to-back state championships, a group that included Amir Jenkins, Ty Tabales, Teshaun Steele, Keyshon Joyner and Tahlan Pettway, among others. Loaded.
The major cities are naturally going to boast the most talent. But here's a sneaky one: Needham! They've churned out BU sophomore Sam Hughes, some Division 3 commits in Zach Baum, Alex Dudley and Brady Palladino and 2027 Division 1 prospect Michael McNamara. Not to mention Needham High School, which was a No. 3 seed in last season's MIAA Division 1 tournament.
A few more before I hand it back to you: Beverly had produced Ryder Frost, Brayson Green and Jacob Klass, Brookline can claim Ryan Altman, Jay Jones, Andrew Alekseyenko and Coley Mark, and Lynn has Xavier Abreu and Warren Keel. And we can't ignore Lawrence and Methuen, which I'm combining to include Antonio Pemberton, Javi Lopez and Reece Ayala.
Ethan: Methuen is a sneaky great pick. It's pretty rare to see two of the region's top prospects — Pemberton at No. 1 in our 2027 boys rankings, and Fope Ayo at No. 1 in the 2026 girls rankings — hail from the same town. We can throw in Austin Prep senior Tiffany Burns too. And Lynn gets Bella Owumi as the centerpiece along with the boys you mentioned.
Can other states compete with Massachusetts? Absolutely. I think Bedford, N.H., boasts as great a pipeline as any city mentioned yet. The Bulldogs have dominated on the girls side in recent years. A lineup of Sarah Muir, Annie Zink, Kate Allard, Eva Zink and Mel McCarthy includes three Division 1 prospects (this was basically their 2024-25 starting five). And then you can stack it further with town native Elyse Ngenda, now a Stanford freshman, who played at New Hampton. And why not also add Luke O'Connell, now at New Hampton himself, who's become a fast-rising 2029 boys prospect?
As far as mid-size towns (population of roughly 25,000) go, Bedford might be the best.
Steve: Bedford is definitely in the top tier in New Hampshire. Tilton's Wiji Dak, another 2029 prospect, joins O'Connell on the boys side. Bentley freshman Brady O'Connell, a NEPSAC champion with Cushing, is a gem, too.
Nashua belongs in the New Hampshire conversation as well. They can claim Detroit Pistons first-round draft pick Ebuka Okorie and Marquette commit Alex Egbuonu. Then there's a handful of Division 3 players in Emmanuel's Connor McGowan and Saint Anselm's Josh Caruso.
If you move to Rhode Island, I think Providence can stack up with any city or town in the region. Fordham sophomore Kelvin Odih, Southern New Hampshire's Yancarlos Cueto and Evan Mitchner and two of our Top 50 Class of 2027 prospects, Jabari Edmonds and Elijah McNair, are from here. Then you add 2028 prospects in St. Andrew's guard Malachi Odugbela and Woodstock guard Kyle Delves, who are both trending towards high-major status. That's deep.
Ethan:Â Providence also has Aaralyn Scott coming up in the 2028 class, so there's some quality girls talent in the city.
I plan to write a girls basketball-specific breakdown of these top locales. But for now, I'll round out my thoughts by highlighting Connecticut, which might have the best spread of talented towns among all the New England states. When I looked through recent graduates and current players, I saw clusters of stars in West Haven and New Haven as well as Hartford, East Hartford and West Hartford. Farmington, East Hampton, Fairfield... I could keep going.
But I think the best grouping across boys and girls is in Greenwich. You can count Northwestern sophomore Cam Nelson and Mercy sophomore Emma Sollenne. Zuri Faison, a top 2028 prospect, just led Greenwich to a CIAC championship with graduated senior Madi Utzinger. And I know Reggie Grodin is at Penn State too on the boys side.
Steve: You're right. Connecticut is pretty spread out in talent, and there's a lot of it. From my research, there really isn't one town or city that significantly separates from the pack. But I'll give West Haven the edge. They have the singularly best talent in Abdou Toure, our No. 1-ranked 2026 prospect and Arkansas commit. Alcorn State freshman Ethan Griffin, a Westminster product, also hails from there. And Toure's little brother, Massa, already looks like one of the best 2029 prospects in the region.
