Trio of guards have been unstoppable for Hillhouse. Can they do it one more time against St. Joseph in Class LL final?


Bright lights or candlelights? What the heck does that mean? Career coach Larry Kelley has a definition for the Panthers as they return to Mohegan for the L final against Northwest Catholic.

Those are the 6:15 and 8:15 games, respectively. Class S final between Immaculate and Capital Prep is at 11:30 a.m. and the Class M final between Watertown and Waterford is at 4:15 p.m.

If you cannot get to any of the state championship games this weekend, you can follow along on our website with the up-to-the-second updates from what is going on all weekend long.

Plug in the following URL: http://www.nhregister.com/titletracker/


into your web browser and you will see the feeds for boys basketball, girls basketball, hockey and boys swimming tonight and Saturday.
 
And you can follow me along on twitter all weekend long at @nhrJoeMorelli.
 
Hope to see you all at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

Hillhouse guard Andre Anderson missed Wednesday's semifinal-round win over Fairfield Prep due to dehydration. Anderson cramped up during the quarterfinal-round win over Manchester, then after being fouled in the final seconds, both of his legs cramped up so severely that he had to be carried off the floor.
Anderson suited up against Fairfield Prep, but Hillhouse coach Renard Sutton chose to sit him for precautionary reasons. Sutton said Anderson will play in Saturday's final against St. Joseph at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

Hillhouse was without starting guard Andre Anderson, but the Academics still were able to beat Fairfield Prep 60-47 in the Class LL state semifinals.
Anderson got hurt in the final seconds of the quarterfinal win over Manchester, what appeared to be a cramp or as Hillhouse coach Renard Sutton, a charley horse injury. Sutton said he could have played against Prep and would be ready to go against St. Joseph.

That will be a battle Saturday night. More on that on a future post. St. Joes beat New London for the second time this season, ending the spectacular career of New London guard Kris Dunn.

Watertown and Waterford advanced to Saturday's Class M final. The stage is now set for the Mohegan Sun on Saturday.

The word drama doesn't even do Tuesday's Career-Wilby game justice.
A day after two quarterfinal-round games were decided in double overtime, the Career-Wilby needed just one overtime period and Career survived 64-63 before a sellout at Bunnell High School.
Career goes up 10 in the third quarter.
Wilby goes up seven in the fourth quarter.
Then the SCC champions score eight straight to take the lead. It looked like the Panthers would hang on in regulation, but Cory Bidon accidentally fell on top of Wilby's Walter Wright, fouling him with 1.9 seconds left. The silky-smooth guard cooly sank two free throws to tie the game at 58 and send it to OT.
Career scored the first four points of OT, then Wilby scored the next five to go up by 1. Kenny Armstead's tip-in with 35 seconds left proved to be the winning basket, but Career had to survive two scoring opportunities in the final 8 seconds to survive.
Now Northwest Catholic is between Career and its first state championship in school history. Both teams are looking to avenge losses in last year's finals: Career to Trinity Catholic in M, Northwest to New London in L. This game has the makings of a classic.
How will Career contain NWC's Kuran Iverson? Can NWC expose Career's aggresive zone defense? This and other questions will be answered, likely Saturday night.
This game is likely going to the wire and should serve as a very good prelude to the Class LL title game which should conclude the day's festivities at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

This was the night you wish you could be in more than two places at once.

Windsor and New London lived up to the incredible hype, going to double overtime as Kris Dunn put the Whalers on his back to put New London into the semifinals 79-73 over Windsor. The Whalers had to come from behind just to force overtime before an overflow crowd at CCSU. Too bad only one of these teams gets to move on.
Now New London gets a chance to avenge one of its two losses against St. Joseph on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in New Haven. Two of the state's best, Dunn and Timajh Parker of St. Joes, match up in what should be another war.
In the bottom half of the LL bracket, it's an All-SCC matchup with Hillhouse and Fairfield Prep advancing to East Haven after dispatching CCC teams Manchester and New Britain. Should be interesting how Terry Tarpey matches up against Hillhouse's defense.

Two double-overtime games in one night of quarterfinals? Could it be a record? Watertown gets past Brookfield 68-62 in another war, The Indians now get to face upstart Ledyard, which beat Enfield, the only undefeated team that was left, 69-67 on a last-second shot.
The bottom half of the bracket also featured two close games, Waterford 52-50 over Valley Regional, last year's Class S champion, and Notre Dame-Fairfield over Kaynor Tech 57-53.

We can only hope the semifinals and/or the weekend finals are this good. At least with the finals, they will all be in one place and fans will be able to see them all.

We took the weekend off from hoops to rest, take in some NCAA hoop games and the selection show, and now it's time to reconvene for the final week of the season.

The biggest game on Monday's quarterfinal-round schedule is the Class LL tilt between No. 5 New London and No. 4 Windsor. The game has been moved to CCSU to accommodate fans to see what is like a final. For those who cannot get there, CPTV Sports will be broadcasting the game live. That can be seen on Comcast cable channels 185, 187 and 744 and on the Cox Communications cable system channel 144.

The next biggest game on the docket is Ridgefield vs. St. Joseph, a matchup of FCIAC foes that became even more heated when the CIAC moved this game as well to Fairfield Warde from St. Joes. As you can imagine, the St. Joes contingent was unhappy to say the least and there has been some sniping back and forth in the media between the coaches (Vito Montelli and Carl Charles) who don't like each other much to begin with.
So the sideline antics may be fun to watch to, but these are two good teams in a game that should go down to the final minutes.

I will be at the Floyd Little Athletic Center for Hillhouse hosting Manchester at 6 p.m. Don't be so fast to put this one in the win column for Hillhouse. Manchester advanced to the CCC tournament final, beating previously-undefeated Hartford Public along the way.

The other LL game is New Britain, which upset Public on Thursday, at Fairfield Prep, trying to make another run to the Class LL state finals.

In Class M, top-seeded Enfield, the NCCC champ, hosts Ledyard, the ECC runner-up, Watertown, the NVL champion, hosts Brookfield, Waterford hosts Valley Regional, last year's Class S champ, and Kaynor Tech, the CSC champion, hosts Notre Dame-Fairfield, the SWC tournament runner-up.