Leading off today: With many of New York's boys basketball powers traditionally going out of state around the holidays to play tournaments, yesterday's Upstate / Downstate Challenge at Uniondale was a nice bonus for nearby fans.

   A couple of noteworthy results included Uniondale topping White Plains, 57-44, and New Rochelle edging Long Island Lutheran in OT, 71-65.

   Uniondale, ranked eighth in Class AA by the New York State Sportswriters Association, broke open a close game with a 33-19 scoring margin in the second half. Devon McMillon finished with 21 points, 11 rebounds and seven steals. Dane Dixon added 10 blocks and eight rebounds.

   White Plains, ranked 14th, got 17 points and 13 rebounds from Darell Ward.

   The LIL-New Ro storyline went well beyond Antoine Mason's 17 points and six rebounds for 12th-ranked New Rochelle. Lutheran had to play without one of the most talked about jiniors in the East.

   Tobias Harris, the 6-foot-8 forward who transferred to Lutheran after averaging 29 points and nine rebounds as a Half Hollow Hills West sophomore, will miss six to eight weeks after tearing ligaments in his ankle Thursday at practice, Newsday reported.

   Harris, who is wearing a cast, told the paper he was running the floor during a practice scrimmage when he turned his right ankle - the same ankle he severely sprained over the summer, forcing him to miss the Reebok All-American Camp All-Star Game.

   "It's a big blow for Tobias because he works very hard at what he does. He's very dedicated," said Brian Carey, coach of the state's No. 2 Class A team. "He was looking forward to this level of competition. It's a disappointment."

   Harris had 31 points and 12 rebounds in his Lutheran debut against Longwood Dec. 9.

   Lincoln routed: Abraham Lincoln, top-ranked in Class AA, dropped a 101-84 game to Marietta (Ga.) Wheeler in the quarterfinals of the City of Palms Tournament in Fort Myers, Fla.

   Wheeler went on a 30-15 run in the second quarter as all-state guard Lance Stephenson sat with two fouls. Ari Stewart, a Wake Forest recuit, chewed up the Railsplitters with 25 points on 10-for-16 shooting (perfect on three three-pointers) and eight rebounds in just 24 minutes. North Carolina State recruit Richard Howell posted 16 points and 12 rebounds, and Brooklyn-born point guard Phil Taylor dropped 26 on Lincoln.

   Stephenson scored nine points in the first six minutes before running into foul trouble. He finished with 26 points on 9-for-19 shooting.

   Irish win '500 club' game: Senior point guard Kevin Francis produced 18 points and 10 assists for Batavia Notre Dame, No. 4 in Class D, as the host Fighting Irish topped Prattsburgh, 60-53, in the first matchup of 500-win coaches in Section 5 history.

   Notre Dame coach Mike Rapone won his 513th career game and Prattsburgh's Jim Burke remained at 502. Retired Cardinal Mooney and Bishop Kearney coach Ed Nietopski holds the sectional mark with 545 wins, 18 ahead of former Scio coach Roger Rigby.

   Prior to the game, Notre Dame dedicated the court to Rapone and girls volleyball coach Rhonda DiCasolo, each of whom reached the 500-win mark last season. The school also presented Burke with a plaque to acknowledge his 500th win in the season opener.

   Multiple mismatches: Ian Begley wrote an interesting story in The Daily News on Tuesday examining the no-win

Also worth checking out Boys basketball page

situation -- literally and figuratively -- faced by the Norman Thomas girls basketball team.

   Thomas, which finished 4-10 two seasons ago and then 0-14 last winter in Bronx/Manhattan "AA" action, opened the 2008-09 season with a 91-9 loss to Bergtraum on Dec. 1. That was followed by a 50-point drubbing against Truman, and an 87-12 setback to Manhattan Center.

   "It's stressful, it's really stressful," captain Pauline Phipps told Begley after a 68-34 loss to Frederick Douglass Academy on Dec. 12. "It's not good for us to get mad and upset all of the time because a team is beating us."

   Third-year coach Mitchell Newman admits his team doesn't belong in the "AA" league, and everyone seems to agree except for PSAL officials.

   "They learn to hate basketball rather than love it," Newman said of his players.

   PSAL director Donald Douglas admitted the lopsided scores were not a healthy situation but was not able to explain why Norman Thomas was placed in "AA." PSAL officials are supposed to evaluate each league annually and identify teams that could benefit from moving to a different level, Douglas said. He could not recall why the Lady Tigers were not dropped down to a lower division after last season.

   Bergtraum coach Ed Grezinsky said he will only use bench players when the Blazers play at Norman Thomas on Jan. 5.

   "Nobody's really a winner here," he said. "He loses because his team gets pummeled, and I lose because I have to tell my kids not to play hard."

   Brutal week for CTK girls: Christ The King is reeling a bit following the worst loss in Bob Mackey's 19 seasons as girls basketball coach there.

   Having already suffered two close losses in the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix, the Lady Royals were crushed by Long Beach Poly, 70-36. Poly, which began the week ranked No. 1 by USA Today, was itself coming off a pair of losses in the nation's best girls tournament.

   Christ The King (4-3) shot 1-for-19 in the first half, FiveBoroSports.com reported. CTK soph Bria Smith has been nursing a sprained ankle since the start of the season, and Tahira Johnson rolled an ankle in an earlier tournament game, further complicating CTK's struggle to get rolling.

   “It’s still not an excuse for us to not show up. . . . Nobody played well.",” Mackey said.

   Johnson scored 12 points in a 38-33 opening-round loss to Oak Ridge (Tenn.), and Smith hit for 19 and Geleisa George 18 in a 70-67 loss to Clovis (Calif.) West in the second game in Phoenix.

   CTK resumes action Monday against Lincoln, Texas, High, which recently dropped out of the national rankings.

   New on the site: We've added headlines from FiveBoroSports.com ad including them on the front page of the site as part of the daily news summary. If you haven't visited it yet, FiveBoroSports.com is paradise for New York City sports fans -- especially basketball.

   They're pretty much running the same gameplan I'd be running if I lived in NYC and loved high school sports. Minus the enormous overhead needed to produce and deliver a newspaper or run a TV station, their business model makes a lot more sense than what some lost-in-the-weeds traditional media outlets are doing these days.

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