Bangor, Stearns of Millinocket and Morse of Bath make up 75 percent of the remaining teams in Maine’s Best Boys Basketball Team of All Time bracket.
Bangor Daily News readers have selected the participants for the “Exquisite 8” in our online contest. They include Stearns’ teams from 1963 and 1964, Bangor’s 1993 and 1995 Bangor squads, and Morse’s ballclubs from 1963 and 1987.
Fans also have advanced the 1976 Rumford Panthers and the 1985 Waterville Purple Panthers into the select company of Maine’ most storied championship teams.
Voting for the Exquisite 8 began at 1 a.m. Friday and ends at 10 p.m.
The 1963 Stearns contingent earned the most lopsided victory of the Super 16, earning 74.5 percent of the vote while eliminating Winthrop’s 1993 Class C championship squad. The Minutemen will be up against the ’95 Bangor Rams, who dispatched Stearns’ 1965 team by eight votes.
The ’76 Rumford ballclub received nine more votes than Orono’s 1973 team and moves into an Exquisite 8 matchup against the 1985 Waterville entry, which defeated 1994 Mountain Valley of Rumford.
On the other side of the bracket, Bangor’s 1993 team pulled what might be considered a bit of an upset, bouncing the 1979 South Portland squad from the competition. The Rams will be paired against the 1963 Morse team that won the Class LL state championship and finished second at the New England Championships.
The Bangor-Morse winner advances to face the survivor of the 1987 Morse-1964 Stearns matchup. The Shipbuilders moved on with a nine-vote win over the 1977 Rumford team, while the ’64 Minutemen ended the run of the 2001 Bangor unit by seven votes.