PORTSMOUTH — To this day, Al Neri can’t decide.
Pressed to choose between his 1984 team and his ‘94 team, the man who coached the Portsmouth High School basketball team to its last two state championships in Division I passed up the shot.
The ‘84 team boasted one of the greatest players in program history — James Best — was supremely coachable and emerged in a loaded era. The ‘94 team had size and rolled through the league unbeaten.
“It’s always hard for me to say this team is better than that,” said Neri this week. “I’d hate to pick between ‘84 and ‘94.”
Why are we revisiting this now? Because the current Portsmouth edition finds itself one win away from the program’s first Division I championship in 23 years. The top-seeded Clippers (20-0) will carry a 42-game win streak into Saturday’s title game at UNH against No. 3 Bedford (17-3).
In boys basketball, Portsmouth has won 19 championships dating back to 1923, tied with Manchester Central for most in the state. So which one deserves to be called the best of all time? Where, with a win Saturday, would this one rank?
The ‘84 and ‘94 squads are in the discussion. So is the 1965 edition, one that featured future Vanderbilt star and Boston Celtics draft pick Thorpe Weber.
The current Clippers might not even be in the conversation if not for their decision last winter to petition up and join Division I for the 2016-18 classification cycle, following three titles during a decade of success in Division II under coach Jim Mulvey.
By the time they reached last year’s Division II playoffs, opposing fan bases were ready to see them go, much in the way they bid good riddance to powerful Pembroke Academy a few years back.
“With everyone chanting ‘D-I rejects’ last year, this feels great,” said junior guard Cody Graham, after Monday’s semifinal win over Winnacunnet, their first appearance at UNH as a Division I team in nearly a generation.
It feels great for the city, too.
The fans that filled Stone Gym in bigger numbers this winter and packed their side of Lundholm on Monday should be back out in force Saturday, from young kids who dream of wearing the uniform one day, to former players like 90-year-old Tom Ferguson, who captained the school’s championship team in 1944.
They could be seeing something special.
In terms of a complete team, the squad that went 23-1 during the winter of 1964-65 might have been the best in school history.
It had stars in Weber, a sophomore, and big man Bob Schultze. It had a strong point guard in the late Barry Hodgdon, supporting cast players like Dave Frederick, Paul Argereow and Mike Kapsimalis, among others, and a revered coach in Robert “Woody” Stone, whose name has graced the gym since 2002.
"We were deep,” Frederick told the Herald in 2015, on the 50th anniversary of that championship. “(Other teams) played five guys a game. We played 15. My feeling is that our second five could have started for any team in the state."
Those Clippers averaged nearly 80 points before anyone was even thinking about a 3-point line. Their 83-50 rout of Nashua in the championship game produced records that still stand: largest margin of victory in a final (33) and most made field goals (33) in a final.
But there was no second act, the Clippers not reaching another final until 1968. Weber moved with his family to Missouri after his sophomore year and the program wouldn’t win another title until 1984.
That was Best’s team, and the 46 points he scored in a tournament win against Winnacunnet still stands as a Division I record. He had future Colby College star and current New Hampton School athletic director Jamie Arsenault as his wingman, and point guard Doug Constable, Richie Longeuil and Brian Richards rounding out the lineup.
The championship saw the Clippers win, 59-46, against Bishop Guertin and another of New Hampshire’s all-time great schoolboy players, 6-foot-7 Skip Barry, who a year later at Boston College would play himself onto the Big East All-Rookie team, alongside Rony Seikaly of Syracuse and Charles Smith of Pitt.
“Nobody expected us to beat Guertin in the final game,” said Neri. “Truth be told, if we played 10 games we probably would have lost six of them.”
In ‘94, there was Isaac Sojourner, whose uncle had played in the ABA with the New York Nets (some credit him with creating the “Dr. J” moniker for teammate Julius Erving). Seth Peloso and Jamal Pettiford-Jones both went on to play Division III ball at Plymouth State and make an impact.
The team cruised through the season unbeaten and won the championship by beating Concord, 55-49.
That’s what Mulvey’s current team is trying to match. It's already passed the 31-game win streak that Neri's team carried into the following season, winning 11 in a row before losing to Pinkerton.
“They were a little bit like Jimmy’s team this year,” said Neri. “I thought they were head and shoulders above everybody.”
The hiring of Mulvey coincided with the program’s move out of Division I for 2006-07, where it had tumbled well down the pecking order. Seven times in the next decade the Clippers would reach the Division II title game, winning three times, building their success on defense.
“Our defense comes with us up here,” said Mulvey, after Monday’s win. “It comes with us wherever we go.”
The championship teams in 2009 and ‘12 had star power — the program’s all-time leading scorer, John Mulvey, and future Endicott College star Kamahl Walker were the leaders of those teams, respectively — but padded their records with too many games against teams that didn’t belong on the same floor.
The decision to return to Division I was made, in part, with an eye on showcasing this current crop of seniors — 6-foot-5 star forward Joey Glynn, who is drawing Division II and III college interest; and guards Shon Parham and Christian Peete, who could also play in college.
Next year’s team will be built around Graham, forward Alex Tavares, sharpshooter Mike Sanborn and some talented younger players taking on bigger roles.
"We just want competitive games," Portsmouth athletic director Rus Wilson told the Herald at the time. "It's no fun for anybody to win or lose by 35."
This season, 21 games have produced 21 wins, with 18 of those by double-digit margins. One of those came back on Jan. 20 against Saturday’s final opponent, Bedford, 56-42.
The core is the same as last year’s Division II title team, one that opened eyes in two states by taking a holiday tournament win against Cambridge Rindge & Latin, the best team in Massachusetts.
An anticipated rematch against Rindge & Latin this past December lost some luster when Glynn had to sit out with an ankle injury, and the result was an 81-47 loss.
“The team right now might be the best shooting team at the school,” said Neri, who stepped down as coach in 1999. “They have a lot of kids that can shoot. … The only drawback with Jimmy’s team is they’re not that big. It might be tough if they ran into a big team that’s talented.”
Mulvey knows his PHS basketball history. He was a wide-eyed 9-year-old when the Clippers captivated the city in 1965. He played on some good teams in the early ‘70s, losing in the final in 1974, and followed his sons as they went through the program.
But the focus for him, and his team, this week isn’t on history. It’s on putting themselves in the best possible position to beat Bedford, a worthy challenger.
“None of us can look ahead,” said Mulvey. “You do that and you forget what’s in front of you. This is going to be our hardest game, by far.”
In a city that’s always loved its basketball, the cross-generational debate over best team will be forever ongoing.
One more win Saturday, and this edition of the Clippers can officially join it.