Another winter system provides more snow across the entire state today.

On & off snow showers will not come to an end until closer to midnight tonight.

Once we dry out, an additional 3-5″ of snow will have accumulated across the state from today’s system.

Clouds will stick around through tonight as temperatures fall into the 20s

Monday sees some sunshine with highs in the upper 20s and lower 30s.

Winds increase late tomorrow–leading to a wind chill in the single digits by Tuesday morning.

In a historically heralded class of freshmen basketball players, Olivia Breen is one of the crown jewels. Spectators can forgive the Oceanside standout, then, if her reaction after a 28-point game in a comfortable victory wasn’t jubilation.

The expectations are sky-high for Breen, who already had Division I offers before she even began eighth grade. So, a half-hour after the Oceanside girls basketball team’s 68-48 win at Nokomis last Tuesday, Matt Breen, her father and coach, had a hunch about why she was still in the locker room.

“It’s one of those games where she probably doesn’t want to talk to Dad,” Matt Breen joked. “We have a lot of long car rides home, even after some good nights for her. Even though she’s young, I forget that sometimes.”

This 2029 class features a multitude of players with unprecedented talent and skills that make it easy to forget their youth. It’s a class that had those on the Maine high school basketball scene raving before it even reached high school, and thus far, its success has defined the 2025-26 season.

A LOADED ROSTER

Between stints at Windham and now South Portland, Kevin Millington has been a head boys basketball coach for almost 30 years. He’s seen countless standout players, many of whom went on to have outstanding college careers, come through some of Maine’s largest schools — but 2029’s depth, he said, stands out.  

“I just can’t remember (a better freshman class),” Millington said. “I mean, there’s probably been better freshmen — obviously Cooper Flagg, Nik Caner-Medley and those — but the depth of them is pretty remarkable and something I have not seen. You’ve probably got eight or so impact freshmen in the state who are the best players on their teams.”

At the very top of the class might be Cony’s Carter Brathwaite.

At just 14, Brathwaite is already one of Maine’s best players, averaging 20.7 points, 6.6 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 4.0 steals per game. A fluid guard with elite athleticism, Brathwaite, who has multiple prep school offers, can get to the basket and create off the dribble with remarkable ease.

Right there with Brathwaite is Khaelon Watkins of Cheverus. Despite playing against the state’s top teams in Class A South, Watkins is third in Class A in scoring at 20.9 points per game. Millington called Watkins the best athlete he’s seen in a long time, and Matt MacKenzie, founder of the Team Maine AAU squad on which Watkins and Brathwaite played, said both players have endless potential.

Khaelon Watkins of Cheverus puts up a shot during a Jan. 8 game against Bonny Eagle in Standish. Watkins is averaging 20.9 points per game in a tough Class A South region. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)

“You’re going to see Khaelon continue to take leaps and bounds just because he’s still so raw and can still get even better,” MacKenzie said. “With Carter, (his family) has allowed him to be challenged by putting him around bigger, stronger, faster players that are a little older. … That’s really helped him to improve.”

It’s far from a two-man show.

Quinn Pelletier is averaging 19.0 points, 10.6 rebounds and 7.1 assists for a Madawaska team that routinely rest its starters in the second half because of big leads; cousins Leonel Despacho and Israel Muzela are starters and key contributors for South Portland, ranked fifth in the Varsity Maine poll; Ephraim Luseko is a dynamic guard for 7-3 Portland; Maranacook’s Gage Mattson, averaging 18.5 points and 7.3 rebounds, is already a star.

“It’s probably the best freshman class in the past 10-15 years, and I think we’ve got one of the top three in the state (in Gage),” said Maranacook coach Travis Magnusson. “He hasn’t played yet how he’s going to play, but he’s doing so many good things defensively.”

With the exception of Despacho, all of these players came together as part of Team Maine on the AAU circuit in late 2023. Although they were still in seventh grade then, they proved they belonged in their first tournament together three months later by finishing fourth against some of the top teams nationally.

“We were playing Team Durant, Team Chris Paul and these teams funded by NBA stars, and here we are, a bunch of kids from Maine,” said Shawn Pelletier, Quinn’s father and Madawaska’s coach.

The Cooper Flagg effect has been real, said Watkins, who likened Team Maine’s out-of-state AAU trips to Flagg’s with Maine United, a 16U team that took on and beat many of the country’s best in 2023. MacKenzie, who is also Flagg’s longtime trainer, said Flagg has always made himself available to younger players at his gym.

Portland boys coach Joe Russo said the 2029 class has built on Flagg’s impact. Maine high school basketball, the longtime Bulldogs coach said, has been looking for a spark since Flagg left the state after his freshman year at Nokomis — and this class might be it.

“It’s one of the most talented groups of freshmen, certainly statewide, that I’ve seen in a long time,” Russo said. “With this group coming up, maybe the excitement will come back to the communities.”

ANOTHER BREEN SHINES IN THE SPOTLIGHT

On the girls side, there’s Olivia Breen, younger sister of Bailey Breen: three-time KVAC Player of the Year, two-time state champ and current University of Maine forward. Olivia has been otherworldly dominant, averaging 27.5 points and 11.5 rebounds for 12-1 Oceanside. She scored 50 points, a program record, in last Thursday’s 77-24 win over Lincoln Academy.

The Breen sisters left Maine prior to the 2024-25 school year, Olivia’s eighth-grade season and Bailey’s senior year, to play prep ball at Montverde Academy. Yet after suffering a shoulder injury and playing just two games for Montverde, Olivia Breen chose to return to Maine for her freshman year.

Oceanside freshman Olivia Breen looks toward the basket as Lawrence’s Ashley Shores defends during a Dec. 9 game in Fairfield. Breen, who already boasts multiple Division I offers, set the Oceanside single-game scoring record last Thursday with a 50-point performance against Lincoln Academy. (Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

“I kind of needed to come back and have a rebuild year,” said Breen, who returned to basketball in July after undergoing shoulder surgery in December 2024. “I obviously didn’t play much, but I had a great opportunity, and I just came back here to kind of find myself again because I was struggling with mental health down there.”

Breen, who already boasts offers from Boston College and Providence, can do it all. She dominates the post with her 6-foot-3 frame, but she also boasts a consistent jump shot. She credits the growth of her game to her sister, her “biggest role model.”

“She’s my inspiration; I chose to play basketball because of her,” Breen said. “I’m no better than anyone else here — I’m the same person — so I just try to be levelheaded.”

Thornton Academy’s Lydia Lizotte, Breen said, is another freshman girl primed for big things in the coming years. Elsewhere, Kristin King is averaging 11.3 points for a Cheverus team that’s the unanimous Varsity Maine No. 1, 6-3 Alexa Quintana (9.9 rebounds per game) is an impact player for 11-0 Gardiner, and Avery Norwood is making a splash for 9-3 Mount Desert Island.

It’s a class that’s tight-knit throughout the state. Breen, who improved her craft by practicing against the Team Maine boys, called Watkins one of her best friends, as did Brathwaite, who thinks the class is living up to the hype that surrounded it entering the year.

“I think we are, definitely,” Brathwaite said. “I love these guys; I’ll be hitting them up after games to see how they’re doing and checking in on them. It’s great to see them all playing good and doing great things all over Maine.”

Staff Writer Steve Craig contributed to this report.

Skill Up is the first standardized vocational program across all five regions in the DYS system, which serves 12-to 21-year-olds for offenses ranging from trespassing to manslaughter. Previously, young people could get silk-screening, culinary, and carpentry training in a few DYS facilities, but no formal training available to everyone. Now there is a $5.2 million budget and 23 programs across the state, including music production, bicycle repair, and horticulture. Participants earn $15 an hour for up to nine hours of skills training a week – money that’s released when they are.

The job skills and money are important, but the less tangible benefits they gain from the instructors, who also serve as mentors, are just as essential, DYS officials and participants said.

“It wasn’t just haircuts,” said Jamari, 18. “It was getting to know me, wanting to know what I wanted to do with myself, even after.”

“It makes me forget that I’m doing time,” he added. “It makes me feel like I’m just at a barbershop and I’m chopping it up with my friends and my family members.”

The Globe is not fully identifying the youths in state custody, whose criminal records are not public, to avoid having a negative influence on their future prospects.

A number of Skill Up instructors statewide were committed to juvenile treatment facilities in the past, sometimes in the same facilities where they teach, and this shared experience helps build relationships with the young men in the program. The providers also live in the cities where these youths will be released, helping create community bonds that many of them lacked before, said Cecely Reardon, the DYS commissioner, a former public defender.

Bikes not Bombs, the Boston nonprofit that runs the bicycle repair program, lets participants keep the bikes they fix and gives them the chance to apprentice for the nonprofit when they get out. Those in the silk-screening program designed and produced T-shirts for the Big E fair in Springfield last year.

Until recently, youth rehabilitation was focused mainly on education, Reardon said, but it was missing those who weren’t on an academic path.

“They leave here with something no one can ever take away from them,” Reardon said. “If we can help a young person be successful, that’s in the name of public safety.”

Completing vocational, educational, and other risk-reduction programs can reduce recidivism rates by more than half in some cases, according to a recent report by the Massachusetts Department of Correction.

Statewide, approximately 500 young people are in the DYS system, including those awaiting trial and those in treatment units such as the Connelly Center. Some have been released but voluntarily continue to receive services. In all, Skill Up has provided vocational training to more than 430 youths.

Adrian Major, who runs the DreamCutz barbershop with his wife, Alexis, as part of their Dreamcatcher Initiative nonprofit in Dorchester, said barbershops are an ideal training ground because of the therapeutic aspects to getting a hair cut or shave.

The hot towel on your face, the smell of aftershave, the conversation with a barber – all of this can turn a bad day into a good one, Major said.

“It can change a whole dynamic,” he said. “Anything that helps enhance your image makes you really feel better.”

And learning how to provide this service makes students feel good, too.

Major has seen young men progress, from something as small as admitting “my fault” when something goes wrong to opening up about their hopes and dreams. Even just improving their mood over the course of a few hours is a win, he said.

In addition to vocational skills, trainees learn about financial literacy, entrepreneurship, public speaking, and different aspects of employment such as performance reviews. Using proper language is a must in the barbershop: If they swear, they’re expected to do 15 push-ups — and often do so without being asked.

If they act out on the unit, they may stop getting temporarily but are still allowed to participate in the program. And the money has been a great motivator.

One trainee was recently involved in a misunderstanding with another resident, which in the past might have turned violent, according to DYS. But the Skill Up participant walked away, and later said he did so because he didn’t want to lose his program privileges.

Overall, morale has improved since the vocational program began, staffers said.

When people are about to leave DYS custody, career navigators help them open bank accounts and find jobs. Over the past few years, roughly 200 former Skill Up participants now out in the community have found full-time employment, officials said. One who learned carpentry skills and got his OSHA certification in treatment now works at Home Depot. Another who learned to silk-screen bought a $600 Cricut machine with his Skill Up earnings and opened an online Etsy business.

For Dante, who grew up in East Boston and was in juvenile treatment facilities from age 16 to 21, the instructors were like big brothers. Dante was released almost a year ago and still has a call with a Dreamcatchers mentor every Friday.

“We could talk to them about whatever, like therapy,” he said. “You see that they come from the same place as you and they’re doing well.”

Reentry “beats down on you,” Dante said, but things have been looking up lately. He recently landed a job as a delivery driver and does dog grooming on the side, with help from the starter kit of clippers, scissors, and combs he got from the program. In fact, it was Adrian Major who first noticed the haircut Dante gave his standard poodle and encouraged him to branch out.

“We create pathways,” said Alexis Major. “It’s about confidence, dignity that they build and they gain.”

Jaaco, 19, has done several Skill Up programs and is currently part of the barbershop crew in Roslindale. Demonstrating his skills on a recent day, he donned a black apron and placed a mannequin head on a tripod. In a matter of seconds, he removed all its hair – called “balding” – with a pair of clippers, using confident back-to-front strokes.

Jaaco has learned patience, respect, and unity through the vocational programs, he said, and his time in the Connelly Center has been instrumental: “This unit has formed me into becoming a better person.”

This story was produced by the Globe’s Money, Power, Inequality team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

Katie Johnston can be reached at katie.johnston@globe.com. Follow her @ktkjohnston.