The league is top-heavy with former college players.
“Legit players,’’ said Lew Finnegan, a 25-year-old guard who had a terrific career at Bentley University. This is Finnegan’s seventh summer in the league. He plays for Made Men in the 14-team Elite Division.
His brother Tom, who played at Trinity College, is a teammate, along with John Brandt, who played at Bentley, and Sam Leclerc, heading into his senior year at the Division 2 school in Waltham.
There are family ties in the league. None run deeper, or are more linked, than the Hurley and Coppola brothers, teammates on the HBC team.
“The Hurleys live two houses down from us, on Rutland Street,’’ Anthony Coppola said. “We were always on the same Watertown youth teams. We were pretty good.’’
What separated Anthony and Marco Coppola and the Hurleys, Chris and Bryan, was the high school they attended. The Coppolas went to Watertown High. The Hurleys opted for Boston College High.
In 2007, Anthony Coppola led Watertown to the Division 3 state championship; the same year Chris Hurley helped BC High win the Division 1 title. Since the games were played back-to-back at the DCU Center in Worcester, the lifelong friends were able to watch each other’s moment of crowning glory.
Anthony Coppola still wonders whether his Red Raiders might have won another state title or two if the Hurleys had also gone to Watertown High.
Coppola was a high-scoring guard at Wheaton College. His brother Marco will play at Worcester Polytechnic Institute next year. Chris Hurley, 22, played at St. Michael’s College. Bryan is headed to Bowdoin College.
All the brothers are teammates at last, and it’s fitting that this has happened at the Saltonstall Park court where the Coppolas and Hurleys learned the game and decided to love it.
“We’d shoot around all day, then watch the games at night,’’ said Anthony Coppola. “I had an older cousin who played in the summer league.’’
