Mike DiMauro: Mitchell basketball happily welcomes Mikey Buscetto home

Oct. 20—NEW LONDON — Mikey Buscetto recalls the conversation going something like this:

Mikey: "Dad, I've been home (from Division II Southern New Hampshire) for a year and half now (because of COVID) and I don't want to go back."

Dad: "What do you want to do?"

Mikey: "Transfer to DIII."

Dad: "To where?"

Mikey: "Mitchell."

Dad: "WHAT?!"

And the rest, as they say, is current events. Mikey The Maestro, the once and future king of Waterford basketball, is home to finish his college career. Get to the gym early this winter at Mitchell, where the seating capacity is about a third of The House That Mikey Filled, otherwise known as the "X," the Francis X. Sweeney Fieldhouse.

"I'm a homebody kid," Buscetto was saying Tuesday night after practice. "Even when I was in New Hampshire, I would come home every weekend to see my family and friends. Basketball was going fine. But I wasn't enjoying myself and getting distracted. It wasn't me.

"So I went into the (transfer) portal. I was there about a week because I realized where I wanted to be. I grew up here. I used to shoot here on the court as a little kid at halftime with (now Mitchell teammate) Tyler (Peretz). I've played pickup games here. It just felt like home and this is where I should finish."

There were no arguments forthcoming from Mitchell coach Todd Peretz, already the proprietor of an excellent program, a two-time conference champion and NCAA tournament participant in the last seven years.

"Jokingly, we probably tried 100 times through the course of his high school career to try to get him here," Peretz said. "It didn't work out and he had to follow another path. Not that he couldn't play at higher levels, but I always thought that he'd be a really good Division III player. It would allow him to play the kind of game he likes to play. Up and down (the floor) and a little freer.

"Mikey has that ability to make everybody better. If you've seen him play AAU or at Southern New Hampshire, when he's surrounded by kids who can play, I think that's where he's at his best. He's willing to share the ball. Today, there's not a lot of kids out there willing to make other people better. He gives us a dimension we didn't have even on teams here that were highly successful."

Buscetto is more than a basketball coup on Montauk Avenue. Rarely, if ever, has our corner of the world watched a kid play with more charisma. This counts. Mikey Buscetto belongs on the mythical high school basketball Rushmore around here with Harold Pressley, Tyson Wheeler and Kris Dunn.

OK. We are going to pause 10 seconds for station identification while some of you hyperventilate, trying to name 147 more talented players than Buscetto. It's not the point. Sure, there have been more talented players over the years. But none were more captivating to watch, none meant more to their school and none were more deeply adopted by their community.

None.

Buscetto did more than deliver a state championship in 2018 to Lancerville. He did so as the protagonist who attracted seven different crowds of more than 1,000 fans. In high school. His footprint may last at Mitchell well beyond his graduation, as it has at Waterford.

"Obviously, Mikey has a big following," Peretz said. "I was one of those people who sat in the gym at Waterford when there was 2,000 people there and you can't replicate that. But we can get 600 here in our gym and make it sound like 6,000. That will help.

"Kids are savvy now. They're going to scour your website and see your livestreams and say 'I want to be part of that.' Not because you're winning but the way you win and the way you play. Mikey plays with so much energy. It's fun. His game is a fun thing to watch. It's a style attractive to a lot of players."

Buscetto, who will join locals Jalen Benson (New London), Hunter Baillargeon (St. Bernard), Peretz (Waterford) and Jacob Tully (Old Saybrook) at Mitchell, might have been able to give low Division I a chance. But with the transfer portal and less roster maneuverability because of COVID, the headaches weren't worth it.

"Division I isn't what it's about for me," he said. "I committed (to Southern New Hampshire) my junior year of high school. I never thought about DI. Basketball is basketball. Some DII teams are better than DIs. DIII is really good. I said to everyone here that I'm not coming to Mitchell thinking I'm going to blow through everybody. DIII is really good."

And so is Mitchell's schedule, which includes Coast Guard, Conn, WPI, Trinity, Albertus Magnus, Eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island College and Wesleyan.

"People ask me all the time what it was like playing in college," Buscetto said. "But you play in front of bigger crowds in high school unless you go to Kentucky or Duke. The energy is just different. The energy at the 'X' was amazing. In college, you're just a basketball player. Here, we're part of the community. It pushes you to play harder."

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro