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High school basketball practices began Monday across the state. At Cony, boys basketball coach Isaiah Brathwaite prepared to work out the entire Rams program together. He had freshmen, junior varsity, and varsity players spread out across the gym, ready to go through ball-handling drills.

Half of Brathwaite’s projected varsity team was outside, though, practicing for the Class B state championship football game on Saturday. Cony will take on Westbrook at Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium.

“We just make it work. There’s other things we can do. Guys compete and we’ll just do little drills,” Brathwaite said. “They have a great football team. We knew that ahead of time, that they’d be playing deep into the playoffs. We’re happy for them.”

Each fall, the MPA sets the 11-man football championship games for the weekend before Thanksgiving. The basketball season is organized for regional tournaments to be held the week of February vacation. Sometimes the two seasons overlap by a week at the start, so when basketball practices start, a handful of football teams are still practicing under the lights or right after school before Maine’s encroaching winter darkness punches in shortly after 4 p.m.

What Brathwaite is dealing with at Cony is also happening at Thornton Academy and Portland and Westbrook and Greely and Leavitt and Winslow and Winthrop (and its co-op partners, Monmouth Academy and Hall-Dale).

Longtime Portland boys basketball coach Joe Russo has seen this scenario play out many times over the years. Plus, sharing his athletes with the football team deep into November is a yearly occurrence due to Portland’s Thanksgiving football game against Deering.

At Monday’s tryout, Russo was missing around a dozen players who are still with the football team, out of 51 in the basketball program.

“This week, we’re completely hands off so they fully concentrate on the state championship,” Russo said of the football players. “These football guys, they need to rest their bodies a little bit. They’ve been going since August.”

At Leavitt, there’s another wrinkle. Head football coach Mike Hathaway is also the Hornets’ boys basketball coach. When asked how that works this week, Hathaway joked with a one-word answer. Barely.

“I attended tryouts (Monday) night, but none of our football guys are there except for a few freshmen and sophomores,” Hathaway said. “My assistants run the tryout. … The kids that are there are working on offensive skills and schemes. Best we can do for now.”

Hathaway said he’ll give football players time to rest and recover next week before getting them on the court, hoping that will help them avoid becoming run down or injured. Five of his projected top eight basketball players also play football. Some years when this has happened, Hathaway had players take part in their first basketball game without even having played 5-on-5 in practice

“I wish teams in our position could be given some latitude for rescheduling our first two games, but it falls on deaf ears,” he said.

A solution, Russo suggested, is to start basketball season the week after Thanksgiving. That would give two-sport athletes at least a week off to rest, recover and recharge, instead of jumping directly from one sport into the next. It would give coaches a chance to more fairly evaluate players. At many bigger schools, basketball is a cut sport, with more players trying out than there are spots on the roster. How do you evaluate a kid you know is banged up from football and unable to give 100%, but might have more potential for those big February games, against a fresher player who may not have the same ability?

Former Lawrence boys basketball coach Mike McGee said when the Bulldogs advanced to the state championship football game, he figured his football players wouldn’t be fully ready for basketball until at least mid-December. That’s a sentiment Russo and Brathwaite share.

“It’s going to take a little (time). Football shape and basketball shape are two different things. It’s going to take a little bit of time for those guys to feel like the shoulder pads are off. I’m looking at mid-December,” Brathwaite said.

Russo’s Bulldogs started last season 2-6. Having tired players coming off a state championship football season played a part, he said.

In Maine, season’s change in a blink, and sometimes, they blend together. Whether we like it or not.