Last night christened the 2011-12 boys basketball season. There were buzzer-beaters, overtime thrillers, tournament openers and lopsided victories. If there's anything we learned from opening night, it was these five things:

***Penncrest can shoot the 3. The Lions - between Jim Allen, Ed Baxter and Alex Graham - had 10 of their 12 3-pointers. Penncrest needs to work on holding its leads, though. It posted a 23-3 edge after the first quarter and a 21-point advantage early in the second quarter, before holding on for dear life at the end.

***Springfield is poised for a run. The Cougars, who completely dismantled Interboro in their respective openers, placed 10 scorers in the statbook. Furthermore they open the year with 11 of 14 games at home, a nice advantage for Kevin McCormick's crew.

***Sun Valley doesn't need to rely on Billy Hudson. The Vanguards' leading scorer last winter, Hudson sat out their opener due to a pair of personal fouls in Sun Valley's Thanksgiving Day football game, a PIAA carryover rule. Nonetheless, the Vanguards opened the game shooting 15-for-20 after two quarters and 20-for-30 after three, before emptying the bench. Kevin Kelly's team has weapons in Drew Giampietro and Sean Nelson.

***Glen Mills' wild-card roster is just that. Because of the school shuffling court-adjudicated students in and out, Bulls coach Tony Bacon never knows what's in his cupboard. But Xavier Couthen, the lone holdover from last year, had a double-double, football star George Walker had a big game and Duishawn Mack's only bucket was the game-winner. Could be a nice season for the Bulls.

***Chester is Chester. Sounds simple enough, right? We knew the Clippers would be good, but...hanging a 79-spot on Coatesville in the opener? Whoa. Darius Robinson, a 3-point option off the bench last year, posted 19 points. His brother, Kareem, isn't much of a scorer, but he had six assists. Rondae Jefferson, Shanier Cottman and Erikk Wright led a balanced scoring attack, as well. Look out District One.