Some Shuffling Around in This Week’s Poll
SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ—The regular season is reaching a climax as the division schedules go into their final two weeks before the 2020 GMCT Boys and Girls seeding meetings on Friday, February 14th, and there was a bit of shuffling around in the GMC Hoops Top 10 this week.
With hard fought wins over Edison (65-55) at home on Tuesday and at North Brunswick (75-68) in OT on Thursday, the New Brunswick Zebras, which lost a non-conference game to Immaculata in The Hub City on Saturday, climb back up to the fourth slot in this week’s poll.
The top three of St. Joseph’s, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Carteret remain the same, especially after Aquinas’ 68-64 victory over the Ramblers in Carteret on Friday afternoon. Edison slipped down to 5th after losing to the Zebras, and then winning their last two against Woodbridge (68-56) at home on Thursday, and at North Brunswick (57-52) on Saturday morning.
South Brunswick remains at 6th despite losing at Perth Amboy on Saturday while Dunellen, which defeated Sayreville (72-57) in the MLK Showcase in New Brunswick on January 20th, moved up to 7th after Sayreville went into Colonia and stunned the Patriots (49-45), which have now lost 4 of their last 6. Perth Amboy slides up a bit to 9th after its win over the Vikings of SB, and East Brunswick, which has won 7 of its last 10 including a win over Amboy sandwiched between two solid victories over J.P. Stevens (54-42) on the road, and over Monroe (62-43).
North Brunswick, which is 5-5 over its last 10 games, dropped to 11th despite defeating EB over the holidays in the Brunswick Classic, but the Bears deserve a little love this week because of their recent play, and the fact that they’ve lost two games to St. Joseph’s by an average of only four points this season, the closest anyone has played Joes in the GMC Red to date.
Wardlaw-Hartridge, which is currently 2nd in the GMC Gold, moved up to 14th by virtue of Spotswood’s last second win at Middlesex. The Rams and Blue Jays have played the Chargers within the past 10 days with the Rams defeating Spotswood (58-51) in North Edison on January 25th while the Chargers upended Middlesex on the road (53-52) on Friday evening.
Spotswood and Sayreville get into the conversation with their recent wins. The Chargers, now at 8-10 overall and 6-6 in the GMC Blue, have won 3 straight and 6 of 11 since starting the season at 2-5. Sayreville, which had lost five games in a row coming into last week, defeated Colonia and Metuchen (52-46) on the road to improve to 6-12 overall. Kennedy and Timothy Christian stay in their places for the time being.
View the latest GMC Hoops Top Ten:
GMC Hoops Top Ten—February 3, 2020
- St. Joseph’s (13-5)
- St. Thomas Aquinas (16-4)
- Carteret (15-4)
- New Brunswick (13-2)
- Edison (13-5)
- South Brunswick (12-4)
- Dunellen (15-2)
- Colonia (13-4)
- Perth Amboy (10-5)
- East Brunswick (9-7)
Other teams considered: 11. North Brunswick (10-6), 12. Monroe (8-9), 13. South Plainfield (9-7), 14. Wardlaw-Hartridge (12-4), 15. Middlesex (10-8), 16. Timothy Christian (11-4), 17. J.F. Kennedy (7-9), 18. Spotswood (8-10), and 19. Sayreville (6-12).