Good morning everyone, and Merry Christmas. Hope your holiday season will be a joyous and safe one. Just like that, there is one week of high school hoops in the book, and there was a lot of interesting things that happened this past week. As always there are some surprises. Here are some of my thoughts about what has happened.
GMC White Looks Tough Again
The White Division looks like another dogfight this year. Even division favorite Monroe has had some close calls with a 60-57 victory at Colonia after trailing the Patriots by 11 with three minutes left, and an overtime win at home over Sayreville. Speaking of the Bombers, despite heavy losses to graduation, they have done a fine job in getting off to a good start. Then, there is North Brunswick. The Raiders are 3-0 including a recent rout of Edison on Wednesday. NBTHS got solid efforts from Dion Rogers and Chance Gadsden in the victory while Tait Pirkle wasn’t even at the game.
One of North Brunswick’s victims was Carteret on opening night (57-40). However, the Ramblers rebounded with an upset over third ranked Cardinal McCarrick on Monday night (57-53) in Carteret. Meanwhile, the Eagles, like Sayreville, are 2-1 with wins over South Plainfield (56-36) and New Brunswick (67-53) on Wednesday night. Colonia has faced a tough schedule with Monroe and perennial state powerhouse, St. Anthony’s in its first two games while New Brunswick has lost three games right out of the shoot including a last second loss to North Brunswick, but looks to be more competitive this season. South Plainfield was one of three GMC White teams to knock off teams from the GMC Red on Wednesday night with its first win of the season over Stevens. The Tigers and Hawks could meet again in the Anthony J. Cotoia Tournament at SPHS.
Blue Division Stronger
Over the past several seasons, the Blue Division was known for having three or four really solid teams while the rest struggled. This season, that may not be the case. As I said in my predictions rough draft, Kennedy, Highland Park, and South River will be better this year. All three teams played more competitively over the summer.
It has already translated into early season success with Kennedy blowing out Wardlaw (67-20) and Dunellen (68-40), Highland Park defeating JFK and rolling past South Amboy, and South River cruising past Piscataway Tech (77-38). Add to that the fact that Middlesex is down due to graduation and a back injury to one of its top returners in Avery Barnes, and Metuchen not coming to play in their opener against Spotswood, and you have quite an interesting battle for third in the division. South River also hung in tough versus the Chargers until the latter portion of the fourth quarter.
At this point though, I still think the division comes down to Ahr and Spotswood, but we’ll see. One thing is for sure, the Blue is much stronger top to bottom this season.
Gold Division Down
As I mentioned above, the bottom three teams in the GMC Blue had a field day this past week against opponents from the GMC Gold. Add to that the fact that future division member, Timothy Christian handed Perth Amboy Tech a blowout loss (84-53), and Gold Division teams were outscored by a margin of 305-181 in four games versus opponents outside the division. People will say that the Gold has always been down, but they forget how good the division was several years ago, when Amboy Tech defeated Perth Amboy, St. Peter’s knocked off JFK, and South Amboy rolled past Dunellen in the play-in round of the 2007 GMCT. The Blue is definitely stronger than the Gold at this point.
Not A Lot Of Surprises In The Red
There are not a lot of surprises as far as I’m concerned with the GMC Red. True, Amboy defeated Piscataway, and Old Bridge is 2-0, but keep in mind that the Panthers have a solid junior class including Victor Verdecia, Kearny Canela, Yoelbin Sanchez, and Chael Hernandez. Meanwhile, Old Bridge has a solid group of seniors in Jimmy Gaffigan, Tyler Abad, and Femi Adeleye along with the addition of McCarrick transfer, Rob Olivieri. East Brunswick is off to a strong start as expected while St. Joseph’s did very well in non-conference play against Union last Saturday.
Performance Against Non-Conference Teams
One of the keys to success for any GMC team each year is how well it does against teams outside the conference. If you’re going to have any success in the state playoffs, you have to be able to win against teams outside your conference. So far this season, the Greater Middlesex Conference is off to an up and down start. Ten games against non-conference teams have been played, and the GMC has gone 5-5. Two years ago, the conference did well against non-conference competition while last season, the GMC only went slightly above .500.