Changes To The Summer League Landscape

July 31, 2011 Greg Machos General, J.P. Stevens Hoops, South Amboy Hoops, South River Hoops, St. Joseph's Hoops, Timothy Christian Hoops 0

Development Of New Leagues In Recent Years Has Created A World Of Many Leagues With Fewer Teams

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, NJ–As the summer league season finishes up, one has to marvel about the huge number of leagues there are now around Central Jersey.  I’ve been covering high school hoops since the summer of 2000, and as my coverage has grown, so has the number of leagues.

In my first summer, all I covered were the leagues at J.P. Stevens and Middlesex County College.  It wasn’t until the summer of 2003 when that all changed with trips to the Linden and Elizabeth Summer Leagues.  That summer, the J.P. Stevens Summer League shut down.  It was the summer when things began to change at GMC Hoops.

Fast forward some eight years later, and now the site is covering a baker’s dozen worth of summer leagues and five team camps.  Oh, by the way, there’s still two more weeks of the summer league season to go with a team camp at the Hoop Group Headquarters the week of August 8th to August 11th, and then the grand finale with the Summer Prime Time Shootout that is usually held at Allentown High School in the Upper Freehold District of Monmouth County

By covering more leagues, I have also seen new leagues develop in the past five years.  Leagues such as Bound Brook, Rahway, and Monroe have all developed.  Down in Monmouth County, there were summer leagues created at Mater Dei and Rumson Fair-Haven.  With these newer leagues, we are starting to see leagues that are much smaller.  For example, years ago when I covered the Middlesex County College Summer League, there were up to 24 teams in the league.  Now there are less than 10.

Same thing for the Hoop Group Headquarters Summer League.  In recent years, this league has had somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 teams.  This year, there were only 20.  The relatively newer leagues at Bound Brook, Rahway, and Monroe have about 10 teams each.  More leagues means more competition, and with school athletic budgets having to cut back, and things such as gas going up, many teams are looking for better situations.  Some teams are just looking to play different competition.   

After being in the Middlesex County College Summer League for many years, the South River Rams and South Amboy Governors decided to play in the Monroe Sports Center Summer League.   Playing at MSC gave both the Rams and Guvs a chance to play schools from both the Colonial Valley Conference and Shore Conference as well as Spotswood and Monroe.  If they stayed at MCC, they would have ended up competing against the likes of East Brunswick Tech and Perth Amboy Tech, teams that they play twice per year in the GMC Gold.

Same situation for Timothy Christian, which still has a team at Middlesex, but also put a squad into the Bound Brook Summer League.  J.P. Stevens moved from Middlesex County College to the Rahway Summer League.  The Hawks, a Red Division team, had a chance to play the likes of Rahway, Roselle, and Union Catholic as well as bigger GMC schools such as Woodbridge, crosstown rival Edison, J.F. Kennedy, South Plainfield, and Perth Amboy.  While it is true that Stevens plays some of those teams twice per year, it was a step up after being the only Group IV school to have a varsity squad at MCC last summer.

Some schools decided to take a step back this summer.  After competing in the Linden Summer League last year, New Brunswick returned to compete in the Bound Brook Summer League, where it played two years ago.  Last summer, the Zebras had a veteran team that was looking to take a step up in terms of competition.  With all but one player from its starting five as well as much of its roster graduating, NBHS was looking to regroup.

With all of these leagues, it means a very demanding travel schedule.  Ten years ago, many of the GMC teams were concentrated into just a couple leagues.  Now, they are all spread out.  Some are playing in multiple leagues.  St. Josephs, for example, is playing in the Hamilton Park Summer League in Jersey City while still having squads competing in both Elizabeth and Linden.  Through it all though, GMC Hoops has been able to cover much of it.  While it has been challenging, the coverage has left very few stones unturned.