Rutgers Team Camp II–Analysis

PISCATAWAY, NJ–After being over at Albright College in Reading for the Hoop Group Elite Team Camp earlier in the day on Friday, the site had some dinner, and then went over to the Rutgers Athletic Center to see the opening night of contests at the second Rutgers Team Camp of the summer. The site saw three teams from the GMC in action including: New Brunswick, Piscataway, and South Plainfield. It was the best look the site had at South Plainfield this summer. The Tigers, which also compete in the Rahway Summer League, was last seen in the second half of action in its game against Dunellen a week earlier.

The Tigers were in action on Court #3 against Mahopac of New York. SPHS stormed out to a 27-13 halftime lead as it broke away from a 6-6 tie at the 16:23 mark of the first half with a 21-7 showing the rest of the period for the lead. Despite not having point guard, Troy McNair in attendance, South Plainfield was able to play well with contributions from Sharif Ross, Denzel Mensah, and Joe Skwiat. However, Mahopac made things interesting in the second half. The New York team held South Plainfield to just 15 points in the second half, and almost came all the way back. The Tigers led by a score of 34-20 with 12 minutes to play, but Mahopac rallied with a 20-6 surge to tie things up before Skwiat made two free throws to propel SPHS to the hard fought, 42-40 victory. The Tigers have some size with the likes of Ross (6’5″), Mensah (6’2″), and Skwiat (6’0″), but even with Edison and Woodbridge moving down to the White and Colonia and Carteret moving out, it will still be a tough division for the Tigers to crack. With some offseason work though, SPHS could improve next season.

In another game that was happening at the same time, Piscataway was taking on Pascack Valley on Court #1. This game was pretty tight until nearly midway through the second half when Pascack Valley broke away from a 29-28 lead with an 8-0 run over a span of 5:04 for a 37-28 advantage with less than six minutes to go. The Chiefs got a three pointer from the left corner by Vik Singh, and a basket and a foul by Tyjohn Young to pull within three at 39-36 with a little more than two minutes left, but couldn’t get any closer as Pascack Valley scored the final five points for the 44-36 win. Then, in the finale, New Brunswick took on Newark Central in a very entertaining up-tempo game on Court #1. The Zebras took it to Newark Central early on, but the Newark team, which was runner-up in North Jersey Section 2 Group I to crosstown rival Newark University ended the first half with a 7-1 spurt for a four point lead, and then after a 7-3 run by NBHS to tie things up, Newark Central went on a decisive 9-2 run to ultimately prevail, 42-36.

Despite the loss, New Brunswick showed some rare flair from three point range. The Zebras went 4 of 6 from beyond the arc, which was better than Newark Central’s 4 of 11. Fuquan Rogers led the way by making both of his three attempts for his only points of the game. Milton Pittman, who went 4 of 6 overall in an 11 point performance, made one of two from long range. Pittman and Jaquan Cook led the team in scoring with 11 points each while both also had four rebounds. Pittman had three assists and a steal while Cook had two assists and two blocks. Newark Central made 16 of 33 shots from the floor while New Brunswick was 13 of 23 from the floor. The Zebras were 6 of 7 from the line while Central was 6 of 10 from the charity stripe. A couple key differences were points off turnovers and second chance points. Newark Central had seven points off miscues and eight second chance points while New Brunswick had four and zero respectively in those two areas.

Other teams from around New Jersey that competed in the event were Point Pleasant Boro, Immaculata, Pascack Valley, Wayne Valley, Newark Central, and Ridge. GMC Hoops plans to be back out at Rutgers later this month for the final team camp starting on July 30th.