St. Thomas Aquinas junior guard Deuce Jones holds the ball near mid-court against Colonia on January 12, 2023 in Edison. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
No matter how the Greater Middlesex Conference Boys’ Semifinals turn out Wednesday night at Monroe Township High School, an exciting finish is sure to be on tap for Friday.
South River is having a whale of a year, the Rams’ best in decades, seeking its first tournament championship since it won the Middlesex County Tournament (pre-GMC) in 1978 and 1979. They’ll face a South Brunswick team that was there as recently as three years ago, but has never won either tournament. St. Joseph of Metuchen appears to be peaking at the right time. And St. Thomas Aquinas is looking to keep the ball rolling and win their third in a row.
Central Jersey Sports Radio will have live coverage of both semifinal games Wednesday, presented by Dayton Toyota Service and Dayton Collision on Route 130 in South Brunswick. It all begins at 4:45 with the pregame show before Game One of the doubleheader, with third-seed South River taking on seventh-seed South Brunswick at 5 pm. Then, at 7:00, it’s top-seed and two-time defending champion St. Thomas Aquinas facing fourth-seed St. Joseph-Metuchen.
Mike Pavlichko and Dom Savino will call all the action; click here to listen.
Here’s a closer look at both of the GMC Tournament Boys’ Semifinals, complete with preview interviews with all four coaches:
#3 SOUTH RIVER (13-2) vs. #7 SOUTH BRUNSWICK (16-5), 5:00 pm
What a year the Rams have had, but they are not content to rest on their laurels. All they have is the GMC Blue Division title, but they want more, and they definitely can have it. From opening night to the tournament semifinals, South River has been relentless, playing great defense, getting up and down the floor, and hitting from beyond the arc, the recipe for success. People started to take notice on December 26th, when the Rams knocked off St. Joseph 74-66 in Metuchen. Some still wondered if they could keep up the pace. They’ve answered the bell and then some. In the quarterfinals, they came out of the game hot against North Brunswick, leading 24-2 after the first quarter, allowing just a single field goal.
Senior Roman Santos leads the team in scoring with 16.7 points per game, and is second with 5.6 rebounds, while fellow senior Laz Rodriguez is second in scoring at 14.6 points per game, and averages a team-leading 6.7 boards a contest. Another senior, Jeremy Grospe, is coming off a hot game against the Raiders, with four treys, giving him a team best 69 this year.
South Brunswick is the upset team in this year’s semifinals, shocking second-seed Colonia in the semis by 20, with a 63-43 win. Kalani Antoine had a monster game with 20 points, while Arshvir Singh had ten points and six rebounds. But it’s Antoine who has made the Vikings go all year, averaging 19 points a game to lead the team, and hitting a team best 39 three-pointers. South Brunswick is peaking at the right time. They started out the season slow, splitting their first four games, and sitting at just 4-4 after the first two games of the New Year. But since then, they have won 12 of their last 13. And they’ve showed the ability to make adjustments. Their quarterfinal win over the Patriots came after losing both regular season matchups by a single possession, three points each time.
There’s not much recent history between the teams. Since 2010-11, they’ve only met twice, with South Brunswick winning a 70-62 last year on February 25th in a regular season “bridge” game between the GMCs and states. Their 2019 meeting was a similar game on February 22nd, a 90-64 win for the Vikings
How they got here:
South River beat 19th-seed Middlesex in the first round 77-65, then ran past 6-seed North Brunswick in the quarterfinals.
South Brunswick beat 10-seed JP Stevens in the first round 65-52, then beat second-seed Colonia 63-43 in the quarterfinals.
Coaches’ Previews:
How they win:
South River just has to keep playing the game they play. Get out in transition, hit some threes in half court, and play their pesky style of defense.
South Brunswick won’t want to get into an up-and-down game wit the Rams, but they will want to attack the basket and try and get them in foul trouble. And they’ll want to avoid falling behind early; South River is tough to come back against.
#1 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (22-3) vs. #4 ST. JOSEPH-METUCHEN (15-9)
While the Trojans are the team to beat in the GMC, and they’ve won three straight over St. Joe’s, only recently have they played often. Their last four matchups have all been since 2020, and in their previous matchup before that, in 2016, when the Falcons were in the midst of winning nine out of ten GMC Tournament titles from 2010-2019 – the “Decade of St. Joe’s,” if you will – Joe’s came out with a 72-17 win. But these teams are not those teams. They are more even that one might think, with none of their most recent four games decided by more than seven points. They include a St. Joe’s win by five in 2020, a seven-point Aquinas win last year, and two Trojan wins this year – 66-62 on January 17th, and 62-59 a week later. That’s two games this year decided by a total of three possessions.
Let’s start with Aquinas, which is what South River reminds us of, except the Trojans have more size. They play great, in-your-face defense, which fuels the transition game, but can also drive the hoop and score from beyond the arc, evidenced by their 168 three-pointers on the season, led by 46 from junior Jaden Kelly. And senior Kamal Lee is not far behind with 40. But “the straw that stirs the drink,” as head coach Bob Turco puts it, is Michael “Deuce” Jones, a transfer from Trenton Catholic who has blended seamlessly with a solid core of players as he runs the point and gets them the ball (162 assists). But he’s not just a distributor. He can score the ball, too, and is leading the team with 16.3 points per game, with 29 treys on the year – fourth on the team. And he takes pride in his defense, with a team-leading 81 steals on a team that gets a bunch of them night in and night out. Jalen Pichardo is the team’s top rebounder, averaging 9.2 a game, and he can turn a lot of those boards into putbacks, often drawing contact along the way and getting to the line for an and-one.
St. Joe’s has relied on Josh Ingram all year long, but the senior has faced some added pressure with the absence of Jeremy Clayville due to injury. He and his 18.5 points per game haven’t played since late January. But Ingram – averaging a team-best 16.3 points per game on the season has stepped it up, averaging 26 points a game in that span, four times topping 30 points, with 38 in the first-round win over Spotswood, a tight game until the final horn. He’s been a special player all year long, and his legend is growing. With Clayville out, Anthony Williams is the next best active scorer, at 10.7 points per game. Junior Jeremy DeCaro has hit some big threes along the way this season, including against the Chargers, and he’ll be an X-factor if St. Joe’s is to beat their rivals from a couple miles up Plainfield Avenue.
How they got here:
St. Thomas Aquinas rolled to an 81-50 win over 16th-seed East Brunswick int he first round, but was a little more sloppy in an uninspired 62-47 win over 8-seed Piscataway in Sunday’s quarterfinals.
St. Joseph had to fight off punch after punch from a game Spotswood ballclub to come away with a 75-72 win over the 13th seed, then beat fifth-seed South Plainfield 60-42 in the quarterfinals.
Coaches’ Previews:
How they win:
Aquinas, like South River, will have to play its game, and get everyone involved. And shake off whatever it was that had them struggling to put away an inferior Piscataway team at Middlesex County College.
St. Joe’s will have to value the basketball, and attack the hoop, trying to get Aquinas into foul trouble. And Ingram will need to go off and have one of his patented big-scoring games/
NOTES AND NUGGETS
Non-Public Dominance: South Plainfield won the GMCT in 2004 and 2005, then Colonia in 2006, and Piscataway in 2007. Since the, a non-public has won it all but two seasons. Now-defunct Cardinal McCarrick of South Amboy won it in 2008, followed by the Chiefs again in 2009. But St. Joseph went on to win nine of the next ten titles – the only exception being Colonia’s upset of the Falcons in 2015. Joe’s won the next four, and then Aquinas won in 2020 and 2022. (There was no full tournament in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
This tournament brought to you by the letter “S” (Or, Meaningless Fact of the Day): All four schools in the semifinals begin with the letter “S”: St. Thomas Aquinas, South River, St. Joseph, South Brunswick. But more than that, never has the GMC Tournament (1986-present) nor the Middlesex County Tournament (1965-1985) ever had a semifinal with all four teams beginning with the same letter.
Who’s won it? Three of the four semifinal participants have won GMC or Middlesex County titles. St. Joseph has won more than anyone else, with 12 GMC titles to its credit. Aquinas has won three times, including once as Bishop Ahr in 1992. And South River won the Middlesex County Tournament in 1978 and 1979. But South Brunswick has never won it; they are 0-for-3 in the GMCT finals, with berth is 1993, 2016 and 2020.
Trailblazer? If South Brunswick reaches the final and wins the whole shebang, the Vikings – the 7-seed – will be the first team lower than a six-seed to win a title. Unseeded Piscataway won the MCT in 1968, as only the top four teams were seeded that year.
Combos: If South River makes the final, it will be against no one it’s ever played before in the final, as they beat Perth Amboy and Colonia in their back-to-back tourney wins in 1978 and ’79. If South Brunswick makes it, they could be playing Aquinas in the title game for the second time in three tournaments; they met in 2020 with the Trojans coming out with a 63-52 win, their only finals matchup. If it’s St. Joe’s in the final against the Vikings, well that’s happened twice. The Falcons beat them in 2016 (56-48) and in 1993 (57-54 in overtime).
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