Dominant, peaking, scary-good Aquinas to battle smart, quick South Brunswick for GMC Tournament boys’ title

The St. Thomas Aquinas boys’ basketball team has to be feeling pretty good about itself after Wednesday night’s performance in the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament semifinals at Monroe High School.

In just two minutes and change, they opened up with a 15-0 run that saw them hit five of their first six shots from downtown.

The South Brunswick boys’ basketball team has to feel pretty good about what it accomplished, too, on Wednesday night: beating a South River team that had looked unbeatable for most of the year. They frazzled the Rams, and beat them at their own game, handing them just their third loss this season.

The two come together tonight – top-seeded St. Thomas and seventh-seed South Brunswick – one more time in Monroe, this time for the GMC Tournament title.

You can hear Friday night’s entire Championship Doubleheader presented by Dayton Toyota Service and Dayton Collision of South Brunswick on Central Jersey Sports Radio, as Mike Pavlichko and Dom Savino call all the action.

The boys’ game is scheduled for an 8 pm start, immediately follow the girls’ final, which starts at 6 pm, with pregame coverage starting at 5:45 for the top-seed Aquinas and 3rd-seed Colonia girls. Click here to listen to the live broadcast for free.

Here’s a complete preview of the championship game, with audio from both coaches, analysis, stats, notes, nuggets and more.

GMC TOURNAMENT BOYS’ FINAL:
#1 St. Thomas Aquinas (23-3) vs. #7 South Brunswick (17-5)
When: Friday, February 17 at 8 pm
Where: Monroe Township High School
Listen Live: Central Jersey Sports Radio, pregame begins approximately 7:45 pm

*The St. Thomas Aquinas Trojans with their 2022 GMC Tournament Championship banner. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)*

#1 St. Thomas Aquinas
Head Coach: Bob Turco – 5th season, 101-22
(345-100 overall, including 148-46 in 7 years at Notre Dame, and 97-42 in 5 years at Monroe)

What else can be said about St. Thomas Aquinas at this point? Coaches want their teams playing their bast basketball at this point of the season, and the display we saw in the first two-and-a-half minutes against St. Joe’s in the semifinals Wednesday night was out of this world. Five of six from the floor, all from downtown, and killer defense, staking the Trojans to a 15-0 lead. What could Bob Turco have said during the time out? “Nice shot,” is what he said to Deuce Jones after he missed one of those threes. That’s because his team is laser-focused right now. He could see it in his team’s eyes as they warmed up, a moment when a coach knows he need not say anything, or even that anything he might say may not matter. His team is going to do what it’s going to do. And what it did was blow the Falcons out of the water 91-49 en route to a third straight GMC Tournament finals appearance.

Perhaps what’s been most impressive about St. Thomas is how well a player like Jones has been able to integrate with this bunch. It was a very tight-knit group last year, and the face of the program – the glue – Adam Silas is now off at Wofford. With a solid group of returnees like Terrell Pitts, Kamal Lee, Jaden Kelly, Samir Thomas, Jalen Pichardo and more, who knew how a knew point guard would fit in. Well, he fit in like the last jigsaw puzzle piece. And Aquinas is at a completely different level now than the rest of the GMC. St. Joe’s had played the Trojans to seven- and eight- point games in the regular season. This time, when it mattered most, Aquinas won by 42.

Projected Starting Five:

PG Michael “Deuce” Jones (6-3, 175, Jr): 16.5 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 33 treys, 6.5 apg, 81 steals
G Kamal Lee (6-0, 165, Sr): 9.1 ppg, 1.5 rpg, 43 treys
G Jaden Kelly (6-3, 185, Jr): 10.8 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 49 treys, 17 blocks
G/F Terrell Pitts (6-4, 195, Sr): 12.2 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 16 treys
G/F Jalen Pichardo (6-7, 215, Sr): 9.2 ppg, 9.1 rpg, 5 treys

Coach’s Interview:

St. Thomas Aquinas Head Coach Bob Turco

GMC Tournament History (4-0 overall: 1-0 in MCT, 3-0 in GMCT):

1982 – #6 St. Thomas Aquinas 49, #6 St. Joseph 47 (MCT)
1992 – #1 Bishop Ahr 61, #2 St. Joseph 47
2020 – #2 St. Thomas Aquinas 63, #4 South Brunswick 52
2022: #1 St. Thomas Aquinas 69, #3 Colonia 53

Believe it or not, a win by St. Thomas Aquinas Friday night would put them in a three-way tie with Perth Amboy and the long-closed St. Peter’s in New Brunswick for most consecutive GMC Tournament wins. The Panthers won the first three GMC Tournament titles from 1965 to 1967, while the Cardinals won three straight from 1983 to 1985. Though St. Joseph-Metuchen had an amazing run in the 2000s, winning nine of ten, that was broken into two strings of four and five straight. Five is the record, which was done from 2010 to 2014, culminating in the Falcons’ Tournament of Champions title season with the trio of Karl Towns, Marques Townes and Wade Baldwin. This program, with players like Jones, Kelly, and Thomas back – and we’re sure some newcomers – could very well challenge that mark.

How they win: Keep on keepin’ on. The same formula they’ve used all year long is what will bring them the title: great defense, steals, score in transition, hit from the arc. Why mess with a good thing.

Past Coverage:

*South Brunswick’s Harmehar Chhabra goes up for a shot against South River’s Laz Rodriguez in the GMC Tournament semifinals on February 15, 2023. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)*

#1 South Brunswick Vikings
Head Coach: Joe Hoehman – 16th season, 223-156

Hoehman has been at this a long time in South Brunswick, and this may be one of his better teams yet. To look at the seeds and say Wednesday’s semifinal win over South River was an upset wouldn’t be doing justice to the Vikings, who – as a seven-seed – are still 16-5, with four of those losses coming to teams “on the board” as they say in the GMC Tournament seeding meeting: teams above them in the standings. That means two losses to Colonia – both by a single possession – as well as a three-point loss to St. Joe’s and a 26 point loss to Aquinas. Well, the Falcons are out of the tournament, and the Vikings too it upon themselves to emphatically knock out Colonia in the quarterfinals, by 20 points, after three- and a two-point losses in the regular season.

How many teams do you know have a forward who leads their squad in assists and blocks? Harmehar Chhabra is just that player, with a team leading 95 on the year, while also registering 42 blocks. The senior can rise, and when he drives the paint it’s like he can see above the clouds, and then dishes out to the wings or the corners where the Vikings can get an open look. It’s a talent and a skill, and Chhabra’s got it. He’s also smart, and it’s a treat to watch him without the ball in his hands, directing traffic around him like a 5th Avenue Blue in Manhattan at rush hour. Fellow senior Kalani Antoine may be responsible for the greatest chunk of the offense at 18.6 points a game, but with Chhabra’s 20-point effort the other night, Antoine didn’t need a ton of points; he only had 11. But that’s ok. Chhabra says he knows that’s his turn to pick it up, and pick it up he did.

Projected Starting Five:

PG Arshvir Singh (6-1, Sr): 6.5 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 15 treys, 41 assists, 25 steals
G Kalani Antoine (5-7, Sr): 18.6 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 40 treys, 51 steals
G Bryce Muniz (5-10, Sr): 4.0 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 16 treys, 46 assists, 22 steals
F Daniel Swirad (6-3, Jr): 9.7 ppg, 5.1 rpg
F Harmehar Chhabra (6-6, Sr): 13.3 ppg, 8.7 rpg, 95 assists, 42 blocks

Coach’s Interview:

GMC Tournament History (0-3):

1993 – #3 St. Joseph 57, #4 South Brunswick 54 (OT)
2016 – #1 St. Joseph 56, #2 South Brunswick 48
2020 – #2 St. Thomas Aquinas 63, #4 South Brunswick 52

Though the Vikings have made few appearances in the GMC Tournament finals, this is their second appearance in the title game in the last three full tournaments. This is the lowest seed they’ve ever been – seventh – when reaching the final.

How they win: Much as we are impressed with South Brunswick, beating St. Thomas Aquinas is going to be a Herculean task, not just for the Vikes, but maybe for anyone in the state right now. Nothing is ever impossible, mind you, but the challenge in front of them is this: don’t get frazzled by the Trojans’ defense. Finding a good shot is going to take a lot of hard work. St. Thomas has the better physical matchup, so Joe Hoehman will have to outcoach Bob Turco. To put it in baseball parlance, Aquinas blows the high heater right by you. South Brunswick needs to be the wily veteran who doesn’t have the flamethrower for an arm, but can put some wicked movement on the ball.

Past Coverage:

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NOTES AND NUGGETS:

Red Division Dominance: Some say there’s always been a Red Division bias to the seeding of the county tournament. We’re not here to take a side either way, but what the numbers bear out is that the Red Division has won 22 titles in the history of the GMC, and it’s sure to add one more to that total this year since both finalists are from the Red Division.

Turcos for Titles: Bob Turco is one of 13 coaches in MCT/GMCT history who have won multiple titles. The list includes some legendary names, like Perth Amboy’s Bill Buglovsky and St. Peter’s John Somogyi, but also Turco’s brother, Dave, who won seven titles at St. Joseph and one at Carteret. Oh, and they’re the only brother combo to have won GMC Tournament titles.

Gone, Gone, Gone… Did you know that there are only two active GMC coaches who have won GMC titles? Bob Turco is one, of course. The only other active GMC boys’ coach to have won a GMC title is Ed Breheney, who’s now in his 33rd season with the Raiders. They won in 1997 as the fifth-seed, upsetting second-seed St. Joe’s. They’ve only reached the finals one other time, in 2012, losing to the Falcons.

Will Someone Top Silas?? In last year’s final, Adam Silas of Aquinas poured in 37 points. It was the second highest scoring total in a GMC Tournament final, behind Keith Hughes of Carteret, who scored 40 in the very first GMC title game in 1986. Only two other players have ever scored more than them in a county final, both coming in the MCT title game: Gary Brokaw of New Brunswick (46, 1971) and John Somogyi of St. Peter’s (49, 1968).

Records Are Made To Be Broken: The 15 threes by St. Thomas Aquinas in Wednesday’s semifinal win over St. Joe’s were the most in a game in the Bob Turco era. If they can duplicate that effort in the finals, they would shatter the GMC Tournament record for most threes in a GMC Tournament final, currently ten. Three teams have done it, most recently North Brunswick in 2012. St. Joseph did it in 2010, and South Plainfield turned the trick in 2005. The record for threes by an individual player is Darren Smith of South Plainfield, who hit six in 2005.

Two To Go, Please: Should Aquinas win in the finals, they would tie for third on the list of most consecutive titles won. Perth Amboy won three from 1965 to 1967, and St. Peter’s in New Brunswick won three from 1983-1985. Two teams have won four: Perth Amboy from 1972-75 and St. Joseph-Metuchen from 2016 to 2019. They lost in 2015 to Colonia, or else they would have won ten straight. Instead, they had to settle for nine of ten, including five in a row – the record – from 2010 to 2014, the last year being their TOC title year with Karl-Anthony Towns.