Somerset County boys’ basketball coaches make their pitch at the SCT seeding meeting at Immaculata High School on February 5, 2024. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
There was little surprise who the top seeds would be at Monday night’s Somerset County Tournament basketball seeding meeting.
Rutgers Prep’s girls and boys both took the top seeds, as expected, and will seek to defend their county titles won last season.
The Lady Argonauts will be looking for their fourth straight SCT title, sixth in the last nine tourneys, and their tenth overall. They also have not lost to a Somerset County opponent – or a Skyland opponent, for that matter – since the 2019 SCT final, where they lost to a Franklin team that had Diamond Miller, won the Tournament of Champions and finished 32-0.
The Rutgers Prep boys are seeking their second straight title and third overall, after beating Gill St. Bernard’s last season. Their first title came in 2020.
While it was widely expected Gill St. Bernard’s would get the No. 2 seed on the girls’ side – which they did – there was more intrigue on the boys’ side.
Montgomery has been fantastic all year, and down the stretch, lost to Rutgers Prep but topped Hillsborough at home Saturday to give them the upper hand for the two-seed.
The Cougars are 16-2 and unbeaten in eight Valley Division games, but the Warriors are 15-5, 7-2 in the Raritan Division, and split with Phillipsburg – which is in Warren County but in the Skyland Conference – but also has a division loss to third place Ridge.
In the end, that boys’ second seed went to Montgomery.
The 2024 Somerset County Tournament starts with opening round games on Thursday and second round Saturday. Next week, the quarterfinals are Tuesday, with the semis Thursday. All games are at higher seeds until Saturday’s final, with the girls at 1 pm and the boys at 3 pm at Montgomery Township High School.
Central Jersey Sports Radio will broadcast semifinal action with opponents to be determined, as well as the championship doubleheader on Saturday, the 17th.
Below are the full brackets for both tournaments. NOTE: The SCIAA late Monday night acknowledged a calculation error in the tabulation of points from the coaches’ voting, which changed the positions of Bridgewater-Raritan’s and Manville’s girls’ basketball teams. As a result, Manville is the 14th-seed instead of 15. Bridgewater gets the 15th-seed instead of 14.
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