GMC Tournament Boys’ Final Preview: Colonia looks for clean sweep of Aquinas and first title in a decade as Trojans go for a four-peat

There are only four active boys’ basketball head coaches in the Greater Middlesex Conference who have ever coached in a GMCT championship game.

And if you come to Monroe High School Friday night to watch second-seed Colonia take on fourth-seed and three-time defending champion St. Thomas Aquinas, you won’t have to scan the crowd to find two of them. They’ll be on the bench, encouraging their players, and sweet-talking the refs from opposite ends of the scorer’s table.

Jose Rodriguez of Colonia was there two years ago, making his first appearance. Bob Turco not only has made the last three county finals – and won them – but he also made a trip as the head coach of Monroe, in 2010, when he lost to his brother Dave and St. Joseph-Metuchen, in the Falcons’ first of nine titles in ten years under the elder Turco’s watch.

(The other two are Mark Motusesky of East Brunswick, and Darius Griffin of Piscataway.)

Central Jersey Sports Radio will have coverage of Friday’s GMC Tournament Championship Doubleheader, with Mike Pavlichko and Dom Savino calling all the play-by-play. Tip-off for the boys’ final is set for 8 pm, with pregame at 7:40, all following the girls’ game – with the same two opponents – at 6 pm. Click here to listen.

This may have been Turco’s most challenging year yet. While no one in Middlesex County is shedding tears for a man who has won three straight county titles, only seldom-used Davon Grant returned from last year’s squad. The rest were lost to graduation and transfers.

And even through a spate of illnesses that started in December, and – on occasion – has the Trojans down to seven players, according to Turco, the team has come through it, and returned to the final once again.

Perhaps the biggest reason is the young man Turco calls a “double-double machine.” Rinelson Dilone is averaging 20.3 points and 16.3 rebounds a game in the GMC Tournament, both above his season average. Against St. Joseph-Metuchen – the top seed they knocked off in the semifinals – the STA guards found Dilone with good looks, and his timing to avoid the defense made several buckets underneath look easy.

But they also can play stifling defense, even better when they need to be, as evidenced late in the game against the Falcons, frustrating one of the county’s top players in Jeremy Clayville all night long. Sophomore Greg Reyes has been a huge part of that, his defense being of immensely greater value than his 4.3 points per game on the offensive side.

For Colonia, it’s been the Aiden Derkack show, growing the family’s impact on the Colonia basketball program. His dad, Gene, is a Colonia legend. His brother, Jordan, is slaying up at Merrimack. And his older sister Taylor is the all-time leading scorer – girls or boys – in school history. He’s averaging 20.3 points a game this season, but 23 in the tournament. He’s scored in double figures all but two games this season, and gone over 30 four times. He had a really good freshman year, and has taken it to another level in 2023-24, avoiding any hint of a sophomore slump.

But let’s not forget they have other players too, including Central Jersey Sports Radio’s football Offensive Player of the Year Jaeden Jones, the star quarterback who’s quick on his feet and will be playing at Monmouth next year. He’s contributing almost 14 points a game, and still the team leader in assists, running the show on offense. Zach Smith has been a key contributor on defense.

Click below to hear both coaches talk about the semifinal matchup, and scroll down for more info on the game:

MORE ON THE GMC TOURNAMENT BOYS’ FINAL:

(2) Colonia (17-8) vs. (4) St. Thomas Aquinas (16-9)
When: Friday, 8 pm
Where: Monroe Township High School
Broadcast Team: Mike Pavlichko and Dom Savino (LISTEN HERE)

COACHES: 

Colonia: Jose Rodriguez, 6th season (111-38)
St. Thomas Aquinas: Bob Turco, 6th season (117-32)

HOW THEY GOT HERE:

Colonia: The Patriots cruised through their first two games, beating 15th-seed Perth Amboy in the first round, then got past in-town rival and seventh-seeded Woodbridge in the quarterfinals Saturday, 65-38. Adien Derkack scored 41 points in the first two games, including 23 against the Barrons, all without the benefit of the three-point arc. In the semis on Wednesday night in Monroe, Colonia used a big second half to top 6th-seed South Plainfield by a surprising 70-37 score. Aiden Derkack scored 27 and had eight rebounds, while Jaeden Jones added 13, and Zach Smith just missed a double-double, with 11 points and nine rebounds.

St. Thomas Aquinas: The Trojans topped 13-seed North Brunswick at home in the first round, and topped 12th-seeded Red Division foe East Brunswick 57-45 in Saturday’s quarterfinals at Piscataway behind 23 points from Aiden Ur, and a double-double of 15 points and 17 rebounds from Rinelson Dilone. In the semis Wednesday night in Monroe, Rinelson Dilone tallied his third straight double-double in the GMC Tournament, going off for 21 points and 18 rebounds. Aiden Ur added 12, while seven of the eight Trojans who played got in the scoring column.

TOP SCORERS:

Colonia: Aiden Derkack (20.3 ppg, 20 treys), Jaeden Jones (13.7 ppg, 10 treys)
St. Thomas Aquinas: Rinelson Dilone (16 ppg), Aiden Ur (15.2 ppg, 40 treys), Paris Papadatos (13.3 ppg, team-best 43 treys)

TOP REBOUNDERS:

Colonia: Aiden Derkack (7.8), James Curet (4.3)
St. Thomas Aquinas: Rinelson Dilone (13)

RECENT MEETINGS: St. Thomas Aquinas swept Colonia last season in the regular year, but they didn’t face each other in the GMC Tournament, and Aquinas won it all – again. This year, Colonia won both regular season meetings. Will the Patriots win it all this year?

GMC TOURNAMENT HISTORY:

St. Thomas Aquinas: The combo of Aquinas/Bishop Ahr has four GMC Tournament titles – third-best all-time, by the way, behind the 12 of St. Joseph and Piscataway’s five titles – as well as the Middlesex County Tournament title in 1982. Interesting side note: Aquinas girls’ coach Tim Corrigan was a ball boy on that 1982 team; his brother-in-law was on the coaching staff. Then they won it again in 1992, he was on the St. Joe’s team that lost to the Trojans.

Colonia: The Patriots are the last public school team to win the GMC Tournament, briefly snapping a string of five straight titles won by St. Joe’s from 2010-2014. Colonia won it in 2015, before the Falcons won the next four to make it an unprecedented nine titles in a span of ten years. Colonia has won three GMC titles and two MCT championships. They’re 5-6 all-time in finals, 2-1 in the MCT and 3-5 in the GMC title tilt.

OTHER NOTES:

Dominating: A public school hasn’t won the GMC boys’ tournament since 2015, when Colonia upset St. Joseph in a battle of No. 2 vs. No. 1. In fact, since 2010, either St. Joseph-Metuchen or St. Thomas Aquinas has won all but one of the last 13 full GMC Tournaments. (Colonia won the four-team, two-game Karl-Anthony Towns/Jay Williams top GMC pod during the COVID-shortened 2021 season.) But it wasn’t always like that. In fact, since the first GMC Tournament in 1986 – it was the Middlesex County Tournament before that since 1965 – only six of the first 24 titles went to non-publics. (Now-closed Cardinal McCarrick won two of them.) And in the 21-year history of the MCT, only five times did the title go to a non-public. (Now-closed St. Peter’s won four of them.) That’s 11 out of the first 45 titles going to parochials, then 12 of the next 13 since 2010.

Who’s been to the big game? Believe it or not, only four current GMC boys’ coaches have ever been to the finals. That includes Bob Turco of St. Thomas Aquinas, who’s 3-1 overall. He has three wins with the Trojans and one loss at Monroe in 2010 – when he lost to his brother, Dave, who was the head coach at St. Joseph-Metuchen, and now is at Kean University. But he’s the only current coach to win one. The other, North Brunswick’s Ed Breheney, retired after last season. The other three who’ve coached in the GMC finals before are Jose Rodriguez (lost in 2022), Darius Griffin of Piscataway (lost to St. Joe’s in 2019) and Mark Motusesky of East Brunswick, who lost to the Falcons in 2014, his first season taking over for longtime coach Bo Henning. 

Up the list: St. Thomas Aquinas head coach Bob Turco is tied for third on the all-time county championship list, MCT or GMCT. Paul Schoeb of Piscataway, Ken Pace (at JFK and Colonia) and John Somogyi of St. Peter’s also have won three. But Turco will have a long way to go to get to No. 2, where his brother Dave sits, having won eight titles. Seven of those came with St. Joe’s, while he also won one in 2002 while coaching his alma mater, Carteret. Turco is No. 1 if you just count the GMC, but overall it’s ill Buglovsky of Perth Amboy, who won eight, including the first Middlesex County Tournament in 1965. The won the next three, another in 1970, and four more from 1972-1975.

Consecutive Titles: St. Joseph-Metuchen is on this list twice, with the longest stretch of consecutive wins of five from 2010-2014, and again tied for second with four from 2016-2019. Perth Amboy also won four from 1972-1975. Three teams have won it three times in a row, including St. Thomas Aquinas in 2020, 2022 and 2023, St. Pete’s (1983-1985) and Perth Amboy (1965-1967).

How have the seeds fared? There have been 57 MCT/GMCT championship games, and the top seed has won 27 times. But they’re not in it this year, as St. Joseph was ousted in the semifinals by St. Thomas Aquinas. The 2-seed – in this case, Colonia – has won 15 times, while the four-seed has only won it twice. One of those was Colonia, in the 1969 Middlesex County Tournament, over 6th-seed South River. The last four-seed to win the GMC was Carteret, in the very first event, in 1986, over third-seed New Brunswick. The last time we had a two-seed against a four-seed? It was the only time, and it came in 2020, the beginning of St. Thomas’ run, when the second-seeded Trojans beat fourth-seed South Brunswick.