St. Thomas Aquinas head coach Bob Turco (left) and senior guard Adam Silas are all smiles after a huge win over national power Gill St. Bernard’s on February 12, 2022. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Bob Turco grew up in Carteret, played at Carteret, and coached under his brother Dave at both Carteret and South Brunswick.
When he broke out on his own, his first head coaching job was at another public school at the southern end of the Greater Middlesex Conference, at Monroe.
Now, after runs at Notre Dame, and for the last six seasons at Bishop Ahr/St. Thomas Aquinas, Turco is back with a public school.
Turco will take over the Piscataway boys’ basketball program, with his hire having been approved Thursday night by the Board of Education.
He leaves St. Thomas Aquinas after a half-dozen seasons with a record of 123-34, having won three straight GMC Tournament titles in 2020, 2022 and 2023. (There was no full tournament in 2021, the COVID-shortened season.) The Trojans’ best season under his tenure was 2021-22, when Aquinas went 27-2 with only one loss to a New Jersey opponent, to eventual Non-Public South A champion Rutgers Prep.
Turco was 154-46 in seven seasons at Notre Dame in Lawrenceville, where he won two Mercer County Tournament titles.
Before that, he spent five years at Monroe, his first head coaching stop, going 97-42, where the Falcons went as far as the GMC Tournament title game in 2010, falling to his brother’s St. Joseph-Metuchen team in their first of five straight titles and nine in a span of ten seasons from 2010 through 2019. Turco is 3-2 as a head coach all-time in the GMCT title game.
Overall, Turco has a record of 374-122 in 18 seasons as a head coach.
Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with Bob Turco about taking the Piscataway job, and his immensely successful run at St. Thomas Aquinas: