Colonia celebrates its 2024 North 2, Group 3 title – its third straight – with the trophy on the seat of Danny Brix, the Patriots’ assistant who passed away suddenly on February 21st. (Photo: Chris Tsakonas)
With several of the bottom five team’s in last year’s final Bellamy & Son Paving Boys’ Basketball Top Ten graduating significant chunks of their rosters – with the exception of Ridge – four new teams join the preseason 2024-25 rankings, while the top five remain unchanged.
Colonia opens the season as the No. 1 team – right where it ended last year – coming off a 22-9 campaign, a GMC Tournamrnt championship, and a North 2, Group 3 title. The Patriots have made it to the Group 3 semifinals each of the last three seasons, and return junior point guard Aiden Derkack, who was the GMC Tournament MVP last year as a sophomore.
Rutgers Prep holds in at No. 2, coming off a 20-7 year where they won the Somerset County Tournament. The Argonauts bring back a slew of talented players from last year’s young and inexperienced squad, and while they’re still relatively young, they are much more experienced, with top scorers like senior Myles Parker and junior Jacob Canton returning.
In third is Montgomery, which fell to Prep in the SCT final, but went on to beat Monroe to win the Central Jersey Group 4 championship, and bowed out in the state semifinals to Lenape. While they lose seniors like Miggy Aguilar, Steve Donahue and Jack Fromelt, returning will be reigning Central Jersey Sports Radio Boys’ Player of the Year Bohdan Biekietov, as well as point guard Ethan Lin, who missed the late part of last season with a broken ankle.
St. Thomas Aquinas returns in fourth. The Trojans went 17-12 and made the GMC Tournament final last year, falling to Colonia after having won three straight full GMCT titles. And they’ll have a new coach this year, Austin Whitehurst, who takes over for Bob Turco after his departure to Piscataway. But Whitehead will miss the first ten games, suspended by the NJSIAA for a recruiting violation.
And checking in at No. 5 is St. Joseph-Metuchen. The Falcons – who were the top seed in the GMC Tournament last year but were knocked out by Aquinas in the semifinals – finished 19-9, but opted to look for a new coach and hired Karl Towns, Sr., the father of now-New York Knick Karl-Anthony Towns, who starred at the school in the mid-2000s, winning the GMCT and going to the now-defunct Tournament of Champions all three years he was there, winning the TOC his senior season, in 2014.
The rest is where it gets interesting.
The only one of the bottom five teams to be in this year’s preseason rankings is Ridge. The Red Devils return four of their top five scorers from last year’s 10-5 squad, and move up from a tenth-place tie in last year’s final rankings. Luke Kreitz and Quinn Dashefsky are the top two returning scorers, with several other key players back as well.
The remainder of the Top Ten is new.
Franklin graduates five of its seven top scorers, including top two scorers Cam Brown and Landen Miller but starts the year at No. 7 after a 16-12 season last year.
In eighth is Spotswood, followed by Timothy Christian. The Chargers were 20-7 last season, and shared the GMC Blue Division title with the Tigers. Top two scorers Kiye Walker and Daniel Yarus are gone to graduation, but several others return, and Se’mir Tolbert-Brimage – who quarterbacked the football team this year to an 8-2 record – should see an increased role.
For Timothy, they lose Myles Dickerson to transfer, but return their No. 2 and 3 scorers, seniors Jalen Fleming and big man Chukwudi Raphael Mamah.
In the final spot is Bound Brook, which went 16-11 last year, and will graduate No. 2 scorer Jeremiah Williams as well as Jarred Wooden, but returns top scorer Jackson Morrison.
Below is the full preseason Bellamy & Son Paving Boys’ Basketball Preseason Top Ten:
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