Turco starting over at Piscataway, but as they get set to open against GMCT champ Colonia, the cupboard is far from bare for Chiefs

Take out three-time defending North 2 Group 3 champion Colonia, which also won the GMC Tournament last year, and the rest of the GMC might be a free-for-all.

And that’s just the way Bob Turco likes it.

After six seasons, three GMC Tournament titles and more than 120 wins at St. Thomas Aquinas – which followed a run at Notre Dame in Lawrenceville – Turco went back to his public school roots last Spring, signing on to succeed Darius Griffin in Piscataway.

Turco was an assistant for years under his brother, Dave – now at Kean – at Carteret, and later was the head coach at Monroe. Now he’s back at a public school at age 60, no longer worried about filling a roster every year.

He gets who he gets, and is more than happy with it.

His Chiefs will take the floor for their opener Thursday night against Colonia, a top ten team in the state that just beat another top ten team in Jersey, St. Peter’s Prep, 46-40, in the Tip-Off Classic at Montgomery Saturday evening.

Game time is set for 5:30, and you can hear all the action on Central Jersey Sports Radio, with pregame set for 5:15. Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel have the call; click here to listen.

Turco coached Patriots mentor Jose Rodriguez when the two were at Carteret, and the game will be a coaching rematch of last year’s GMC Tournament final, when the Patriots finally broke through, winning their first crown since 2015. (They won the four-team Karl-Anthony Towns/Jay Williams GMC Pod in the COVID-shortened 2021 season over Aquinas.)

As for Piscataway, he likes the group. They work hard, and want to be there. While top scorer Logan Smith is gone to graduation, the next three on the list are back, including senior Vaughn Turner, junior Donald Nwaigwe, and senior Nate Davis, all of whom were part of a balanced scoring attack last year.

Not that Turco has noticed. He says he never even looked at their stats. Instead, he trusts his observations on the floor, and believes his team will compete for whatever is left in a Red Division where two of the top three programs the last several years – Aquinas and St. Joseph – both have new coaches in Austin Whitehurst and Karl Towns, Sr.

Click below to hear new Piscataway coach Bob Turco talk about the Chiefs with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko: