Happy 2026! A genie granted us three wishes. Will they come true for New Jersey high school sports this year?

Another year behind us. They seem to go faster and faster these days.

Can anyone believe that Central Jersey Sports Radio will be finishing up its sixth season of covering high school sports this June when baseball packs it in? And we started this thing in the middle (July) of the pandemic?

Pretty bold move, but then hey, there were limits on fans at football games, and basketball games didn’t see fans beyond parents until later in that shortened season. Baseball was literally a breath of fresh air, the only sport untouched in 2021 since it never got played in 2020 – except for the Last Dance tournament.

Well, as soon as the ball dropped in Times Square last night, something strange happened in the Central Jersey Sports Radio studios.

Out of a dusty old microphone case – from an ElectroVoice RE20 for any audio geeks out there, the standard FM radio microphone for decades, by the way – popped a genie. No magic lamps around here.

And while he made no promises, he did at least grant us the opportunity to make three wishes for high school sports in the upcoming season. We’re not sure how connected he is to the folks down in Robbinsville, but we thought it over and came up with three.

Turns out, we think baseball is pretty good. So we’re going to leave that one alone for now. Our three wishes are for football and basketball (and other sports, we don’t generally cover, but we’ll explain in a moment)

1. Let’s get a Shot Clock in Basketball…

The NFHS – the National Federation of State High School Associations, which makes rules in high school sports across the country – adopted the shot clock in basketball in 2021, with the implementation of the 35-second clock coming in 2022-23.

Since then, 31 states and the District of Columbia have adopted it. (See a map and story on the NFHS site here.) Of those, three states are optional (Missouri, Kentucky and Florida) while three others use it in the regular season only (Wyoming, Alabama and South Carolina).

Most of the Western States use it, everything West and North of Colorado, including Hawaii and Alaska.

In the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast, only Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont and Maine have not adopted the shot clock in any way.

Here’s our take: Idaho and South Dakota aren’t exactly hotbeds of major high school basketball talent. Not like New Jersey and New York. But the Empire State has the clock, and the Garden State does not.

Will it increase scoring? Maybe. Take a look at some of those 39-6 scores you see at the lower levels, and there’s probably not much that can be done about that. We’d venture to guess the team that scored six points in 32 minutes missed a lot of the shots they took.

And we understand most teams in New Jersey don’t have a Division I prospect. But many will go on to play Division II, III or even NAIA and the JUCO route, and they all have the shot clock. Wouldn’t it be better to prepare them for the college game?

Plus, we can get away from team’s holding the ball – with no defense – for a minute or more on possessions late in the game.

The NJSIAA already adopted a running clock in the second half of games, so the time is going to run down. Might as well see some action!

2. Bring back the Tournament of Champions…

Joni Mitchell was right: you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.

Following the 2021-22 season, the NJSIAA scrapped the Tournament of Champions in all sports, after a more than 30-year run that began in 1989. If we asked you a trivia question, to name the boys’ and girls’ teams to win the first one, only us old-timers might get it right.

Hoffman – now South Amboy – won the first girls’ TOC, while Bob Hurley’s St. Anthony of Jersey City won the first boys’ event. The Lady Guvs weren’t the reason the Tournament of Champions is gone now, but the Friars were, in a way.

(By the way, that first TOC? It was held at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands, home of the NBA’s Nets and NHL’s Devils at the time.)

One of the reasons the TOC was tossed out was that the NJSIAA said it was the same teams, every year. Out of 32 Tournaments on the boys’ side, St. Anthony won 13 of them, and St. Patrick of Elizabeth (now the Patrick School) won six. That’s two teams winning almost 60 percent of the time.

The girls’ side was often streaky, with St. John Vianney winning eight and Shabazz winning six. Vianney won a bunch in the 1990s, Shabazz more in the 2000s on. Franklin won two of three it appeared in, all in a row, taking the title in 2017 over Manasquan and 2019 over Saddle River Day, falling in 2018 to ‘Squan.

To which, we say, so what? If a program is good, let them win. Don’t people love sports dynasties? And the girls’ side was often won by public schools, in 19 of the 32 TOCs.

The other issue was allowing time for student-athletes to recover after a grueling season, and before heading on to the next. But that only lasted a couple of years.

In 2025, the last football game was played December third. Basketball teams could open up as early as December 8th, though many opened on the 13th. That’s still a span of just ten days for the teams that made the football state finals.

The winter-to-spring switch last year also was tight, and it will be again this year. In 2026, the last of the state hoops finals will end March 15th. Baseball competition may begin as early as the 16th, but for those who don’t, and start, say, a week later, still gives only eight days from the end of one season to the beginning of the next.

As people say today, “Make it make sense.”

So, at this point, why not bring back the TOC?

We looked at the NJ.com posted rosters of the 12 teams – five on each side – that won Group Championships last year, the teams that would have qualified for the Tournament of Champions.

Of the girls, Group 3 winner Cherry Hill West and Group 1 winner New Providence were the outliers, with eight of 15 and seven of 11 roster players, respectively, playing multiple sports. Group 4 champ Hillsborough had one, Non-Public A champion Morris Catholic had none. Overall, 21 of 72 played multiple sports, and some only in the fall.

On the boys’ side, Manasquan had 12 of 15 playing multiple sports, but no one else had more than five, and the number was 25 of 91, a number likely higher due to football.

Keep in mind, not all of those multi-sport athletes are starters on both those teams, and some, like the boys’ on the Plainfield Group 4 champion squad, mostly played football in the fall. Few also played baseball, probably one of the toughest sports to get “game ready” for on a short turnaround.

Lacrosse coaches got together and got the NJSIAA to allow them to run their own TOC, although it’s not recognized by the NJSIAA. If they can do it, why can’t basketball?

3. Bring Back “true” Sectional Champions in Football

Ever since football adopted the state championship playoff format in football in 2022, we’ve bemoaned the fact that “sectional” champions are no longer champions from a certain geographic section.

Yeah, we know, we harped on that a lot this season, but when two teams from deep South Jersey are split up, like they were in Group 5 this year, allowing Kingsway to with the South Jersey Group 5 title and Washington Twp. – which is South of Philadelphia – to win the “Central Jersey” Group 5 championship, there’s something wrong with this picture.

In fact, adding state champions only makes it more important, in our mind, to go back to having predetermined geographical sections, rather than the top 16 teams in the North and South divided up by whatever the NJSIAA – led by the coaches and ADs on its Executive Committee – decide they want that year.

First, teams were broken up after the fact by geography. Then the sections were “snaked” by seed to ensure equal strength in both brackets. This year, the top two teams North and South were the seeds in each section, then the rest were split geographically and seeded in order of finish wherever they landed, ostensibly to cut down on travel.

What will next year bring?

There’s a push to go back to snaking, while some even want the best 32 statewide, then broken up after the fact. The NJFCA – New Jersey Football Coaches Association – asked its members their opinion in a survey, whose results have not yet been made public, but they say will be shared and considered by the NJSIAA.

But what makes football different than just about every other team sport in New Jersey? (Wrestling is, understandably, a different beast altogether.)

Absolutely nothing.

And in any high school sport, anywhere in the nation, high school sports is inherently local. Does anyone in Middlesex County care about 90 percent of the Bergen County teams? Are they driving up there to see a Dumont and Fort Lee basketball game in early January?

Only if they have a niece, nephew, or grandchild playing.

By the way, it should be noted, the NJFCA honors excellence in high school football with its Super 100 list every year. Coaches nominate players, and the finalists are picked. There are 25 players – public and private together – recognized in each of four sections: North 1, North 2, Central and South.

Why not just do the best 100 overall? Well, that might shut out some whole counties or regions in the state.

So why are we even entertaining the thought when it comes to the football playoffs?

Of those coaches who voted several years ago to allow state championships in football, many wanted it, while others saw the writing on the wall, and didn’t want to prevent it from happening, but some feared less importance would be placed on winning a sectional title.

It’s not that way in any other sport, although it’s starting in football. But it’s not because of the new “state championships” – after all, every other sport had them (and some even had the Tournament of Champions beyond that).

It’s because crowning a South Jersey team a Central Jersey champion is just ludicrous.