Former Timothy Christian head coach Dennis McNulty with with Jalen Fleming when he joined the 1,000-point club on December 15, 2023. (Source: Timothy Christian Athletics)
When Dennis McNulty stepped down as the boys’ basketball coach at Timothy Christian in Piscataway after six seasons and unprecedented success, the next question was “Where would he land?”
The short answer was at Rutgers Prep, where he signed on as an assistant this past season for Matt Bloom, who’d also been having a successful run as head coach.
But back in mid-August, Bloom also left – not long after Mary Klinger retired was head coach of the girls’ program – and now McNulty is back in the head coaching game, just not with the Argonauts.
The New Brunswick boys’ basketball program announced on Twitter Thursday morning that Dennis McNulty will be its new head coach.
McNulty spent six season as the head coach at Timothy Christian, and was quite successful. The Tigers reached double digit wins each season, even in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign, with standouts like Jalen Fleming – the school’s all-time leading scorer – and big man Chukwudi Raphael Mamah.
In his first season as head coach, he took a 5-19 squad in 2019 and went 15-10 with a third place finish in the GMC Gold Division at 13-5.
His teams were 88-58 overall, and 66-16 in divisional play in the GMC. They shared or won outright three division titles, sharing the 2021-22 Gold Division title with Wardlaw-Hartridge, the 2023-24 Blue Division title with Spotswod, and winning this past season’s Blue title outright, with a 9-1 record.
The Tigers – who were the ten-seed in the 2023 GMC Tournament – also knocked off seventh-seed St. Joseph-Metuchen in the opening round, with a 56-53 road win.
New Brunswick is likely banking on McNulty’s work to turn around Timothy Christian in the hopes he can do the same with the Zebra program, which has struggled in recent years.
New Brunswick was 6-19 last season under Antoine Allen, and 2-8 in the GMC Blue American Division. Allen’s teams never won more than six games in a season, and were 20-88 over his five-year run leading the program. The last time they won at least ten games in a season was an excellent 2019 campaign, going 20-8 (10-2 in the GMC White Division) that season. While they were a one-and-done in the GMC Tournament, New Brunswick, they reached the semifinals of the Central Jersey Group 4 state playoffs, falling 77-72 to Marlboro, after picking up wins over West Windsor-Plainsboro South in the first round and Montgomery in the quarters.
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