Shot clock is coming to New Jersey high school basketball, as NJSIAA measure for HS basketball passes narrowly
A well-coordinated effort to bring the shot clock to high school basketball in New Jersey just barely made it to the finish line Monday, winning approval by a slim margin in a vote of the full NJSIAA membership during a meeting at the Pines Manor in Edison. The basketball proposal passed 170-166, and the shot clock will begin when the 2027-28 season tips off. Use of the shot clock will be mandatory for all varsity games, but optional for JV and freshman contests. A similar shot clock measure in lacrosse was defeated however, by a 166-149 margin, with 21 abstentions,…
Greater Middlesex Conference realigns basketball divisions for boys’, girls’ hoops in 2026-27
After its first year of breaking divisions into Red, White and Blue “American” and “National” groupings for girls’ and boys’ basketball, the Greater Middlesex Conference is staying with that format, but still making some adjustments to its alignments for the 2026-27 season. The changes were approved by the GMC’s athletic directors on April 23rd. Only six schools on the boys’ side will find new homes next season, while a dozen will move around on the girls’ side. In most cases, moves down are teams that finished in last place in their division, while some that finished first moved up. In…
Longtime East Brunswick boys’ hoops coach Mark Motusesky steps down after 13 years leading the Bears
Coming off one of the program’s most successful campaigns in over a decade, East Brunswick boys’ basketball coach Mark Motusesky has stepped down as head coach after 13 seasons at the helm. Motusesky made the announcement Friday afternoon. “It was a very difficult decision,” Motusesky wrote, “but ultimately it was the right one to be made. My daughter is going to be a freshman, and I know I would regret not being there.” That’s his daughter Ashley, who will be on the freshman team this coming school year. And, the girls’ program is somewhat of a family affair. Sophomore Ava…
NJSIAA moving Colonia boys’ basketball up to Group 4 based on new success formula
With the prevalence of charter schools live Thrive Charter and College Achieve Asbury Park in basketball, as well as public schools that draw students from outside their traditional geographical boundaries, the NJSIAA created a success formula, that moves team up in Group size for playoff qualification. And now, Middlesex County has seen its first team be affected by the new rule, as the Colonia boys’ basketball program – which has won five straight sectional titles and six of the last seven – is moving up to Group 4. The news was announced Wednesday by the NJSIAA at its monthly meeting…
Edison native, JP Stevens alum Dylan Brett gets call of a lifetime with Hofstra basketball’s run to the Big Dance
It all started for Dylan Brett when he was nine years old. Edison Pop Warner couldn’t find anyone to do the public address during a game. Someone asked him. He wound up calling every play, like it was on the radio, not just announcing who carried the ball or made the tackle. It wasn’t quite the assignment, but the parents loved it, and it stuck. Fast forward more than a decade, and the JP Stevens grad is at Hofstra University’s student radio station WRHU, one of the top college radio stations in the nation. How it started, and how it’s…
Stellar sophomore campaign earns East Brunswick’s Ava Catanho CJSR GMC Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year
We get asked a lot about our process for naming a Player of the Year. It starts out that they have to be really good, of course, but there are a lot of very good ball players out there. So, our next criteria is the value to their team. A team is just that, never one player, but sometimes, there’s one star who stands out, without whose contributions the success of that season might very well not have been possible. For East Brunswick, that’s sophomore Ava Catanho. Sure, senior Julianna DelosSantos-Branson had a huge impact, nearly averaging a double-double, with…
Jimmy Kreie’s first-year success earns Franklin girls’ mentor CJSR’s Somerset County Girls’ Coach of the Year honors
Franklin girls’ basketball is a program built on tradition and plenty of winning, benchmarks set not too long ago in the 2010s. Former coach Audrey Taylor had the Warriors rolling, with four group state titles and two Tournament of Champions trophies, including the famed 34-0 2018-19 squad. After a six-year hardware drought, Franklin brought back the shine that put the Warriors on the map across the state, under the leadership of first-year head coach Jimmy Kreie. Following a run at Montclair Immaculate – capped by a Non-Public B title in the school’s final year of operation last season – Kreie…
Addy Platt earns CJSR Somerset County Girls’ Player of the Year honors, while her Gill St. Bernard Knights are Team of the Year after sectional title win
Outside of Gladstone, New Jersey, it looked like the Gill St. Bernard’s girls basketball team may have been headed for a retooling year. Five seniors graduated, and all played college basketball this season as freshmen at the next level. With a solid stable of underclassmen returning, there was a relative unknown with the Knights. On campus, though, the belief never wavered, even dating back to the summer. Gill St. Bernard’s proceeded to go 22-6 and win its first sectional title since 2012, making it all the way to Rutgers in the Non-Public B Final. All that has earned the Knights…
East Brunswick’s Travis Retzlaff named CJSR GMC Girls’ Basketball Coach of the Year
First came the recognition from the league’s coaches, now from everyone else. Or at least, in this case, Central Jersey Sports Radio, which has named East Brunswick’ Travis Retzlaff its GMC Girls’ Coach of the Year for 2025-26. The Bears had a special season, winning 23 games, its best season since Keith Lane’s squad went 22-4 a decade ago and won the GMC Tournament championship. This year, it was a second place finish in the Red National behind St. Thomas Aquinas, and a run to the GMC finals against the Trojans, who won their seventh straight. But with a relatively…
Smooth sailing in winter championships welcome for NJSIAA, with more experiences at Rutgers to come
Someone will always complain about something – a seed, a snow day – but on the whole, things seemed to go quite swimmingly these last few weeks in the state tournaments for the NJSIAA. After some hot controversies over the last couple of years, it’s welcome news. There was Manasquan-Camden’s controversial ending in basketball two seasons ago, then the Anthony Knox wrestling saga last season. But the best news to come out of this week’s state championships – whether it was wrestling at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, or 12 state title basketball games at Rutgers – was that it…
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