Tag: Bob Turco

by Mike Pavlichko

Lima’s career night sends Piscataway to GMC Tournament final for first time since 2019, with 73-62 win over Sayreville

In a game with two coaches in Bob Turco of Piscataway and John Wojcik of Sayreville who have a combined 617 wins, it was the players that decided this one.

In the opening GMC Tournament semifinal game at Monroe High School Tuesday, heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio, presented by the George Street Playhouse, the Chiefs made all the big plays in the final minute plus.

The game saw seven ties and six lead changes throughout. The final lead change came after third-seed Sayreville led the entire second half, until second-seed Piscataway took the lead with about four-and-a-half minutes to play.

Instrumental through it all was Josh Lima, a junior who played stellar defense, but also finished around the rim. He scored a career high 24 points, nine more than his previous personal best, and had a three in there for good measure.

For a good part of the night, it was entertaining watching him and Sam Jones duel it out. The outstanding Sayreville junior guard scored 17, while Keithan Shuler was next with 16 for the Bombers, who dropped to 20-4 with the loss, just their third against the GMC this season, and second to Piscataway, which improved to 22-4.

Now, the Chiefs are in the title game for the first time since 2019, when they lost to St. Joseph-Metuchen. But for Turco, it’s his fourth straight trip to the finals. At St. Thomas Aquinas, his previous coaching stop, they won the GMCT in 2020 – there was none in 2021 due to COVID – 2021 and 2022, then fell last year to Colonia.

Now they wait to see who they get in the final: the top-seeded Patriots, or fourth-seed St. Thomas Aquinas, Turco’s old school.

Click below for postgame reaction from Piscataway junior Josh Lima and head coach Bob Turco, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

by Mike Pavlichko

Resurgent Piscataway and rebuilt Sayreville to clash in GMCT semis Tuesday for trip to Finals

Calling the Piscataway and Sayreville boys’ basketball teams surprises this year might not be the most accurate way to describe them, so maybe a better phrase would be “pleasant surprises.”

When Bob Turco left St. Thomas Aquinas after six highly successful seasons and three GMC Tournament championships, no one was quite sure how the Chiefs would be, although everyone knew what kind of coach they were getting.

And everyone knows what kind of coach Sayreville has, too. John Wojcik has been at the school for 16 seasons, but they’re having their best year since 2016-17, when they went 22-8, and made it to the GMC Tournament final, falling to St. Joseph-Metuchen in the midst of their unprecedented run of nine county titles in ten years.

So, yeah, pleasant surprise, but maybe not really a surprise at all.

Tuesday night, the two will meet at Monroe High School in the GMC Tournament semifinals, the first of a doubleheader you can hear exclusively on Central Jersey Sports Radio, presented by the George Street Playhouse in downtown New Brunswick. Tip-time is 5:00, and pregame starts at 4:45 with Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel on the call. Click here to listen.

Piscataway (21-4) bonded in the off-season after Turco’s arrival, playing summer league games, and learning their new coach’s style. That style starts with defense. But the Chiefs can also score, to the tune of 1,805 points. They’ve scored the most points of anyone in the GMC Red Division, including division champ Colonia.

No one has off-the-charts numbers, but this is a team. Senior Nate Davis leads at 14.1 points a game – with a team-best 42 treys – while Donald Nwaigwe (pronounced “WEEG-way”) adds 11.5 points and a team-leading 6.4 rebounds per game – and Vaighn Turner and Josh Lima round out the double-digit scorers at 10.2 ant 10 points per game, respectively.

Sayreville (20-3) has been in a little bit of a rebuild the last two seasons, but playing current juniors Chidi Chukwurah and Sam Jones as freshman has “paid dividends” in the mind of Wojick.

Chukwurah is tops at 18 points per game and 8.4 rebounds per game. He’s also got a team-leading 13 blocks. Jones has a team-high 52 triples on the season, and is averaging 16.3 points per game. Christian Torres distributes the ball (107 assists, best on the team) and averages 7.1 points per game.

Torres is third in the GMC in assists, and the Piscataway Magnet transfer had to sit to start the season due to NJSIAA transfer rules, so he wasn’t in a Bomber uniform when they played the Chiefs on December 23rd, a 62-57 loss that easily could have gone differently otherwise.

Click below for pregame chats with both head coaches with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel:

Piscataway head coach Bob Turco
Sayreville head coach John Wojcik
by Mike Pavlichko

Fourth quarter rebounding, transition play earn No. 8 Piscataway boys upset win at No. 4 STA

For the years Bob Turco was the head coach at St. Thomas Aquinas, they were a boys’ basketball program intent on pressure, defense, rebounding and transition basketball.

He’s at Piscataway now, but when the No. 8 Chiefs visited Turco’s old school Saturday afternoon, they looked more and more like the teams he used to coach in North Edison.

Solid rebounding and transition play – especially in the fourth quarter – helped give the Chiefs to a 62-46 win over No. 4 St. Thomas Aquinas.

Sophomore Landon Pernell led the Chiefs with 14, including 7 of 9 from the foul line, and he had seven points in the decisive fourth quarter, which saw Piscataway lead by as many as 15, their biggest advantage of the game.

The Chiefs improve to 6-2, 2-1 in the GMC Red Division.

St. Thomas was led by St. Joseph transfer Dan Jennings with 13. The Trojans drop to 4-2, also 2-1 in the Red Division.

Click below for postgame reaction from Piscataway sophomore Landon Pernell and head coach Bob Turco, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

by Mike Pavlichko

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:

by Mike Pavlichko

Bob Turco departs St. Thomas Aquinas to lead Piscataway hoops program in return to his roots

Bob Turco grew up in Carteret, played at Carteret, and coached under his brother Dave at both Carteret and South Brunswick.

When he broke out on his own, his first head coaching job was at another public school at the southern end of the Greater Middlesex Conference, at Monroe.

Now, after runs at Notre Dame, and for the last six seasons at Bishop Ahr/St. Thomas Aquinas, Turco is back with a public school.

Turco will take over the Piscataway boys’ basketball program, with his hire having been approved Thursday night by the Board of Education.

He leaves St. Thomas Aquinas after a half-dozen seasons with a record of 123-34, having won three straight GMC Tournament titles in 2020, 2022 and 2023. (There was no full tournament in 2021, the COVID-shortened season.) The Trojans’ best season under his tenure was 2021-22, when Aquinas went 27-2 with only one loss to a New Jersey opponent, to eventual Non-Public South A champion Rutgers Prep.

Turco was 154-46 in seven seasons at Notre Dame in Lawrenceville, where he won two Mercer County Tournament titles.

Before that, he spent five years at Monroe, his first head coaching stop, going 97-42, where the Falcons went as far as the GMC Tournament title game in 2010, falling to his brother’s St. Joseph-Metuchen team in their first of five straight titles and nine in a span of ten seasons from 2010 through 2019. Turco is 3-2 as a head coach all-time in the GMCT title game.

Overall, Turco has a record of 374-122 in 18 seasons as a head coach.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with Bob Turco about taking the Piscataway job, and his immensely successful run at St. Thomas Aquinas:

by Mike Pavlichko

GMC Tournament Boys’ Final Preview: Colonia looks for clean sweep of Aquinas and first title in a decade as Trojans go for a four-peat

There are only four active boys’ basketball head coaches in the Greater Middlesex Conference who have ever coached in a GMCT championship game.

And if you come to Monroe High School Friday night to watch second-seed Colonia take on fourth-seed and three-time defending champion St. Thomas Aquinas, you won’t have to scan the crowd to find two of them. They’ll be on the bench, encouraging their players, and sweet-talking the refs from opposite ends of the scorer’s table.

Jose Rodriguez of Colonia was there two years ago, making his first appearance. Bob Turco not only has made the last three county finals – and won them – but he also made a trip as the head coach of Monroe, in 2010, when he lost to his brother Dave and St. Joseph-Metuchen, in the Falcons’ first of nine titles in ten years under the elder Turco’s watch.

(The other two are Mark Motusesky of East Brunswick, and Darius Griffin of Piscataway.)

Central Jersey Sports Radio will have coverage of Friday’s GMC Tournament Championship Doubleheader, with Mike Pavlichko and Dom Savino calling all the play-by-play. Tip-off for the boys’ final is set for 8 pm, with pregame at 7:40, all following the girls’ game – with the same two opponents – at 6 pm. Click here to listen.

This may have been Turco’s most challenging year yet. While no one in Middlesex County is shedding tears for a man who has won three straight county titles, only seldom-used Davon Grant returned from last year’s squad. The rest were lost to graduation and transfers.

And even through a spate of illnesses that started in December, and – on occasion – has the Trojans down to seven players, according to Turco, the team has come through it, and returned to the final once again.

Perhaps the biggest reason is the young man Turco calls a “double-double machine.” Rinelson Dilone is averaging 20.3 points and 16.3 rebounds a game in the GMC Tournament, both above his season average. Against St. Joseph-Metuchen – the top seed they knocked off in the semifinals – the STA guards found Dilone with good looks, and his timing to avoid the defense made several buckets underneath look easy.

But they also can play stifling defense, even better when they need to be, as evidenced late in the game against the Falcons, frustrating one of the county’s top players in Jeremy Clayville all night long. Sophomore Greg Reyes has been a huge part of that, his defense being of immensely greater value than his 4.3 points per game on the offensive side.

For Colonia, it’s been the Aiden Derkack show, growing the family’s impact on the Colonia basketball program. His dad, Gene, is a Colonia legend. His brother, Jordan, is slaying up at Merrimack. And his older sister Taylor is the all-time leading scorer – girls or boys – in school history. He’s averaging 20.3 points a game this season, but 23 in the tournament. He’s scored in double figures all but two games this season, and gone over 30 four times. He had a really good freshman year, and has taken it to another level in 2023-24, avoiding any hint of a sophomore slump.

But let’s not forget they have other players too, including Central Jersey Sports Radio’s football Offensive Player of the Year Jaeden Jones, the star quarterback who’s quick on his feet and will be playing at Monmouth next year. He’s contributing almost 14 points a game, and still the team leader in assists, running the show on offense. Zach Smith has been a key contributor on defense.

Click below to hear both coaches talk about the semifinal matchup, and scroll down for more info on the game:

Colonia head coach Jose Rodriguez
St. Thomas Aquinas head coach Bob Turco

MORE ON THE GMC TOURNAMENT BOYS’ FINAL:

(2) Colonia (17-8) vs. (4) St. Thomas Aquinas (16-9)
When: Friday, 8 pm
Where: Monroe Township High School
Broadcast Team: Mike Pavlichko and Dom Savino (LISTEN HERE)

COACHES: 

Colonia: Jose Rodriguez, 6th season (111-38)
St. Thomas Aquinas: Bob Turco, 6th season (117-32)

HOW THEY GOT HERE:

Colonia: The Patriots cruised through their first two games, beating 15th-seed Perth Amboy in the first round, then got past in-town rival and seventh-seeded Woodbridge in the quarterfinals Saturday, 65-38. Adien Derkack scored 41 points in the first two games, including 23 against the Barrons, all without the benefit of the three-point arc. In the semis on Wednesday night in Monroe, Colonia used a big second half to top 6th-seed South Plainfield by a surprising 70-37 score. Aiden Derkack scored 27 and had eight rebounds, while Jaeden Jones added 13, and Zach Smith just missed a double-double, with 11 points and nine rebounds.

St. Thomas Aquinas: The Trojans topped 13-seed North Brunswick at home in the first round, and topped 12th-seeded Red Division foe East Brunswick 57-45 in Saturday’s quarterfinals at Piscataway behind 23 points from Aiden Ur, and a double-double of 15 points and 17 rebounds from Rinelson Dilone. In the semis Wednesday night in Monroe, Rinelson Dilone tallied his third straight double-double in the GMC Tournament, going off for 21 points and 18 rebounds. Aiden Ur added 12, while seven of the eight Trojans who played got in the scoring column.

TOP SCORERS:

Colonia: Aiden Derkack (20.3 ppg, 20 treys), Jaeden Jones (13.7 ppg, 10 treys)
St. Thomas Aquinas: Rinelson Dilone (16 ppg), Aiden Ur (15.2 ppg, 40 treys), Paris Papadatos (13.3 ppg, team-best 43 treys)

TOP REBOUNDERS:

Colonia: Aiden Derkack (7.8), James Curet (4.3)
St. Thomas Aquinas: Rinelson Dilone (13)

RECENT MEETINGS: St. Thomas Aquinas swept Colonia last season in the regular year, but they didn’t face each other in the GMC Tournament, and Aquinas won it all – again. This year, Colonia won both regular season meetings. Will the Patriots win it all this year?

GMC TOURNAMENT HISTORY:

St. Thomas Aquinas: The combo of Aquinas/Bishop Ahr has four GMC Tournament titles – third-best all-time, by the way, behind the 12 of St. Joseph and Piscataway’s five titles – as well as the Middlesex County Tournament title in 1982. Interesting side note: Aquinas girls’ coach Tim Corrigan was a ball boy on that 1982 team; his brother-in-law was on the coaching staff. Then they won it again in 1992, he was on the St. Joe’s team that lost to the Trojans.

Colonia: The Patriots are the last public school team to win the GMC Tournament, briefly snapping a string of five straight titles won by St. Joe’s from 2010-2014. Colonia won it in 2015, before the Falcons won the next four to make it an unprecedented nine titles in a span of ten years. Colonia has won three GMC titles and two MCT championships. They’re 5-6 all-time in finals, 2-1 in the MCT and 3-5 in the GMC title tilt.

OTHER NOTES:

Dominating: A public school hasn’t won the GMC boys’ tournament since 2015, when Colonia upset St. Joseph in a battle of No. 2 vs. No. 1. In fact, since 2010, either St. Joseph-Metuchen or St. Thomas Aquinas has won all but one of the last 13 full GMC Tournaments. (Colonia won the four-team, two-game Karl-Anthony Towns/Jay Williams top GMC pod during the COVID-shortened 2021 season.) But it wasn’t always like that. In fact, since the first GMC Tournament in 1986 – it was the Middlesex County Tournament before that since 1965 – only six of the first 24 titles went to non-publics. (Now-closed Cardinal McCarrick won two of them.) And in the 21-year history of the MCT, only five times did the title go to a non-public. (Now-closed St. Peter’s won four of them.) That’s 11 out of the first 45 titles going to parochials, then 12 of the next 13 since 2010.

Who’s been to the big game? Believe it or not, only four current GMC boys’ coaches have ever been to the finals. That includes Bob Turco of St. Thomas Aquinas, who’s 3-1 overall. He has three wins with the Trojans and one loss at Monroe in 2010 – when he lost to his brother, Dave, who was the head coach at St. Joseph-Metuchen, and now is at Kean University. But he’s the only current coach to win one. The other, North Brunswick’s Ed Breheney, retired after last season. The other three who’ve coached in the GMC finals before are Jose Rodriguez (lost in 2022), Darius Griffin of Piscataway (lost to St. Joe’s in 2019) and Mark Motusesky of East Brunswick, who lost to the Falcons in 2014, his first season taking over for longtime coach Bo Henning. 

Up the list: St. Thomas Aquinas head coach Bob Turco is tied for third on the all-time county championship list, MCT or GMCT. Paul Schoeb of Piscataway, Ken Pace (at JFK and Colonia) and John Somogyi of St. Peter’s also have won three. But Turco will have a long way to go to get to No. 2, where his brother Dave sits, having won eight titles. Seven of those came with St. Joe’s, while he also won one in 2002 while coaching his alma mater, Carteret. Turco is No. 1 if you just count the GMC, but overall it’s ill Buglovsky of Perth Amboy, who won eight, including the first Middlesex County Tournament in 1965. The won the next three, another in 1970, and four more from 1972-1975.

Consecutive Titles: St. Joseph-Metuchen is on this list twice, with the longest stretch of consecutive wins of five from 2010-2014, and again tied for second with four from 2016-2019. Perth Amboy also won four from 1972-1975. Three teams have won it three times in a row, including St. Thomas Aquinas in 2020, 2022 and 2023, St. Pete’s (1983-1985) and Perth Amboy (1965-1967).

How have the seeds fared? There have been 57 MCT/GMCT championship games, and the top seed has won 27 times. But they’re not in it this year, as St. Joseph was ousted in the semifinals by St. Thomas Aquinas. The 2-seed – in this case, Colonia – has won 15 times, while the four-seed has only won it twice. One of those was Colonia, in the 1969 Middlesex County Tournament, over 6th-seed South River. The last four-seed to win the GMC was Carteret, in the very first event, in 1986, over third-seed New Brunswick. The last time we had a two-seed against a four-seed? It was the only time, and it came in 2020, the beginning of St. Thomas’ run, when the second-seeded Trojans beat fourth-seed South Brunswick.

by Mike Pavlichko

St. Thomas Aquinas wins thriller over St. Joseph in GMCT semis, giving Trojans a chance to win fourth straight county title

The way the first half was going, everyone at Monroe Township High School knew this one would come down to the wire.

Fourth-seed St. Thomas Aquinas knocked off GMC Red champ and top-seed St. Joseph-Metuchen – the same Falcons they lost to twice in the regular season – 56-51 Thursday night at Monroe Township High School, in a game heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

The Trojans (16-9) will play second-seed Colonia in Friday night’s final at 8 pm back in Monroe, a game that can be heard on CJSR immediately following the 6 pm girls’ final, which will feature the same two schools – Colonia and Aquinas.

Rinelson Dilone led the Trojans with 21 points, while Jeremy Clayville led St. Joe’s (18-8) with 24. 

But defense was the name of the game for Aquinas, which had lost twice to the Falcons in the regular season, 80-61, and 81-79 in overtime. There were no 80s this night for the Falcons, who were held to their third-lowest scoring total this season.

Click below for postgame reaction from Falcons’ senior Rinelson Dilone and head coach Bob Turco:

by Mike Pavlichko

St. Thomas Aquinas guts one out in GMC Tournament quarterfinal win over East Brunswick

In a game that went back and forth a few times in the first half, fourth-seed St. Thomas Aquinas took a 26-19 halftime lead over 12th-seed East Brunswick and never looked back.

They held off a Bears’ run in the fourth quarter, which got them to within one on and an-one opportunity by Cam Vick. But he missed the foul shot, leaving it at 41-40 Aquinas, and the Trojans staved off the Bears the rest of the way.

They pulled ahead by 12 with under three minutes left, and held the rest of the way for a 57-45 win in the GMC Tournament quarterfinals at Piscataway High School Saturday afternoon.

Aiden Ur led Aquinas (15-9) with 28 points, including 10 in the decisive fourth quarter. Rinelson Dilone finished with a double-double of 15 points and 18 rebounds.

East Brunswick falls to 12-13 with the loss.

Aquinas will face top seed St. Joseph-Metuchen in Tuesday’s 7 pm GMCT semifinal at Monroe High School, which can be heard live on cjsportsradio.com.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko with Aquinas head coach Bob Turco and junior Aiden Ur:

by Mike Pavlichko

It’s “Go Time” for St. Thomas Aquinas, as No. 3 Trojans visit No. 4 Colonia in GMC Red showdown

St. Thomas Aquinas head coach Bob Turco is a veteran. But even he has never had a year like this.

The combination of the NJSIAA’s new transfer policy – everyone gets one free transfer, no sit-out, no bonafide change of address needed – and Dave Boff’s move from Roselle Catholic to a small charter school in Neptune left Turco with just one returning player from last season’s GMC championship team.

And yet, the Trojans’ new-look roster quickly hit the ground running with a seven-game win streak to start the year.

The illness bug has hit St. Thomas Aquinas recently, and head coach Bob Turco’s team has had to manage with a short-handed rotation since December 21. The Trojans have overcome that to win six of eight games during that stretch, most recently beating Mount Union (NY) 80-65 on Sunday.

But with one division loss already, to Monroe, which now owns a potential tiebreaker over STA, every game has that much more importance.

And that will no doubt be the case Thursday evening when No. 3 St. Thomas Aquinas travels to No. 4 Colonia for a huge showdown. Game time is 5:45 pm, and pregame at 5:25 for a contest that can be heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio. 

Chris Tsakonas and Alec Crouthamel are on the call; click here to listen.

The Trojans have three players averaging double-figures this season. Dominican international student Rinelson Dilone has commanded the interior on both sides with 15.7 points per game and 15.1 rebounds per game, while Aiden Ur (16.4 ppg) and Greek international student Paris Papadatos (13.1 ppg, 4.9 assists per game) have also played a major role in the offense.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Chris Tsakonas talk with St. Thomas Aquinas coach Bob Turco:

by Mike Pavlichko

It’s a new season, and an entirely new roster, for St. Thomas Aquinas boys’ basketball

In the current state of high school – and college sports – some players come, some players stay and some players go.

After the 2022-23 season, which saw St. Thomas Aquinas win its third straight GMC Tournament Championship, nearly the entire Trojans’ roster departed.

Some, like Chris Santner and Terrell Pitts, graduated; they’re at TCNJ and East Stroudsburg, respectively. The rest – including All-State point guard Deuce Jones – took their talents elsewhere.

All but now-senior Davon Grant. He and his 23 career points in two seasons seeing limited varsity action is all that returns for veteran head coach Bob Turco.

The roster is a full again, but as Turco tells it, there were no summer leagues they could play in, with a team barely assembled. So this year’s group will be getting a late start.

They could get off to a hot start, or they might not. But they’re not worried about where they start; it’s all about where they finish. And Turco knows the Trojans – which have won three straight GMC Tournament titles – don’t need to be division champs or the No. 1 seed to win it all.

Click below to hear St. Thomas Aquinas head coach Bob Turco talk about this year’s new-look Trojans: