Monday, September 3, 2012

8 Session 4th - 7th Grade Skills/Drills camp and 10 Week 8th - 12th Grade Preseason Advanced Basketball Boot Camps Start in Two Weeks.

In two weeks our 8 Week 2011 Fit Kids Skills and Drills camp and our 10 Week USG Max Performance preseason basketball boot camp for Elementary, Middle School, Freshman, JV and Varsity kids will be underway.  Check out our website www.universalsportsgroup.org for more information. 

Hoop News


 Josh Brown Point Guard from St. Anthony to Play at Temple

Josh Brown the 6' 3", 180lb point guard from St. Anthony's is going to Temple and will play there next season (2013) alongside Quenton DeCosey, Will Cummings and Daniel Dingle.

 
St. Anthony's Hallice Cooke Commits to Oregon State

It appears that Hallice Cooke the 6' 3", 175lb St. Anthony shooting Guard verbally committed to Oregon State on Monday.

 

Tyler Ennis of St. Benedict's Prep commits to Syracuse

 The 6-3, 185-pound point guard and five-star recruit chose Syracuse from among 23 D-1 offers, including Louisville, Illinois, Memphis and UCLA. 

 

St. Anthony's Hallice Cooke trims college list down to four

According to ZagsBlog.com Cooke's final four are St. Joseph's, Richmond, Xavier and Oregon State.

 

Offers keep coming for Gill St. Bernard's standout Tyus Battle

Current count Syracuse, Rutgers, Miami and Rhode Island. 

 

Manasquan girls basketball stars Katelynn Flaherty and Marina Mabrey to transfer to Point Pleasant Beach

Sophomore Marina Mabrey and Junior Katelynn Flaherty, two young stars who helped lead Manasquan to the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions title last season, moved to Point Pleasant Beach and hope to play there this winter.

 

Area's leading girls basketball scorer Alisha Fox transfers from Gateway to Gloucester High School

 After weeks of speculation that it would happen Alisha Fox, Gloucester County’s leading scorer at Gateway last year, has enrolled at Gloucester after her family moved to Brooklawn.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Congratulations to St. Joe's Metuchen Boys Basketball team

They say success breeds success, this must be true because St. Joe's has been building some serious momentum over the years during the regular seasons and in the post seasons.  This year, St. Joe's has emerged again as one of the top teams in the state.  This team comes out of the tough red division and wins the Greater Middlesex Championship three years in a row 2010, 2011 and 2012.  Great teams are developed by great coaches and this team has a great coach in Dave Turco who is one of only two coaches to have won a GMCT title with two different schools Carteret and St. Joseph.  This Coach is a real deal, old school coach that is generally interested in the well being and development of his own players.  This is evident in all his public speaking and on the St. Joe's website where there is no shameless self promotion from Coach Turco.  His dedication to his program is also evident in how he molds very good and solid but unfinished talent and develops them into great teams with discipline, accountability and hard work.  The results tell the story, as over the years a lot of kids from St. Joe's program go on to play basketball in college which cannot be said about a lot of high school basketball programs.

This year, as a number one seed, St. Joe's started the first round with an earned bye then started rolling in the second round of NJSIAA Tournament by knocking out Christian Brothers Academy (revenge from last years loss), then defeated Bishop Eustace in the semifinal round.  In tonight's final, St. Joe's at 27-1 goes toe-to-toe against Paul VI a formidable opponent at 22-3 in what I think will be an exciting game.

My Pick:  Possible slow start but St. Joe's will impose its will on the game and win the 2012 NJSIAA, Non-Public, South A Championship.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Asbury Park wins at Florence in NJSIAA Tournament, Final Round, Central Jersey, Boys Group 1 Championship Game


Florence had steady progress in the state tournament but were stopped short by Asbury Park’s Thomond Hammary’s team-high 19 points and the Conover twins 17 and 16 points, all three led Asbury Park to a 66-58 triumph over Florence in the NJSIAA Central Jersey, Group 1 final in Florence’s home gym last night.  Asbury Park built a halftime lead of 34-28 and held on to win another Group 1 Championship.  Cornell Miller still managed a game-high 25 points for Florence and Quintin Harris contributed 15 points in a hard fought game.

Final Asbury Park (66) -  Florence (58).

Boys Basketball - 2012 NJSIAA Tournament - Central Jersey, Group 1 - Semifinal Round

This game really turned out to be a tale of two coaches and a game of adjustments.

One coach (Florence's Cesar Pereda) looked confident he had his players primed and ready to go with a desire to win this game and set up a possible rematch Asbury Park the team that defeated them the previous year in the second round. This was clearly demonstrated by his confident, calm and cool demeanor on the sidelines which his players mirrored on the court.  

The other coach was looking to lead his team with their 22-5 record to another historical victory and ultimately to their first sectional title appearance in 33 years against a likely opponent in Asbury Park.

I would like to take this time to define the five second rule:

The five-second violation occurs when a offensive player, while closely guarded, holds the ball and doesn’t pass, shoot, or dribble for five seconds.  According to the rule, an offensive player (typically a Guard) with the ball above the foul line is considered closely guarded when he or she is continuously guarded by a defensive opponent within 6 feet of that offensive player.  The official will continue the five-second count until the offensive player with the ball gets his or her head and shoulders past the defender or moves to place the defender outside of the 6-foot range.

Interestingly, in the first half, Bound Brook played all but 1 minute in a 2-3 zone with no on the ball pressure or in other words no Florence player was closely guarded by a Bound Brook defender while in their half court offensive sets.  As a result, on nearly every possession, the Florence team brought the ball up and held it at the top of the key with the point guard almost every time looking at his sideline away from the closest defender who was more than six feet away (therefore no five second violation).  This happened so often, it almost appeared to be an attempt by Florence to taunt Bound Brook into getting out of the 2-3 zone while also running down the game clock.   Notably, the hold the ball and force the other team out of the zone tactic is often utilized by AAU coaches on teams starting at approximately 6th grade on up to 12th grade.  Another contributing factor to the loss was that Bound Brook was  significantly out-rebounded on both sides of the ball, which helped Florence keep the ball for almost 2 straight minutes on one long and continuous possession.  Unfortunately, it was not until one minute left in the first half that Bound Brook switched to man to try to stop Florence from dictating control of the game, this late response proved to be one of many fatal flaws contributing to the loss.  

It should be noted, that Bound Brook did make one significant adjustment in the beginning of the second half when they came out in a 2-2-1 full court press and continued to play in man.  To their credit the Bound Brook players were able to close the gap to four points in the quarter.  However, not to be outdone, Florence responded by putting together an 8-2 run to take a 33-23 lead into the fourth quarter.  Then to make matters worse, Florence started the fourth quarter with Quintin Harris flushing a one-handed banger off the dribble, in traffic, that sent the crowd into a loud frenzy. The momentum from that big play ultimately sealed the deal, as Bound Brook never got any closer than 10 points after.
 
In the end, Florence starters were fresh throughout the game never once looking tired and were able to outlast the tired legs of the Bound Brook starters who could not get a break during the game except during the few timeouts and at half-time. Additionally, Florence's controlled tempo and rebounding prowess helped them to use up substantial game clock (approximately 5-6 minutes in the first and second quarters alone) allowing them to dictate the flow of the game.

It will be interesting to see if Bound Brook can get a rematch against Florence in the state tournament next year assuming they both make it back. 
The final score: Florence 46 Bound Brook 32.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

2011/2012 New Jersey Basketball

Now that H.S. basketball is in full swing this is probably a good opportunity to look at the standing of some of the teams in the local area as of January 2012.

Skyland Conference Standings:  
VALLEY DIVISION
1-Bound Brook (12-2) 2-South Hunterdon (11-1) 3-Bernards (6-5) 4-Pingry (3-8) 5-Belvidere (3-9) 6-North Warren (4-8) 7-Manville (0-10)

State Group Standings
GROUP 1
1-Paulsboro (8-0) 2-University (7-5) 3-Wood-Ridge (10-0) 4-Florence (9-0) 5-Piscataway Tech (7-3) 6-Bound Brook (9-2) 7-Whippany Park (6-2) 8-Newark Vocational (9-3) 9-Asbury Park (7-2) 10-South Hunterdon (9-1)  

GROUP 4
1-Linden (6-3) 2-Paterson Eastside (7-1) 3-Eastern (10-0) 4-Hackensack (10-2) 5-Bridgewater-Raritan (10-1) 6-Trenton (8-1) 7-Middletown North (11-1) 8-Colts Neck (9-1) 9-Elizabeth (8-1) 10-Montgomery (10-1)

County Standings
SOMERSET
1-Gill St. Bernard's (8-2) 2-Bridgewater-Raritan (10-1) 3-Montgomery (10-1) 4-Hillsborough (8-2) 5-Watchung Hills (7-3) 6-Ridge (7-4) 7-Bound Brook (9-2) 8-Somerville (7-3) 9-Franklin (4-4) 10-Immaculata (5-6)  

MIDDLESEX
1-St. Joseph (10-1) 2-North Brunswick (8-2) 3-East Brunswick (8-3) 4-South Brunswick (8-3) 5-Cardinal McCarrick (8-2) 6-Monroe (8-2) 7- Bishop Ahr (6-4) 8-Piscataway (6-6) 9-Carteret (9-2) 10-Piscataway Tech (7-3)

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

J.P. Stevens Is Starting To Step Their Game Up

Four games into the 2011/2012 basketball season J.P. Stevens is now two wins away from matching it win total from last season. The reason this is significant? In the 2010/2011 season, J.P. Stevens won four games with an average margin of victory in those games of three points. So far in two wins this 2011/2012 year, J.P. Stevens has an average margin of victory of twenty-seven points. That indicates a significant improvement from the previous year. Monday night I watched J.P. Stevens beat South Plainfield 56-37, in the Anthony Cotoia Tournament in South Plainfield. I was proud to watch them get physical on both sides of the ball and not let up until the buzzer. J.P. is no longer a automatic win on anyone's schedule and will shock a lot of teams this year.