Boys Basketball – 2024 Shore Conference Tournament Semifinal Preview and Predictions

Shore Conference Tournament Semifinals

Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024

At Red Bank Regional High School

Both semifinal games in this year’s Boys Basketball Shore Conference Tournament are rematches of games played earlier this season and both of those first meetings were blowouts. In order to get a little drama for the price of admission, Both CBA and Holmdel will have to come up with a plan to draw closer than they were able get the first time they played Wednesday’s opponents. Holmdel will have the benefit of adding a key player back to the lineup who was injured for the first meeting vs. Manasquan, while CBA will be missing a player.

With St. Rose looking like an untouchable juggernaut – at least within the Shore Conference – Wednesday might be the last chance to witness a game that is close in the fourth quarter in this year’s Shore Conference Tournament. Saturday’s quarterfinal round produced three of them, so up to this point, the SCT has been about as exciting as one could hope for. In order to add to that excitement, one of the three remaining underdogs – CBA, Holmdel and the winner of the Manasquan-Holmdel game – will have to level up. That will start with the biggest underdog of them all.

No. 1 St. Rose (23-2) vs. No. 5 Christian Brothers Academy (17-5), 6 p.m.

CBA is not used to the underdog role, but that will be the challenge in game one on Wednesday. The first time St. Rose and CBA clashed, both teams were at full strength and carrying long winning streaks – St. Rose at 17 games and CBA at nine. Both streaks have since ended, with CBA’s ending that night in Belmar with a 73-46 loss to St. Rose.

Now, CBA is not likely to be at full strength, with sophomore starter Connor Andree still recovering from an ankle injury he suffered Thursday vs. Donovan Catholic. Andree is not one of CBA’s top scorers, but he gives the Colts size and physical play down low that helps against a St. Rose team that has length at every spot in the lineup.

In the first meeting, CBA ran out to a 9-4 lead before St. Rose wrecked the game with a 23-0 run that spanned six minutes of the first and second quarters. A competitive start turned into yet another Purple Roses rout, which has been the story of all of St. Rose’s games vs. Shore Conference competition. CBA is the No. 1 seed in the South Jersey Non-Public A bracket and the Colts still could not make it to halftime with a chance to beat the Purple Roses.

Saturday’s SCT quarterfinal saw Rumson make it to halftime trailing by only 13 and the deficit was 10 before a three-pointer by Avery Lynch late in the second-quarter made it 13. In order to do that, however, Rumson slowed the game down on offense as best it could and scored only 11 points in the first half in order to limit St. Rose to 24. The perimeter shots that did not fall in the first half for St. Rose began to drop in the third quarter and the Roses led 49-15 in the final minute of the third.

CBA has the advantage of having played St. Rose once in order to calibrate its game to match the Shore’s No. 1 team. The only other team with two shots at St. Rose so far was Freehold Boro, which lost the first meeting by 28 points and the second – which came in the SCT round of 16 – by 48. Evan Romano and Lynch combined for nine of St. Rose’s 12 three-pointers in that win, a shooting performance the likes of which CBA can ill-afford to give up.

Even on a bad shooting night, St. Rose will bring its defense, so it will take a pristine offensive performance from CBA, plus an ice-cold shooting night by the Purple Roses in which they settle for perimeter shots despite not making them. Those are a lot of very specific conditions, which does not bode well for CBA in this one. The Colts will try to keep it close, walk out with a moral victory and get healthy in time to make at run at a sectional title. St. Rose, meanwhile, will continue its march toward history.

The Pick: St. Rose, 72-47

No. 3 Manasquan (18-5) vs. No. 7 Holmdel (19-2), 7:45 p.m.

Holmdel now owns the longest winning streak in the Shore Conference at 10 games after snapping Central’s 15-game run in its quarterfinal win over the Golden Eagles. Holmdel has won back-to-back nailbiters, topping Manalapan, 61-59, in overtime in the round of 16, then upsetting Central, 53-52. The Hornets have been a standout offensive team all season, but it was their defense that got it done closing out those two victories with late stops.

That Holmdel defense is likely to be front-and-center on Wednesday night, because Manasquan’s defense has been dominant at times this season, while its offense has been inconsistent. Holmdel’s defense is capable of keeping the Warriors in check and given Manasquan’s defensive prowess, the Hornets will have to hold the Manasquan offense well under 60. Teams that have cracked 50 points on the Warriors have given themselves a chance and while Holmdel’s offense will be tested, 50 points is not a reach for the Hornets.

The first time the two teams played, Holmdel got nowhere near 50. Manasquan locked down Hornets, who were playing their first of five games without senior guard Nick Seeloch, by a 59-37 final. Holmdel trailed by only three at halftime, but began to lose its hold on the game in the third quarter and were then outscored, 16-5, in the fourth.

There were critical junctures for Holmdel in each of its last two wins and in both cases, the Hornets rose to the occasion. They were down eight with under two minutes left in the third quarter vs. Manalapan and scored the last seven points of the quarter to cut the deficit to one heading to the fourth. Central, meanwhile, was up, 48-43, on Holmdel early in the fourth and riding a wave of momentum on defense, but Holmdel’s defense took over and held Central to four points over the last six-plus minutes.

Manasquan shut Holmdel down by shutting down the top two Hornets scorers – James Vallillo (eight points) and Ben Kipnis. The most jarring stat, though, is the Warriors held Holmdel well-rounded, motion-heavy offense to only four assists. Adding Seeloch back to the lineup will give the Manasquan defense an extra dilemma to deal with, but it won’t completely cure what ailed the Hornets when the teams met in Manasquan in December.

While Holmdel will have all of its weapons healthy, Manasquan will not be as healthy as it was in December. Since beating Holmdel, seniors Alex Konov and Jason Larned both sustained injuries that they are still battling through and senior forward Ryan Mulvaney has missed each of the last two games due to injury as well. The lack of a traditional inside presence on Manasquan will give Holmdel a chance to keep up this time around, but Larned, Griffin Linstra and Luke Roy are the kind of perimeter defenders that don’t need the safety net of a rim protector.

As good as the offenses are, expect a lower-scoring game similar to the one these programs played the last time they met in the SCT semifinals. Holmdel was an ever longer shot to win in 2020, but led Manasquan by 10 in the second half before the top-seeded Warriors rallied to win, 44-40. That was the smallest margin of victory Manasquan had in any single game during its 31-1 season and the second-closest win was a six-point win over the Hornets during the regular season. Manasquan beat Holmdel four times that season and the first of the four was by 27 points. Coach Sean Devaney and the Hornets are more than capable of regrouping and taking the Warriors to the limit. Getting over the threshold and winning the game takes another level and would be a monumental accomplishment against a Manasquan team looking to reach its sixth consecutive Shore Conference final.

The Pick: Manasquan, 48-42

Quarterfinal Picks Record: 3-1

2024 SCT Picks Record: 17-5