When Piscataway High School named Bob Turco as its head boys basketball coach last spring, most observers figured the former St. Thomas Aquinas mentor would have the Chiefs contending for the Greater Middlesex Conference title in a couple of years.
Instead, it took a couple of months, as Turco led a veteran Piscataway team that was 11-14 last year to a school-record-tying 24 wins and its first berth in the GMC Tournament championship game since 2019.
For that rapid turn-around, which returned the Chiefs to the top of the GMC food chain, Turco is the choice for Home News Tribune Boys Basketball Coach of the Year.
“I’m at the stage of my coaching career where hardware means a lot, but these kids just showed me their commitment,” Turco said. “That commitment was from within and that sparked me and made me better. I always knew we had it in us.”
Turco cited the ever-changing landscape of high school basketball as his reason for leaving St. Thomas, where he led the program from the third (Blue) division to the top of the first (Red) and won three GMCT titles. He said the problem wasn't attracting kids to the program, it was keeping them there.
“It’s the lay of the land, how things have changed,” said Turco, who remains as an assistant principal at St. Thomas. “I’m really tired of fighting that fight, trying to keep kids here.”
While his mantra in Piscataway has been “attitude and effort,” the first thing he stressed was accountability. Another priority was simply playing basketball and he estimates that the Chiefs played more than 60 games last summer and fall, often scheduling games with other schools in addition to appearing in tournaments and summer leagues.
A turning point came in June in a game in East Stroudsburg, Pa., when Teaneck was manhandling the Chiefs.
“They were taking it to us —physically, basketball-wise, any which way, they were taking it to us,” Turco recalled. “I told them, ‘We can stay the same old Piscataway, just let me now because I don’t want to waste all of this time, or you can prove to everyone here that this is going to be different.’ We played the last 12 minutes, probably one of the best 12-minute stretches I’ve had as a coach. It was just because of effort. We ended up losing, but in the car ride home I called my dad and said, ‘We got something here.’”
Piscataway opened its season with an 80-61 loss to Colonia in what proved to be a preview of the GMCT final. The Chiefs followed that with a four-game winning streak before losing to Hillside by two points in the championship game of its holiday tournament, then reeled off six more victories for a 10-2 start before falling to Colonia again.
“Winning is contagious,” Turco said. “Winning makes everybody play harder and they knew from the summer and how we progressed that there was no reason to stop or ever look back. And they just kept going.”
Success seems to follow Turco. He has never had a losing season in his 18 years as a head coach and has led all four programs — Monroe, Notre Dame and St. Thomas Aquinas, before Piscataway — to the highest season-win total in each school’s history, and led each program to a county final.
He cites three mentors as major contributors to his success: former Carteret coach Bob Molarz, who gave him his first opportunity as that program’s 7th and 8th grade coach in 1989; former Colonia coach Ken Pace, who taught him how to build a program; and his brother, Dave, the Kean University coach, who shared how to scout opponents and game preparation.
The Chiefs are trending upwards as their freshman program lost in the county final and junior varsity went 19-2 and advanced to the county semifinals.
Piscataway’s surprising success gives him a 398-129 record and a .755 winning percentage entering next season, meaning he should achieve his 400th victory later this calendar year.
Turco became emotional when revealing that his most cherished rewards aren’t reflected in banners on the wall, but, rather in the holiday cards and ongoing connections he shares with his former players.
“It isn’t about me,” he said as his eyes welled up. “It’s about all of the relationships. And that’s what all coaches do.”
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ Boys basketball: Piscataway’s Bob Turco is HNT Coach of the Year
