By Jeff Appelblatt
With a lineup identical to last year, Woodbridge High School boys’ basketball coach Matt Gigliello expected his team to start the 2016-17 campaign strong. And the way the Barrons have looked so far, the team’s coach couldn’t have anticipated much better.
The team won each of its first eight games.
“It’s been a start we expected with everyone coming back,” Gigliello said the day after Woodbridge defeated Queen of Peace High School (North Arlington) Jan. 7.
As happy as he is seeing his team win game after game, the coach won’t think much of the win streak yet.
“We haven’t accomplished anything yet,” the coach said. “We want to win the White Division. We want to go as far as we can in the states. We have a lot of work to be done.”
The path to even another 20-win season is still far off, but the route the Barrons are taking has been much smoother than the one they took last year — a season Woodbridge began by losing three of its first five games.
However, Woodbridge won all 10 of its games last January. By then, the Barrons were sitting with a 12-3 record. Currently at 8-0, this year’s team is nearly at 12 wins less than halfway into the month.
The one problem Woodbridge has been having is in the health department. Quassim Glover only stepped onto the court in five of the team’s first eight games. In that time, Glover has knocked down only nine shots. This is after the 6-foot-2 senior scored 10.5 points per game last year.
“It’s been an opportunity for everyone to get some minutes,” Gigliello said.
With Glover in and out of the lineup, the coach has regularly given eight other players a chance to run — not that the majority of them wouldn’t be on the floor often anyhow.
One player that may not have had the opportunity to show what he’s capable of with Glover usually on the court is Hura Blaine. As a junior last season, Blaine chipped in a mere five points per outing. This season, the senior has more than doubled his point production.
“Blaine has been unbelievable. He really put in a tremendous amount of work in the offseason,” Gigliello said. “He put the time and effort going into this year.”
Woodbridge’s coach doesn’t expect Blaine to disappear when Glover is back on the court, though. Even if his point production dips, he’s providing so much for the Barrons on both sides of the floor.
“He fills up the stat sheet and is one of our best defenders,” the coach said about the emerging big man.
Alongside Blaine, Woodbridge has gotten a ton of production from athletes who did it last year as well, even if only for part of the season, including Kemari Persol. Last year, he showed a few flashes of scoring talent, breaking the 15-point plateau a few times. But this season, Persol has gotten into a scoring groove, especially in the team’s last four games.The 11 point-per-game scorer has averaged 15 points since Dec. 28, sparked by the 23 he put up against Queen of Peace.
Curtis Nesbit only broke double figures in points three times last year in limited action. Through eight games this year, he’s already matched that with eight points a game.
Rutgers University-bound senior Harry Rutkowski has been putting his shots down, though it’s only taken five makes a game to bring him above a 13-point average. After a summer full of pitching, Rutkowski didn’t play football as he did the previous two eyars. Gigliello credited the time off for his flare on the court.
“I think it helped him tremendously,” the coach said. “He did a lot of work going to the gym. He’s in fantastic shape. If we could ask him to, he’d play 32 minutes a night. He has a [NCAA] Division I work ethic.”
Then there’s Keshaun Henry and Quran Robinson. Henry, a speedster on the football field for years, has also averaged more than eight points since he was a sophomore a few years ago. His numbers have increased year by year: 10.2 points per game last season and 11 this one.
Robinson, meanwhile, first put on a jersey last year for Woodbridge and immediately stretched out the offense. He stepped right in as a junior and scored 11.6 points a game. This year, his scoring is about the same at 11.7 points per game.
As well as everything is looking for the Barrons, who scored convincing victories over each of their local rivals in two of its last three games — beating Colonia High School, 64-40, Dec. 30 and John F. Kennedy Memorial High School, 83-42, Jan. 5 — Gigliello is still eager to have Glover playing. He can only imagine him helping the team, hopefully in the club’s next game Jan. 12 at 7 p.m. at Sayreville War Memorial High School (7-3).
“We’re hoping to have him back for Sayreville,” Woodbridge’s coach said about Glover and his fight through a leg injury suffered Dec. 20. “He’s a big missing piece from this team.”
There’s no telling what the Barrons could do with everyone at full health.