There's only a week to go, but still a lot of basketball to be played when it comes to the push for the state playoffs. Some will be playing GMC Tournament games this week, hoping for a deep run, while others will be playing regular season ball, but a few will have Somerset County Tournament semifinal games at Franklin this Saturday, with big power point values on the table.

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The 2026 Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament for basketball tipped off on Saturday, a day after the seeding meeting, with 15 teams advancing to next week's preliminary rounds, which will be held on Monday for the girls, and Tuesday for the boys, all at higher seeds. Scroll through for scores and recaps, as well as a look at the schedule in the next round, and who each winner will face.

The 2026 GMC Tournament for basketball gets underway this weekend with 15 games in the play-in round, eight for the boys and seven for the girls. All games will be played Saturday at higher seeds. Winners move on to the preliminary round, which will be played at higher seeds on Monday for the girls, Tuesday for the boys. Click below for the full GMC Tournament brackets, which are posted in our separate stories on the boys' and girls' tournaments:

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It's a rule of life, or maybe of simple mathematics. No matter how many groups of teams you make, or how balanced they are, there's always going to be a division champion, and there will always be a last place team. That's the way it is. But one look around Somerset County basketball this season and you realize just about anything can happen when it comes to tournament time.

It's a goal he says he had ever since he was a little kid, to be a thousand-point scorer in basketball. Senior Grant Lorentzen of JFK achieved that milestone Tuesday night with a 22-point effort in a 73-46 win over Noor ul-Iman, on his sixth point of the evening. But if you ask him where he's going to school and what he'll play, the answer is The College of New Jersey, but not basketball.

Big news to come out of Robbinsville Wednesday, as a proposal to join the 32 other states - including the District of Columbia - that currently utilize a shot clock in basketball advanced through the NJSIAA's executive committee - after a Janaury presentation by its advisory committee - with a vote by the full membership coming in May. The news was first reported Wednesday afternoon…

Just about everything about Tuesday night's Greater Middlesex Conference crossover meeting between Spotswood and Highland Park will have an old-school feel to it. The two are longtime GMC Blue Division rivals. You know, before teams started going in every different division, moving up or down based on their recent success. But they haven't played each other in four years. The Chargers are coached by Steve Mate, who's just seven wins away from 500 for his career, and his been at Spotswood for 31 of his 35 years as a head coach, the first four coming at Verona.

The seventh-ranked Immaculata Spartans got 26 points - and six threes - from senior Riley Gorman to win their eleventh straight game over Somerville, defeating the Pioneers 81-53 on Saturday, January 17, 2026. Click here to read the game story, complete with postgame reaction from Riley Gorman and head coach Ryan McKeever, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen! Here's a photo gallery from Central Jersey Sports Radio's coverage of the game:

Twice this week - on Monday against Vernon and Tuesday against Hunterdon Central - No. 7 Immaculata dropped eleven threes in a game. What would be the odds they'd do it again? Pretty good, as it turns out. The seventh-ranked Spartans hit eleven times from downtown Saturday afternoon, en route to an 83-51 home win over No. 10 Somerville in the annual Mayor's Trophy game.

Manville used a 21-0 run to erase an eight-point third-quarter deficit, pulling away in the fourth to beat visiting Bound Brook 58-41 in a Skyland Conference Mountain Division game, behind 15 points from Jimmy Cuadra and 12 from Josh D'Ambrosio. Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko And Alec Crouthamel call all the play-by-play from Manville High School on January 16, 2026.

For the first time this season, the entire Bellamy & Son Paving Boys' Basketball Top Ten got a complete reshuffle. It was a challenging week to be sure, as a few top ten teams suffered multiple losses this week, whether in conference play or at showcase games. And the end result is one new team in the rankings, and a new No.

Stifling defense and game-highs of 18 points from Alijah Murphy and Andrew Kretkowski helped power No. 5 St. Joseph-Metuchen past No. 4 Piscataway, in a 64-53 road win in GMC Red American Division play. Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Justin Sontupe call all the play-by-play from Piscataway High School on January 3, 2026.

Sure, we've barely gotten into the meat of conference play yet, but with many teams around seven, eight or more games into the 2025-26 high school basketball season, more than a few teams from the Central Jersey Sports Radio coverage area are at least in the running for top seeds in their respective sections. There are a few changes this year.

It was thirteen years ago, the last time East Brunswick got off to a start like this. That one got off with a bang, as the Bears won their opener at rival St. Joseph-Metuchen, beating a Falcon squad with a young, spindly freshman named Karl Towns. (There was no "Anthony" yet, at least not publicly.) That team won its first 15 games of the season, beat St.

The high school basketball season has been going strong for the last couple of weeks. There will be plenty of excellent teams to look at, including defending state champions Vashon, Principia and Webster Groves. Some of the other teams to look at this season are East St. Louis, DeSmet, Chaminade, McCluer North and many others. […]

The season is not even a week old yet, but many teams have already played two or three games, and some are off to better starts than others. Sure, division play hasn't really kicked in yet for some, and the schedule will get more difficult for many, but many teams won their opening games and some are 2-0 already. JP Stevens grabs a couple wins early...

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In perhaps the biggest revamping of divisions in any sport since the formation of the Greater Middlesex Conference in 1985, the league is moving to six divisions, and altering the rules for seeding of the county tournament. For both girls' and boys' basketball, starting next season there will be six divisions, with an American and National division in the Red, White and Blue Divisions, eliminating the Gold and Silver entirely.