Under Thompson, St. Joseph basketball ascends from No. 7 ranking to likely GMCT top seed

As the successor to a beloved hall of fame mentor who was not rehired at St. Joseph High School for reasons that were never publicly disclosed, Mike Thompson was placed in an untenable position upon being named the head basketball coach at his alma mater.

Thompson landed his first varsity head coaching job just two months before the first official day of practice, scrambled to assemble a staff of three assistants who did not previously know one another and inherited a team which returned just one starter from a 26-2 squad that won the school’s 11th Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament championship.

With the loss to graduation or transfer of five players who combined for 1,625 of the team’s 1,671 points a year ago, expectations were not high for the Falcons, who began the 2017-18 campaign ranked as low as seventh in the league according to two media outlets.

The departed quintet, which accounted for 97 percent of St. Joseph’s scoring last season, included 6-foot-7 forward Zach Martini and point guard Richie Greaves, who both transferred before the start of the academic year to Rutgers Prep, as well as Home News Tribune 2016-17 Player of the Year Letrell West and all-conference selection Malachi Walker. A third transfer, rising star Matt Crowley, who is currently Westfield’s leading scorer, averaging 12.8 points per game, further depleted St. Joseph’s potential for depth.

Former head coach Dave Turco, who guided the Falcons to their only Tournament of Champions title and a 285-59 record during 12 seasons, certainly did not leave the cupboard bare. St. Joseph, whose jayvee team finished 20-4 last season, still had plenty of talent, but questions lingered regarding how the inexperienced group, which features just one senior who sees significant minutes, would mesh under a 53-year-old rookie head coach who returned to his old stomping grounds under adverse circumstances.

Thompson’s hiring polarized the alumni base, with one of the two best players in school history, Jay Williams, who played at St. Joseph in the late 1990s when Thompson was an assistant, singing the praises of his former mentor, and the school’s other best player, Karl-Anthony Towns, criticizing the school for the unceremonious manner in which it parted ways with Turco.

“Talking to a lot of people internally and externally about what was going on, there was a very tangible awareness about the divide,” St. Joseph athletics director Mike Murray said. “When one of the 10 best players in the NBA is defending his coach – and Karl has every right to defend a guy who helped him get to where he is – there’s a real awareness of how big the change was.”

Each high-profile graduate’s sentiment served as a microcosm of conflicting opinions which created a gaping rift that Thompson, who returned to his alma mater with the strongest of endorsements, one from Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame head coach Bob Hurley, could realistically only close with any expediency through winning.

Murray described an introductory meeting between Thompson and his current players as “tenuous” with the poker-faced Falcons expressing little emotion inside the school library upon learning on a late September afternoon that a hall of fame mentor was being replaced by a guy with no previous varsity head coaching experience. Murray likened the meeting about the coaching change to a group of people staring at a ball of yarn, waiting to see if it would unravel.

Turco, who wanted to express support for his former players, attended St. Joseph’s season opener at East Brunswick, sitting in the second row of the bleachers opposite the Falcons’ bench, directly across from his successor. With the past watching the present, Thompson, on the court in a St. Joseph polo for the first time since serving as an assistant at the school from 1996-99, guided the team to a 59-52 victory, his first step toward turning doubters into believers. Unlike the overt public support Turco garnered in the aftermath of not being rehired, Thompson received a similar amount of backing, only it came in the form of a couple hundred private text messages of congratulations to his cell phone following the season-opening win, the majority from his fellow Class of '82 alums.

As the regular season unfolded, St. Joseph continued to pile up victories. The Falcons improved to 17-3, clinching the Red Division title and likely the top seed for the upcoming conference tournament with Tuesday's 72-52 victory over Old Bridge.

Thompson will be the first to proclaim players – not coaches – win games. With so much parity in the league this season, the conference tournament is wide open. Should St. Joseph win another title, Thompson, who left the scholastic coaching ranks to develop his own home team after his wife of 26 years gave birth to quadruplets, all of whom are now in college, won’t take any of the credit. A title eluded Thompson, who was a two-time team captain, as a star player on the 1981-82 St. Joseph squad, which lost the Middlesex County Tournament championship to St. Thomas Aquinas (now Bishop Ahr). He took little solace in being the lone Falcon named to the All-Tournament team that year, and would like nothing more than to deliver a league title to his alma mater as a head coach.

Against a young, talented, but injury-riddled Old Bridge team, St. Joseph, currently ranked No. 19 in the state, according to the Star Ledger and NJ.com, looked like the conference’s top seed.

The Falcons were balanced and deeper than most expected. They were equally adept playing uptempo or settling into a halfcourt offense. St. Joseph scored in transition, exhibited tremendous ball movement, pounded the offensive glass, boxed out on the defensive end, hustled for loose balls, displayed good court vision, were fundamentally sound, athletic and obviously well-coached. Every starter and the first few players off the bench handled the ball well. Tyree Ford has been billed as the team’s top player, which may be true. But on this afternoon, Howard McBurnie, a gifted leaper with an array of strong moves to the hoop and extended shooting range that makes him a dangerous inside-outside threat, and Ryan Granito, a swingman who can dribble penetrate and find the open man, appeared equally gifted. Luke Fresco continued his role as a three-point specialist, and team captain Danny Young remained a steadying presence on the floor. K-Shawn Schulters, who is averaging 11.3 points per game, is the team’s point guard, but Adam Slawinski, another sophomore in the backcourt, is also talented. The Falcons struggled on occasion against Old Bridge's pressure defense, a weakness exposed in their only conference loss (65-62 to Piscataway), which they corrected in the second meeting between the schools one month later, rolling to an 82-66 victory over the Chiefs. St Joseph’s only other defeats are to undefeated Seton Hall Prep (75-63) and to perennial power Christ the King of New York City (81-73).

Assistant Jan Cocozziello, who was going to take a year off from coaching until Murray, his old Westfield High School teammate, lured him back to the hardwood, was responsible for making the adjustments in the Piscataway rematch. Murray also brought West back to the high school when the former star became gravely ill after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at Southeastern College in Iowa, where he was a freshman. West, who decided to take the year off from school, was working the graveyard shift at Walmart, when Murray hired him to work with players at all three levels, a move that helped ease Thompson’s transition. Hurley, fulfilling a promise that he would make himself available to Thompson, who as a coach at the Jersey City Boys Club developed many of the players Hurley inherited at St. Anthony, joined St. Joseph for a mid-December practice, imparting a message about the Falcons becoming better players and people while simultaneously talking about his trademark defense.

“A lot of these guys didn’t have varsity minutes,” Murray said of the current St. Joseph squad. “I think there was a lot more talent than some people may have realized. There are more talented players who were just waiting for an opportunity to get out there. Like any strong program, you have to pay some dues behind some good players.”

This season is reminiscent of the 2016-17 St. Joseph squad, which overcame the graduation of seven players, including Gatorade New Jersey Player of the Year Tyus Battle (now at Syracuse) and Breein Tyree (now at Ole Miss), and the loss of prospective starters Alanzo Frink and Xavier Townes to transfer. Turco turned in arguably the finest coaching performance of his distinguished career last season. Thompson is replicating that effort this winter.

“The guys who comprise our 2017-18 team are making everyone very proud,” Murray said. “They take very personally – regardless of where the allegiances lie with the alumni – the history and want to uphold the standard a lot of people probably thought was going to change, and fortunately hasn’t so far. Mike’s got talented, hard-working kids who can get it done.”

Thompson won’t take any credit for the team’s success, but Murray is quick to praise the rookie head coach, who has exceeded expectations in succeeding a beloved mentor.

“Mike’s done a great job putting our team in a position where we really haven’t skipped a beat,” Murray said. “That’s quite a testament to him. Based on all the circumstances everybody knows, there were a lot of different ways this season could have gone.

"I think Mike Thompson is a guy that’s only going to allow the season to go one way, and that’s hopefully ending in his first GMC championship for our guys.”