The rich history of Shore holiday high school basketball tournaments - with more memories to come

It was the last days of 1942 when they held what was billed as the “round robin,” with Red Bank, Manasquan and Lakewood playing a series of games at Asbury Park High School during the Christmas season.

While the on-court action wasn’t notable, with Asbury Park sweeping its three games, it was historic.

It’s believed to be the state’s first holiday tournament, setting the stage for what has become an annual tradition, part of the rich history of high school basketball at the Jersey Shore.

For the record, that 1942-43 Asbury Park team, coached by James “Chippy” Coleman, would go on to win the Blue Bishops’ second Group 4 crown in three seasons, beating New Brunswick, Perth Amboy, Weequahic and Trenton in succession in March.

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And since then, those early-season tests, with a trophy on the line, have produced some incredible results, while helping forge the greatest boys’ and girls’ teams ever to emerge from Monmouth and Ocean counties.

This year’s lineup features nine local boys’ basketball tournaments with 44 of the Shore Conference’s 46 teams competing locally, as well several top teams from around the state. It all begins Monday with eight opening round games at the WOBM Christmas Classic in Toms River.

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Also on tap this week are: the Albert E. Martin Buc Holiday Classic at Red Bank, which could feature a showdown between St. Rose and CBA in Friday’s final; Rumson-Fair Haven’s Bulldawg Classic, being played at Fort Monmouth; the Husky Classic at Matawan; the Score at the Shore at Southern; the Holiday Jubilee at Neptune; the Cole Young Memorial at Point Boro; the Titan Holiday Tournament at Keansburg; and the Jack DuBois Holiday Tournament at Shore Regional.

Great teams, incredible moments

For decades, the top high school basketball action during the holidays centered around Asbury Park.

While the Round Robin ended in the early 1970s, it produced some incredible moments over the years. Take the 1956 final, when Nate Bruno, who would coach the Blue Bishops to multiple state championships, and Frank Budd, who became the world’s fastest man, led Asbury Park to victory.

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That same year marked the first Basket-Bowl Jubilee at Convention Hall in Asbury Park, and a decade later it featured most of the area’s top teams, including Neptune, CBA, Lakewood, St. Rose, Freehold, Toms River, Point Beach and Matawan.

In 1966, there were capacity crowds of 3,500 at Convention Hall for the final two sessions, as Neptune beat St. Rose in overtime, 64-63, in the semifinals, and Lakewood, 72-70, in the final to win it for a third straight year.

It transitioned to Holiday Jubilee in the late in 1960s, eventually moving to Monmouth College, and later to Neptune High School, where it remains today.

The 2001 championship game featured St. Anthony, a last-minute addition that had won seven Tournament of Champions titles since 1990, topping the home team in a game that would be a preview of that season’s TOC final. That Neptune team, with three Division I players in Taquan Dean (Louisville), Terrence Todd (Fairfield) and Marquis Alston (Monmouth), actually beat St. Anthony a few weeks later, but lost the TOC final.

Keeping traditions alive

The roots of the WOBM Christmas Classic date back to the Southern Roundball, which started in 1967 at Southern Regional as a four-team event between Southern, Central, St. Joseph’s of Toms River and Wall. In the final Roundball in 1983, Toms River South’s Danny McHarris scored 30 points and went over the 1,000-point mark in a 76-70 win over Southern.

Then WOBM sports director Kevin Williams spearheaded the effort to save it in 1984, with the event morphing into the WOBM Christmas Classic, which Williams remains the driving force behind. Now with 16-teams in both boys' and girls' tournaments, it’s forged its own tradition, with incredible finishes like the when Southern’s Steve Lally hit a 30-footer at the buzzer to beat Toms River North, and future Los Angeles Laker Alex Blackwell, for the title at Ocean County College in 1985.

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This year’s field includes defending champion Marlboro, which went on to win the Shore Conference Tournament, top-seeded Manasquan and unbeaten No. 2 seed Freehold Township.

The Albert E. Martin Buc Holiday Classic was played for the first time in 1984.

Red Bank Catholic’s Casey Holiday Festival began in 1964 with a boys’ event that included Middletown, Monmouth, Shore Red Bank Catholic, Ocean, Mater Dei, Point Boro and Henry Hudson, adding a girls' tournament in 1972.

In fact, it was in 1972 that girls’ holiday tournaments really began. In addition to the Casey, won Shore Regional that first year, the Monmouth College High School Girls’ Holiday Invitational debuted, won by  Joseph’s of Toms River led by Maria Alonso, who went on to play for powerhouse Immaculata, which won the first women’s college basketball championship that year.

Enduring legacy

An event that had a 30-plus year run before ending was the Bayshore Invitational Holiday Tournament, which started in 1975 and featured teams like Raritan, Keansburg, Middletown South, Point Beach, Holmdel, St. John Vianney and Manchester.

And the Freehold Regional District Holiday Tournament, which had been renamed to honor Jack Kuhnert, the longtime Freehold Borough coach, ended as a holiday tournament in 2009.

But while not every tournament has survived, the holiday basketball tradition has endured, a sign that the hoops season is officially in full swing locally.

What teams will use the time before New Year’s Day as a springboard to late season glory, including the Shore Conference and NJSIAA state tournaments, remains to be seen. But the next few days will provide a great gauge as to where everyone stands.

Stephen Edelson is a USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey sports columnist who has been covering athletics in the state and at the Jersey Shore for 35 years. Contact him at: @SteveEdelsonAPP; sedelson@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Shore NJ high school basketball: Holiday tournament history look back