Championship Roots: ACI/Robin’s Nest a Rare Bird in JSBL Title History

Before Joe Fagan accepted one of the state’s most illustrious public-school coaching jobs in 2014, he was the head boys basketball coach at Jackson Memorial High School. There, he coached a 6-foot-9 basketball player whose skills were as green as his mind was sharp and his determination was strong.

With a tip of his hat to his old coach, Jimmy McDonnell went from a basketball project to a basketball savant and after his physical talent took him to Temple University and his mental acuity to coaching staff positions with both the Phoenix Suns and Brooklyn Nets, he spent this summer as the secret weapon of the Jersey Shore Basketball League champions — at least as much of a secret as an imposing, 6-foot-9 figure can be.

McDonnell’s connection to Fagan did not stop when Fagan left Jackson Memorial to coach Neptune High School and on Tuesday night, in the JSBL championship game, McDonnell marveled at the way the Neptune community flocked to Manasquan High School to cheer a team led by Fagan’s former players at Neptune beat three-time defending champion Stern’s Trailer in thrilling fashion, 85-84, to cap the team’s first ever championship season.

Former Neptune guard Dwaine Jones banked in the game-winning three-pointer with 0.4 seconds left, sending the pro-ACI/Robin’s Nest crowd into a frenzy. Jones’s shot capped a stretch run during which three former Neptune High School teammates — Jones, Jared Kimbrough and Sam Fagan — each delivered a crucial score to put the game away.

“It’s a family team,” Joe Fagan said. “The other guys who come down from North Jersey are tough. I have been coaching in this league for 30 years. If you can find guys that play together, that play defense, you’re going to have a chance every single year. These are guys I knew wanted to play that way.”

With his team down by two, Fagan (16 points, four rebounds, three assists) nailed a wing three-pointer to give ACI/Robin’s Nest an 81-80 lead with under two minutes to go. Kevin Mateo, however, countered for Sterns Trailer with a crafty, scoop finish on a drive to the basket to put the defending champs back in front, 82-81, with under a minute to go.

Kimbrough (24 points, 15 rebounds, 4 blocked shots) then earned a trip to the free-throw line with 30 seconds left and hit the second of two free throws to tie the game, 82-82.

A clock error forced a delay after a Sterns Trailer timeout and after it was all sorted out, Jalen Gaffney buried a midrange jumper with 4.3 seconds left to catapult Sterns back into the lead, 84-82.

ACI/Robin’s Nest had to navigate the length of the floor and Jones (18 points, seven assists) took on the entire assignment by racing the ball into the front court, drawing a foul while on the move and slinging a running three-point shot off the glass and in for an 85-84 lead with the clock showing 0.4 seconds. After a minute of celebrating, Jones intentionally missed the free throw off the front rim and the clock expired.

Meanwhile, in the northeast corner of the gym, a rowdy cheering section of their former Neptune classmates — many of whom played for Fagan at Neptune — provided the fan support throughout the playoff run, including another boisterous showing on Tuesday night as the former Scarlet Fliers stars reunited to win a local championship that eluded them during their days together as high school teammates. When the clock ran out, the group stormed the floor to celebrate, giving the postgame trophy celebration a high-school state championship feel more than a summer league championship.

“I don’t live in Neptune anymore, but I’m always down there and those are my brothers,” Jones said. “I think it just shows the brotherhood. They support me and I support them. It wasn’t surprising to me, because they have been talking about this all day.”

“Those are all guys that played for me at Neptune,” Fagan said of the cheering section. “They played with Sam, played with Jared, played with Dwaine, played with Micah. All those kids, most of them were on the team at some point and if not, they were on the football team. It’s great for the league, but it’s also great for Neptune.”

The common thread in all of it is Joe Fagan — the head coach of ACI/Robin’s Nest who summoned McDonnell back to the Jersey Shore to help him push this year’s roster over the top. The roster included a player from his first Neptune team (Micah Kerr) and another Neptune alum in Tyreek Montgomery to go with Jones, Kimbrough and his son, Sam, and one of Fagan’s first high-school basketball success stories tied it all together.

After an injury ended his 2016-17 season overseas in Israel, McDonnell spent part of his unexpected free time working with Kimbrough — then a junior at Neptune — as he worked to turn himself into a Division I player who eventually ended up in Philadelphia as well at La Salle.

“Before he’d go up to the NBA office, he’d stop at Neptune, he’d work with Jared, he’d be in Jared’s ear,” Fagan said. “He was the best influence for Jared. We’re talking about a guy who has a master’s degree in civil engineering. He’s a genius. This is like taking candy from a baby for him, drawing up plays. The guy can build a bridge.”

McDonnell went on to become a video coordinator with the Phoenix Suns for the 2018-19 season, then coached at Fairfield for three seasons before joining Steve Nash’s staff with the Brooklyn Nets and working his way up to head video coordinator. The Nets did not bring McDonnell back for the upcoming season, so as he mulls his next move, he shared his knowledge with the ACI/Robin’s Nest squad.

“This has been an awesome experience for me to draw up plays,” McDonnell said. “I don’t have much experience doing it, so I’m getting to try out things I like and these guys have been great. The last couple plays, the guys ran them really well. I owe a lot to coach (Fagan). He taught me everything. I would be some engineer doing something else if it wasn’t for him sitting me down and telling me that I could be a college player and make this a career. He supported me no matter what and gone to bat for me helping me get jobs. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why you see all these guys who played for him here either on the court or in the stands.”

McDonnell was just one of Fagan’s former players who wanted to show his support. Jett Tinik was a three-sport standout at Neptune in basketball, soccer and baseball and supported the team from the bench throughout the summer for the same reason that the group of former Fagan players did during the championship push.

“I came to support my team,” Tinik said. “I’m still very good friends with Sam and I think every now and again, Coach Fagan trusts my I.Q., even though I don’t have the skills to be out there. Fagan really did create a team dynamic. Everyone was out there working their asses off.”

Fagan’s tenure at Neptune has come with its share of ups and downs. He took over after the board of education shockingly declined to approve the late Ken O’Donnell as head coach after the 2013-14 school year despite O’Donnell’s championship-rich track record that saw Neptune win a Shore Conference Tournament championship as recently as 2012 and an overall NJSIAA Group III title as recently as 2009.

With Fagan in charge, Neptune immediately reached the SCT semifinals in his first year and in 2017-18, the Scarlet Fliers reached the SCT quarterfinals, followed by a trip to the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III semifinals during a 22-win season. A year later, Neptune was poised for great things with Jones as a senior and Fagan as the sophomore point guard, but a season-ending leg injury to Fagan proved a major setback. Jones still led Neptune back to the sectional semifinals, but the Scarlet Fliers again fell one game short of a sectional final.

Fagan returned for his junior season and even while still recovering from the leg injury from the previous season, he helped lead Neptune to the Central Jersey Group III championship, which the Scarlet Fliers lost at Wall in overtime.

“My freshman year, I still can’t believe we didn’t win the state championship,” Sam Fagan said. “We ran into a tough team and then my sophomore year I broke my leg, but me and Dwaine were playing great together, so we would have been really good that year too.”

Since coming close to a sectional title in 2019-20, Neptune has fallen on hard times. The Scarlet Fliers endured their worst season ever in 2023-24, going 1-20 on the season before rebounding with a 14-10 record this past season.

This performance by ACI/Robin’s Nest and the hometown support that came with it was a reminder of how tight-knit Neptune remains as a community and how much basketball strengthens those ties.

That’s why, while most JSBL general managers were looking at college résumés in search of talent to fill out their rosters, Fagan wanted players he knew and loved bringing in players they knew and loved.

“When Greg (Kapalko) and Robin (Pallandrano) asked me to do the team, my thought was to get guys who want to play defense and share the ball,” Joe Fagan said. “I’m going to get Jared, I’m going to get Sam, Dwaine — any guy who played with together in high school: Tyreek, Micah was there my first year there. And then Jimmy and Sean (Grennan) have been part of everything I do.”

Jones invited former teammates at West Virginia State University, Ibn Loyal and Samier Kinsler, to join the team. Loyal and Kinsler had a front row seat as Jones broke the all-time career assist record in the Mountain East Conference. He handed out 677 assists between two-year stops at both West Virginia State and Charleston University and while at the latter, Jones averaged 7.6 assists per game in his final college season in 2024-25.

“He developed his leadership skills in college,” Tinik said. “You can tell. There would be times he would take himself out of plays in high school, but his resilience in this game just shows. He comes to the bench, he is talking to his guys and everyone is listening. He kept them in the game.”

Former Monsignor Donovan star Sean Grennan — who played for Fagan on the AAU circuit and is now an assistant coach at Neptune — was a dependable player off the bench and a valuable voice in the huddle all summer long.

“He is one of the best basketball minds around,” McDonnell said of Grennan, his former AAU teammate. “We always played well with one another and we see the game similarly.”

With a roster of hard-nosed, team-first players who were familiar with one another and had an NBA mind drawing up plays for them, Joe Fagan had set the conditions for a special summer. Then, Sam set out to add the missing ingredient: the cheering section.

According to the younger Fagan, ACI/Robin’s Nest wanted to be better than every team in the JSBL in two unique areas: sharing the ball and their crowd.

“This is a we team and we beat a me team,” Sam Fagan said. “Nobody wants to watch that. I go home and watch some games and I’m thinking, ‘Does anybody want to watch somebody shoot 50 shots a game?’ It’s not fun to watch. I think everyone in this league enjoyed watching our team way more than every other team because we share the ball. We had 30 assists in a game, we show up with fans and they’re loud and it’s fun.”

“In a summer league, sometimes if you don’t have a crowd, it’s easy to say, ‘Alright, we’ll pack it up,’ when you’re down,” Jones said. “They bring the energy and when you’re getting tired or things aren’t going the way you want, they give you that extra boost.”

With the Neptune crowd providing the moral support and McDonnell providing the tactical support, Joe Fagan’s fingerprints were all over this year’s championship. A decade-and-a-half coaching two different high schools in the Shore Conference set the stage for his former players once again becoming a team under his watch and this time, it ended in a championship.

“We still remember those finals and semifinals in high school, falling short,” Jones said. “I know this isn’t the same thing, but with these caliber guys, this is a big accomplishment. It’s a well-respected league and for us to do it with all the Neptune guys, no big-time names, you can’t write it any better.”