‘No voodoo magic’: Colts Neck boys basketball makes a stunning run to its first Group 3 title

PISCATAWAY – The seeds for one of the most improbable state championship runs in Shore Conference boys basketball history were sewn in an upscale restaurant in Atlanta months before the season began.

“The only thing that I’m going to say to you is there may have been a premonition,” Colts Neck head coach Steve Jannarone said before smiling.

Jannarone and his wife were in Georgia ready to have dinner with his son and his son’s girlfriend when he was informed at the last minute that the restaurant required a jacket.

“I bought this jacket and I kidded to my wife, I said if we get something green I’ll wear it in the state finals,” Jannarone said. “And we both laughed and laughed.”

Jannarone’s offhanded “can you imagine?” moment with his wife became a dream fulfilled on Saturday night at Jersey Mike’s Arena at Rutgers University. The Cougars really did it. Jannarone’s coat is now the second-most prestigious green jacket someone can bring home from Georgia.

In their first trip to a Group final in school history, Colts Neck took down two-time defending Group 3 champion Ramapo with a 54-46 comeback win for a Group title no one outside of the green and white faithful saw coming. Overall, they’re the first Shore team to win Group 3 since Neptune did it 16 years ago, and the first in history from the six-team Freehold Regional District.

Jannarone had worn a 20-year-old polo shirt for Colts Neck’s entire playoff run when he decided to switch to the green jacket for the championship game.

“It was a big decision to try it out, and it worked,” Jannarone said. “There’s definitely something going on.”

Colts Neck comes out of nowhere

The Cougars were fairly off the radar heading into the postseason after finishing second in their division and bowing out in the quarterfinals of the Shore Conference Tournament.

“Hell no, no one thought we would make it here,” said senior guard Lukas Sloane, who had a game-high 20 points in the win over Ramapo. “It’s good motivation for the guys. Every time they picked against us, there would be a screenshot in the group chat and everyone would just get riled up and be like, ‘This is how we’re coming out.’ It was just crazy.”

“People were doubting us,” said junior guard Dillon Younger, who had 9 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds in the win. “That definitely fueled us. We knew we could do it ourselves. Who cares what anyone else thinks?”

When Colts Neck was down by eight in the second quarter on Saturday night against a Ramapo team that was playing in its fourth straight Group 3 final, it felt like maybe reality was starting to set in.

Instead, the Cougars went from shooting 0-for-7 from 3-point range in the first half to going 5-for-8 from deep in the second half and shooting 54% from the field in the game. They shot a sizzling 14-for-19 from the field after the break, making six straight to end the game as they got layup after layup off penetration and breaking Ramapo’s press.

A team that looked tentative under the bright lights at Rutgers in the first half closed the game like it was their home floor.

“This is our last game,” Younger said. “You’re going to be remembering this for the rest of your life. You can’t remember being scared. You just have to give it everything you got.”

“They’re receptive, they trust each other, they believe in each other, they love each other,” Jannarone said. “That’s what we talked about at halftime. Not too much X’s and O’s, just trust, believe in what got us here, and they did it.”

When the Cougars started to believe

Momentum really started to build for a Cinderella run by the Cougars when they took down defending champion Freehold 59-47 in the Central Jersey Group 3 semifinals. A championship that no one outside their fanbase thought possible started to seem like a real possibility.

“They were coming in there defending champs, they have all that size, they have the athleticism, and we kind of just killed them,” Younger said. “We were beating them the whole game.”

Colts Neck with a comeback 54-46 win over Ramapo to win the Group 3 title for it’s first Group title in school history! pic.twitter.com/37cKjWs80H

— Scott Stump (@Scott_Stump) March 15, 2025

They took down Ewing to become just the second team in Cougars’ history to win a sectional title, and then fought off Ocean City to make it to Rutgers.

“That’s wild. I never thought at the beginning of the season, the slow start that we had, that we would be in this situation,” Sloane said. “This atmosphere is crazy. I don’t even know what to say.”

“It’s the first time in my career I’ve had to plan 52 practices, so maybe over 40 is when it kicks in,” Jannarone joked.

Turning it around

Finally getting healthy at the perfect time was also a major factor. Jannarone said the flu had been making the rounds among the team since mid-January in addition to various injuries. Senior Bryce Belcher played through the flu against Ewing and Ocean City.

“Today was the first real healthy game all five of them had,” Jannarone said about his starters.

“It was awful,” Belcher said about fighting through illness. “From the Ewing game and the Ocean City game, even this game, I’m exhausted. But I’m just really trying to leave everything out there on the court, play for my guys and play for my team.”

A program started in 1998 by head coach Lou Piccola with Jannarone as his assistant has had its share of star-studded squads over the years but never could quite get over the hump. Bad luck, poorly timed injuries and formidable opponents kept them coming up short of the ultimate goal.

This year’s team would not have necessarily been thought of as the one that would ultimately snatch that first Group title, but a tight-knit group of seniors showed that picking against them at every turn was a bad proposition.

“We talked to them about they matched the legacy by winning a sectional, by winning the next one now they surpassed it, and then the talk today is ‘Win this, and you can never be surpassed,’” Jannarone said. “They took it to heart.

“They’re always asking, ‘Which is the best (Colts Neck) team coach, which is the best?’ My line is that’s like asking which is your favorite child. I challenged them to prove it. If they think they are, then do it. And they did.”

“I guess we got that state chip,” Belcher said. “By default, we are the best Colts Neck team.”

They took their classmates, alumni, parents and fans along on a magical ride that few fanbases in Shore Conference history have ever experienced.

“I’ve used ‘surreal’ before,” Jannarone said. “I’ve got to get a thesaurus. It’s just fantastic.”

It wasn’t green jackets or superstitions or lucky shots that helped Colts Neck make history. It was a senior-laden team with high character that got healthy, played for each other and didn’t worry about what those outside the program thought about their chances.

“No voodoo magic,” Belcher said. “It was just us being relaxed.”

Scott Stump is a freelance reporter, newsletter writer and editor who first started covering Shore Conference football in 1999 and has covered basketball, wrestling, baseball and seemingly every other Shore Conference sport at some point. 

You can contact him at [email protected]