Thirtysomething
Vinnie Cugini: At Aquinas Academy, freshman sensation averages 33.9
The measurables do nothing to make Vinnie Cugini stand out. He is 5 feet 11 inches and a lean 150 pounds.
But there are other numbers associated with Cugini that are downright startling.
9 and 33.9.
Combine the two figures and they equal one of the most unique basketball players in WPIAL basketball history. The numeral 9 is Cugini’s grade in high school. The 33.9 is his scoring average for the Aquinas Academy basketball team.
Cugini’s scoring is bringing attention to Aquinas Academy, a small private school in Hampton Township. If Laurel Highlands guard Rodney Gallagher is a freshman phenom, Cugini is a freshman scoring sensation.
Critics might say he is playing against weak competition in the smallest WPIAL classification (1A). Or he scores so much because he shoots a lot. Or he is simply a product of a system bent on scoring a ton of points, but also giving up a lot of points.
Say whatever you want, but the bottom line is Cugini (Coo-GENIE) is doing things that have never been seen before by a freshman boy in the WPIAL. Call it “Vinsanity.” Go ahead and say there is no defense to bottle this “Genie.”
“I used to score a lot in middle school, but I didn’t think I’d put up the numbers I am right now,” Cugini said.
Who could’ve imagined it? Cugini lives in Morningside and last season at St. Raphael School he scored 51 points in a game. But this is high school and Cugini is playing for a team that is in the WPIAL for the first time after a four-year hiatus. Aquinas played in the WPIAL for six seasons and struggled mightily before dropping out after the 2015 season. Aquinas rejoined for this season and the team won its first two WPIAL section games in school history. Aquinas has a 5-11 record, and Cugini scored 48 in one recent game against Imani Christian.
To put Cugini’s scoring in perspective, consider that Tom Pipkins, former star at Valley High School, is the WPIAL’s alltime leading scorer with 2,838 points. He averaged 22.5 as a freshman at Valley in the 1989-90 season and he was one of the highest-scoring ninth-graders in WPIAL history. Another was Lincoln Park’s Maverick Rowan, who scored 23.6 as a freshman in 2012-13.
If Cugini keeps this up — and there is no reason to believe he won’t — he will be one of the WPIAL’s highest-scoring players in the past 40 years, regardless of grade in school. Since the 1979-80 season, only nine WPIAL players have averaged more than 32 points a game during the regular season. Only five have averaged more than 33: Laurel Highlands’ Rob Kezmarsky (36.2 in 1989-90), Laurel Highlands’ Reuben Davis (35.3 in 1983-84), Highlands’ Micah Mason (34.1 in 2010-11), Chartiers Valley’s T.J. McConnell (34.1 in 2009-10) and Mars’ Robby Carmody (33.7 in 2017-18). They all played in one of the two largest classifications.
Now along comes the thin kid from Morningside who considered attending Central Catholic and Seton LaSalle before deciding on Aquinas. Cugini is more scorer than shooter. He is one of three WPIAL players averaging at least 30 points a game after Tuesday’s contests (the others are Steel Valley’s Cam Polak and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart’s Jake DiMichele). Only four times in the past 40 years have two players averaged more than 30 a game in the WPIAL regular season.
“We play in an athletic conference (Section 3), and no matter who we play, he can get to the rim,” Aquinas Academy coach George Yokitis said of Cugini.
Aquinas doesn’t keep statistics for shots attempted. But Cugini has 26
3-pointers this season, an average of just over one a game. But he is excellent at drives and making “floaters” in the lane.
“I really developed that floater in the offseason. I worked on it a lot,” Cugini said.
Plus, he gets fouled plenty. He is averaging eight free throws a game.
Aquinas assistant John Bray said, “At first, he looks like a skinny kid and another freshman. But he just knows how to get in the lane and score. He’s making moves that I would say makes him a college prospect. He’s not a Rodney Gallagher Division I prospect. But he’s finishing these moves against athletic players, like Clairton or Imani or anyone we put him against.”
It’s obvious Cugini can play. But can he really play? Even Cugini acknowledges he wouldn’t be scoring anything like this as a freshman at a Class 5A or 6A school. But opponents certainly have been impressed.
“There is definitely something there,” said Clairton coach Matt Geletko, who watched Cugini score 38 against his team last Friday. “In a couple years once he puts on a little more weight and gets more consistent with his 3-point shot, he’ll be pretty tough to defend. He’s tough to defend now, mainly because he has the ball in his hands a lot and he has to score for that team.”
Hart Coleman is in his first year as St. Joseph’s coach and has faced Cugini twice. Coleman coached the past two seasons at Plum, a Class 5A school.
“This kid is tough,”
Coleman said. “I wouldn’t say he’s putting up a ton of shots. He’s just a scorer. Nothing about his game says he’s a ninth-grader. He could hold his own at any level. I’ve coached in different states and coached Class 5A and 6A players. To me, talent is talent. He has talent.”
Cugini is soft-spoken, but also self-assured about his game.
“At a bigger school, I don’t know if I’d get as much freedom as I do at Aquinas, but I still think I could make a difference,” Cugini said.
At his going rate, Cugini would seemingly have a chance at Pipkins’ WPIAL record.
“He’s a very good student,” Yokitis said. “My hope is one day that if he can work on his outside shot and grow an inch or two, he’ll be looked at by Ivy League schools or maybe by the Naval Academy.”