Loyalty of big three fuels title run
PISCATAWAY » Nottingham boys basketball coach Chris Raba remembers back in 2016 when the team’s star trio, sophomores at the time, helped lead the team to a near-upset of Ewing as the 16-seed in the Central Jersey Group III Tournament.
He knew that pitches were coming from parochial and private school recruiters throughout the state. But his kids resisted the temptations to leave and wanted to build something unique at Nottingham, ultimately culminating in the school’s first state championship Sunday at Rutgers.
“This team is the most loyal team I’ve ever coached,” said Raba, who also won a state title while coaching Hamilton West in 2006. “What makes a public school good is when these kids who are told to go to a private school stay at their public school. These three players could play at any private school in the state of New Jersey, and they were loyal to me.”
Their names are Cliff Joseph, Darell Johnson and Richie Jones. They are only trio from the same graduating class in Mercer County history to each score more than 1,000 points. Across the entire state, only teammates at Wall and Paulsboro have achieved the feat.
Joseph is Nottingham’s alltime leading scorer with 1,831 points, which ranks top-10 in the county. The 6-foot-2 forward was The Trentonian’s CVC Player of the Year last season.
“Coach Raba, he’s like a father to me,” Joseph said. “He treated me like his son, gave me what I wanted, told me what to do on and off the basketball court. He helped me out a lot in my life, so I just wanted to help him out ... get to the state championship like we did.”
At 6-foot-5, Johnson is averaging 22 points and more than 10 rebounds per game in a breakout season.
Johnson has developed from a strong interior player to a star on the wing as well. He was the Mercer County Tournament MVP and made a fourth-quarter buzzer beater in the sectional final against Moorestown, forcing overtime in a thriller that Nottingham eventually won.
“I feel like I grew a lot since sixth grade because I got way taller, I was kind of fat when I was younger,” Johnson said with a laugh. “So to see how far I made it, all the controversy I had to play through, a lot of people said I wasn’t going to be anything. So knowing how far I got, all the hard work I put in the gym, it feels real good to know now as a senior I’m a state champion.”
And Jones is the most prolific three-point shooter in school history with 193 made treys for his career. His total this season of 97 currently ranks fourth in New Jersey.
“I had seen Cliff and that he was very good, and I felt like coming to Nottingham with Darell being a sophomore as well coming up, I just felt like we could really do something,” Jones said. “Nobody in the county, I felt, was better than us three. And later on down the road we could be state champions.”
For that determination to lead the program to new heights, Raba vows to still remember every play from Nottingham’s 60-53 win over Chatham in the Group III final — even if the trophy is covered with dust in 20 years.
“These guys have given me their heart, their soul,” Raba said. “I could never repay them for what they gave me — never. They have given me memories that will last a lifetime.”