DJ Wagner, Camden boys’ basketball team are chasing history, one basket at a time

Rick Brunson has no interest in talking about it. It’s not because of any superstition, just simple indifference.

A question about his Camden High School Panthers’ winning streak isn’t finished being asked before their coach chimes in.

“I don’t know what we’ve won. I couldn’t care less what we’ve won,” Brunson said Tuesday at Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees. “What I try to do is work every day and make sure the guys are getting better every day. I couldn’t tell you if we won 40 in a row, 50 in a row, that’s just not my concern.”

The winning streak is at 44 games, the latest a 117-56 laugher over a badly overmatched Eastern team Tuesday afternoon. It is believed to be the second-longest active streak in boys’ basketball in the country, behind western Pennsylvania’s Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, which won its 48th straight Tuesday.

Camden, ranked No. 1 in the country by MaxPreps and No. 2 by ESPN, is closing in on South Jersey history, whether the Panthers are paying attention to it or not. According to historian Chuck Langerman, the record for most consecutive wins dates back to 1960, when Moorestown and Camden high schools each had a streak stopped at 51.

Getting there will be difficult, because simply getting to 45 is a tall task. Camden faces arguably the best opponent it has played during the streak Thursday night at Trenton’s CURE Insurance Arena, where the Panthers take on Florida’s Montverde Academy, ranked fourth by ESPN. Montverde boasts six of ESPN’s top 25 players in the class of 2022, including Duke-bound wing Dariq Whitehead and 7-footer Vincent Iwuchukwu, a Southern California signee.

“They’re definitely a great team, but we’re going to treat them like we treat every other game,” said Camden junior D.J. Wagner, ESPN’s top player in the class of ‘23.

Get by Montverde and the streak gets tested again this weekend, when Camden heads to Springfield, Mass., for the annual Hoophall Classic. There, nationally ranked Calvary Christian (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and Milton (Ga.) are on the schedule.

And assuming no COVID-19 cancellations, the game for win No. 52, which would make South Jersey history, could come against Bronny James and UCLA-bound Amari Bailey, who play for California’s Sierra Canyon.

If it wasn’t obvious, the schedule was made without any win streak in mind. Camden has already beaten MaxPreps’ 13th-ranked Roselle (N.J.) Catholic.

“We have two goals,” Brunson said. “Get a scholarship and win a state title.”

And beating up on teams like Eastern all year would do little to prepare Camden’s players for New Jersey’s Tournament of Champions — which Camden won in 2000 — let alone the rigors of Division I basketball.

» READ MORE: Camden High and star D.J. Wagner celebrate a new beginning and a familiar tradition | Mike Sielski

If Brunson isn’t moved by the streak, his players don’t seem to be, either.

“We don’t ever really talk about it or focus on it or say, you know, ‘Dang, we can’t lose,’” Wagner said. “We just go out there and have fun, just love the game.

“We don’t look at rankings or anything like that. We just love coming out here and having fun with each other. We’re like a family, like brothers. When you’re playing on the court, you’re doing something you love with your brothers. That’s how we look at it.”

The Panthers sure had a lot of fun Tuesday. They led by 14 after one quarter and 39 at halftime before outscoring Eastern 33-9 in the third quarter.

You could excuse the human nature involved if Camden overlooked Eastern, given what was ahead. And the few dozen people in the gym (attendance was limited due to COVID policies) likely all knew what the end result would be before the game started.

But there was little overlooking, save for a possession or two when the Panthers got sloppy. One of those times, with the score 76-24 midway through the third quarter, Brunson called a timeout and said to one of his players, who he thought hadn’t given a full effort on the previous play: “If you don’t play harder, you’re going to get killed on Thursday.”

“What I try to do is work every day and make sure the guys are getting better every day. I couldn’t tell you if we won 40 in a row, 50 in a row, that’s just not my concern.”

“I don’t watch the score,” Brunson said. “I’m going to coach them hard. You never know when they’re going to get into a situation in life that they have to overcome something. That’s how I coach. I coach to the end, our players play to the end.

“We play the same way whether we play Eastern or Montverde.”

Less than 10 minutes later, on the other side of the gym, Wagner virtually quoted his coach.

“The mindset is to treat every game the same, every team the same, and every game like a championship,” Wagner said.

So it doesn’t matter if it’s Montverde or Eastern. If you mess up the play call on the second possession like future St. Joe’s big man Rasheer Fleming did Tuesday afternoon, you’re going to get an earful.

Camden starts every game with two pre-drawn plays.

“They forget it,” Brunson said, noting it wasn’t the first time he’d called a timeout less than a minute into a game. “That’s learning. In college, you have to know, you can’t make that mistake. In the NBA, you have to learn that you can’t make that mistake.”

What happened out of the timeout? Fleming nailed a three-pointer, then swatted a shot away from the rim at the other end.

“My thing is just making sure these kids reach their dreams, their goals, and the ultimate goal is to win a state championship, whether you win 50 games in a row,” Brunson said. “The bottom line is you need to win six games in the playoffs … in a row.”

That’s a winning streak he can get behind.

Camden’s win streak started at the beginning of 2020. The Panthers’ last loss was Dec. 30, 2019, to Roman Catholic.

Camden’s average margin of victory in the streak is 29.1 points.

It’s possible the streak could have been snapped by now, or a new South Jersey record could have been set. The Group II playoffs were canceled in 2020 with Camden in the semifinals. And the 2021 postseason was wiped away, too.

As Langerman, the historian, notes: Winning streaks like the 51 games Moorestown and Camden reached in 1960 have not been likely since the 1989 launch of New Jersey’s Tournament of Champions, which pits the state champions from each group together to get one champion. Since then, it has only been possible for one team in New Jersey to go undefeated in a single season. And North Jersey parochial schools have traditionally dominated the tournament.

No matter how many games Camden wins, the Panthers are not likely to set a state record, even if they become South Jersey record holders.

The state’s longest winning streak is also the longest streak in U.S. high school basketball history: Passaic High School won 159 games from 1919 to 1925.