The Albert Carino Basketball Club of South Jersey has announced its selections for the Class of 2018 to be inducted into the South Jersey Basketball Hall of Fame on Sunday, Feb. 11 at the Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill. Brian Turner ’98 (pictured at right with Director of Diversity and Inclusion Karen Washington) will be one of eight inductees this year.
The event will start at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are available are $35 and can be purchased by sending payment to Jack Mongulla, Vice President/Treasurer to 41 Emery Way, Delanco, NJ, 08075 or calling (856) 461-8800. Reservations are required.
The Class of 2018 inductees are Bruce Campbell (Distinguished Service Award), Chris Carideo (St. Augustine), Terry Cole (Pemberton), Jessica Copskey DePrince (Sterling), Tony Davenport (Pleasantville), Brian Turner (Moorestown Friends), Paul Wiedeman (Haddonfield) and John R. Wilson (Sterling).
About Brian Turner ’98:
Brian Turner was a Philadelphia Inquirer All-South Jersey star at Moorestown Friends School and earned eight varsity letters, including four in basketball, three in soccer, and one in baseball. He was also named to the All-Friends League and the Courier-Post All Parochial basketball teams. Brian’s four years at Moorestown Friends were notable for: his strong academic efforts; outstanding citizenship in the MFS community; his seat as first chair trombone in the instrumental ensemble; and his stellar performance in athletics.
Captain of his junior and senior years, Brian scored 47 points in one game in January 1998, and broke an MFS record that had stood since 1979. During his senior season, he compiled a 25-point-per game scoring average and was named the Most Valuable Player on the Boys Team all four years.
He reached the 1,000 point plateau on January 13, 1997 during his junior year and finished his MFS career with 1,931 points, an all-time record for the school.
Brian was awarded the school’s prestigious Herm Magee Award as a senior, for the most significant contributions to athletics and fine sportsmanship. Despite all these accomplishments, his teachers and coaches all remarked on Brian’s modesty.
Brian went on to Davidson College in North Carolina, and achieved early success on the Wildcats team.
One of the all-time great players in Rutgers-Camden men’s basketball history, Turner, who earned his undergraduate degree in Sociology in 2003 and law school at Rutgers-Camden, played two seasons for the Scarlet Raptors (2000-01 and 2001-02) after transferring to the campus from Division I Davidson University. During his brief 43-game career with the Raptors, he rolled up 951 points (22.1 ppg), 337 rebounds (7.8 rpg) and a host of conference and national honors.
His first season at Rutgers-Camden, Turner earned New Jersey Athletic Conference Honorable Mention status and was second in the NJAC in scoring. As a senior, he earned NJAC Player of the Year honors while leading the conference in scoring, placing second in rebounding and free throw percentage and finishing fourth in steals and three-point field goal percentage. He was named ECAC Division III Metro First Team, d3hoops.com All-Atlantic Region First Team, d3hoops.com All-America Honorable Mention and NABC/Pontiac Division III Atlantic Region Player of the Year. He capped his season by earning NABC All-American First Team, making him the first player in program history to garner that lofty honor.
He also was named the Albert J. Carino Boys Basketball Club of South Jersey’s Small College Player of the Year, and earned his second straight team MVP honor. Turner finished his Raptor career with the best free throw percentage in program history (81.8). He also was third in career scoring average (22.1), fifth in rebounding average (7.8), fifth in both three-point field goals (115) and attempts (318) and sixth in three-point field goal percentage (36.2).
Turner’s Rutgers-Camden single-season records include free throw percentage (83.5) and most three-point field goals (72), and he’s also among the top 10 in both those categories a second time, with a free throw percentage of 78.9 (seventh best) and 43 three-pointers (10th). In addition, he’s among the Top 10 single-season leaders in steals (67, third), points (548, sixth), points per game (22.4, sixth and 21.9, 10th), three-point field goal attempts (182, second and 136, eighth), field goals (185, 10th) and field goal attempts (454, 10th).
Turner collected his career-high scoring total of 38 points on two occasions in rapid succession, coming Jan. 30, 2002 against The College of New Jersey and again on Feb. 9, 2002 against New Jersey City University. In the TCNJ game, he set his personal high with six treys, tied for the third highest single-game performance in that category in school history. In the NJCU game, he had his high of 18 rebounds and hit 15 (of 17) foul shots, also tied for the third-highest single-game total at Rutgers-Camden.
In 2002, as a senior for the Rutgers-Camden Scarlet Raptors, Brian won the Wilbur “Pony” Wilson award, which annually goes to the top men’s basketball player in the New Jersey Athletic Conference. His senior year he averaged an NJAC-leading 21.9 points per game. He was second in the conference in rebounding (8.9 per game) and free-throw percentage (.835). As a sharp-shooting senior guard, he registered four games of over 30 points in a five-game stretch during the 2001-2002 season. He was named the ECAC Division 3 Player of the Week on consecutive weeks. He registered a career high of 38 points in a win over The College of New Jersey on Jan. 30, 2002. He set the school record for three-point field goal attempts in a season (182) and three-point field goals (72) and ended his career with 951 points in just two years at Rutgers. The Rutgers-Camden team finished 2002 with a 14-11 record, the first winning season for the basketball program since 1984. At the time, the head coach of the Scarlet Raptors was former Holy Cross High School and Moorestown Friends boys’ basketball coach Jim Flynn. Hall-of-Famer Joe McAleer, a former Moorestown Friends School girls’ basketball coach, served as one of Flynn’s assistants. Keith Benson, MFS Class of 1998, was also a teammate of Brian’s on the Scarlet Raptors.
In the 40 years since the Moorestown Friends Camden Scholars Program evolved from the “A Better Chance” scholarship program, it is notable that a number of Scholars have returned to Camden and communities like it as agents for change, in the fields of health, social service, education, law and public service. Brian Turner is emblematic of the kind of committed, socially conscious community leaders that Moorestown Friends, and the Camden Scholars Program, together with their families and community, produce. In recognition, Brian was selected to receive the Young Alumni Award by the Moorestown Friends School Alumni Association in May 2013.
Brian is the son of Craig and Laverne Turner of Palmyra.