Bob Hurley

The reigning mythical national champions, No. 5 in the Five Star Power Rankings, have not lost since the 2010 New Jersey  state tournament against Trenton Catholic.

UCLA-bound point guard Kyle Anderson is now 50-0 since coming over to St. Anthony from Paterson Catholic.

Anderson led the Friars (17-0) with 14 points and Hallice Cook added 13. Uncommitted senior forward Jerome Frink had seven points and 13 rebounds.

Yale-bound Justin Sear of Plainfield scored 10 points.

“I liked the shots that we got,” Hurley told The Star-Ledger, “but it was baffling how many we missed, even from 15 (feet) and in. Our big concern was if they turned us over they would get some points and that would be the way they could score.

“But if it’s a half-court game, teams have a hard time scoring against us. I think our length bothered them today. We won by double (digits), but didn’t play the last two minutes very intelligently.”

After hosting Columbia Thursday, the Friars meet Huntington (West Va.) Prep Saturday — No. 5 in the Five Star Power Rankings — in the PrimeTime Shootout at Roselle Catholic.

Following last year’s 33-0 season that culminated in Hurley’s fourth mythical national championship, the Friars have now won 45 games in a row.

Their last loss came in the New Jersey state tournament to Trenton Catholic on March 13, 2010.

UCLA-bound senior point guard Kyle Anderson, who transferred to St. Anthony from now-defunct Paterson Catholic at the start of the 2010-11 season, is now 45-0 in a St. Anthony uniform.

All of this begs the question, Can St. Anthony go undefeated again?

“They play such great defense, they could go undefeated,” longtime New York recruiting analyst Tom Konchalski told SNY.tv.

St. Anthony will have some speed bumps on its schedule going forward.

In the SNY Invitational Jan. 27-28, they will face Thomas Jefferson and then either Cardozo or St. Raymond’s. Cardozo just suffered a major hit, though, when 6-foot-9 junior Jermaine Lawrence left for Pope John of Sparta, N.J.

The Friars then visit a tough Plainfield club Feb. 7 before facing a Huntington (West Va.) Prep team loaded with future Division I players on Feb. 11 in the PrimeTime Shootout.

After that, they could have some tough games in the New Jersey state tournament, though they no longer have to face St. Patrick in the North Non-Public B bracket. Their stiffest competition in the North figures to come from a talented, but young Hudson Catholic club.

Konchalski points out that injury could be the the only thing that might cause St. Anthony to lose a game.

“They can have a bad day offensively, they can have some injuries,” he said. “If they were to play a Plainfield or St. Peter’s Prep without Kyle Anderson, that would be very tough.”

The 6-foot-9 Anderson, whom Hurley has called a “modern-day Magic Johnson,” had 18 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and two blocks against Miller Grove and shows no signs of slowing down.

In fact, after beating St. Benedict’s Prep, 51-50, earlier this month at Hackensack High School, Anderson said he wanted to go 66-0 and win back-to-back national titles.

“Part of playing for St. Anthony is going down in history, that’s what it’s all about,” he said after the St. Ben’s game.

“So we would be the first team to go 66-0 and win two national championships so that’s just our goal.”

The Friars are currently ranked No. 1 by MaxPreps, No. 4 by ESPN and No. 6 by Five Star Basketball.

But Hurley could not care less about mid-season rankings.

“We look at the polls at the end of the year,” Hurley told ESPN/Rise. “Other than that, I don’t really put any thought into where we’re ranked and things like that. It doesn’t matter to me.”

Don’t be surprised to look up at the end of the year, though, and find the Friars back in a familiar spot atop all the rankings.

Photo: ESPN

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Dan Hurley and the Wagner Seahawks are riding the school’s first seven-game winning streak since the 1979-80 season.

With a 14-3 record, a 9-2 non-conference mark and a 5-1 record in the Northeast Conference, Wagner is off to its best start since the 1955-56 campaign.

Yet as good as things are right now, the future could be even brighter.

That’s because Dwaun Anderson, a former Mr. Basketball in Michigan, began practicing with the team last Tuesday and will be eligible next season.

“He’s a 6-5 guy who has ridiculous talent,” Hurley told SNY.tv. “He’s been dynamic in practice.”

The Michigan State transfer possesses a 40-inch vertical jump and was a National Top-100 recruit after averaging 20.1 points, 10.0 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 3.3 steals and 1.9 blocks per game as a senior at at Sutton’s Bay High School in Central Michigan.

Anderson withdrew from Michigan State after his mother passed away last spring. He considered Villanova, Seton Hall, Rutgers, Missouri, Drexel and Georgetown before choosing to come to Wagner.

Wagner has applied for a waiver from the NCAA in the hopes of getting Anderson eligible for the first semester of the 2012-13 season.

“We’re working on a waiver,” Hurley said. “Right now he’d have to sit out the beginning of next year.  In a best-case scearnio he’d be able to start next year in the fall.”

For next year, Wagner also added 6-8 forward Mike Aaman, 6-5 guard Eric Fanning and 6-3 guard Kameron Mitchell.

Yet Hurley is focused on the immediate future, which includes a game Thursday at St. Francis (N.Y). followed by Saturday’s home tilt against defending NEC champ LIU.

Asked about the rising expectations surrounding his program, Hurley said, “I think it’s good when people expect a lot from you. No one ever achieves a lot with low expectations.”

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Bobby Hurley, “Mandy” Johnson, Rodrick Rhodes, Jerry Walker, David Rivers and Tyshawn Taylor are among those in the conversation.

Bobby Hurley led his team to the inaugural Tournament of Champions title in 1989 and went on to appear in three Final Fours and lead Duke to back-to-back NCAA titles.

Walker was a four-year starter, won four state titles and lost only five games in his career under legendary coach Bob Hurley.

Several players in the mid-1990s won three straight New Jersey Tournament of Champions titles.

The 2007-8 team went undefeated and sent six players to the Division 1 ranks.

But now here comes Bobby Hurley saying he believes that 6-foot-9 UCLA-bound point guard Kyle Anderson has the greatest upside of any St. Anthony Friar. Ever.

“If you think about what his potential is and his upside is, I think it’s as high as any player who has stepped in the door,” Hurley, now an assistant to his brother Dan at Wagner College, told SNY.tv.

“As far as how far he could potentially take his talent. You forecast him as an NBA player and a guy that could, if he continues to work and continues to put all the time in that he has to get to where he is now, he could take if further than any guy that’s come to St. Anthony.”

In October, Bob Hurley Sr. called Anderson a “modern-day Magic Johnson.”

“I think he’s the most dominant player to ever play at the school,” said Hurley, a Naismith Hall of Famer.

“His improvement from last year till now is unbelievable. He’s certainly the most versatile kid ever anywhere near his size that I’ve ever coached.”

Bobby and Danny were in the stands at Hackensack High School last Sunday when Anderson and the Friars beat back a tough St. Benedict’s club, 51-50.

Entering Saturday’s game against Roselle Catholic in the SFIC Festival at Kean College, Anderson is now 41-0 in a St. Anthony uniform.

Counting his sophomore season at Paterson Catholic — in which his only loss was to St. Anthony in the New Jersey state tournament — Anderson is 69-1 in the last two-plus seasons and 95-6 in his four-year career at PC and St. Anthony.

Along with Myles Mack, Anderson left PC after his sophomore season when the school closed and proceeded to help the Friars go 33-0 last year en route to a mythical national title.

Now he wants another one.

“Part of playing for St. Anthony is going down in history, that’s what it’s all about,” he said after the St. Ben’s game.

“So we would be the first team to go 66-0 and win two national championships so that’s just our goal.”

Walker, the former Seton Hall standout, has known Anderson since grammar school.

“He’s a clever player,” Walker told SNY.tv. “He reminds me of myself. He knows how to play angles. He plays angles really well. He does make up for his shortfalls.”

Anderson is far from the quickest player on the floor, but his ability to see the game develop, play the angles and to make the right play is unique.

UCLA plans to play him everywhere from the point to the power forward, and Bobby Hurley believes Anderson must play the three going forward to be most effective.

“I’m very hesitant to try and figure out what position he is,” Hurley said. “I’ve had a hard time doing that myself.

“Personally what I believe is that he’s going to have to be a three-man at the NBA level. With his size and his passing ability giving him a size advantage on the wing and the problems he can create, that’s where he’s going to find himself at the highest level if he makes it there and does what he’s supposed to do.

“The NBA, they like their guards to be real push guys and transition oriented. I see Kyle more as a three man.”

While everyone has an opinion on how Anderson will — and should — develop at the college and NBA levels, the player himself is just focused on continuing to win.

And what exactly would his legacy be if he leads St. Anthony to another Tournament of Champions crown, or another undefeated season as he says is the plan?

“I don’t know if they can go undefeated this year,” Walker said. “But [if they did] he could honestly say he never lost a game at St. Anthony.

“That would be something I can’t say.”

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HACKENSACK, N.J.

“It’s a good game for us,” Hall of Fame St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley told SNY.tv Sunday after his team won its 40th straight game, 51-50, over St. Benedict’s at the New Year’s Jump Off at Hackensack High School.

“We want to play Jersey games. I’m an old guy, I don’t want to do much traveling.

“If you play in this area, you ought to be able to find a schedule where you can get 70 percent of your games. Have a Christmas tournament, maybe go to the Basketball Hall of Fame [over MLK weekend] and the SNY [Invitational Jan. 27-28].”

Because St. Benedict’s is not a member of the New Jersey state athletic association, the Gray Bees could never face St. Anthony in the state tournament.

During Dan Hurley’s nine-year tenure at St. Benedict’s, the two schools never met because Chris Hurley did not want her husband facing her son.

Now that Dan is coaching Wagner (he attended Sunday’s game and sat behind the St. Patrick bench in the Celtics’ loss to Teaneck), the Playaz Basketball Club was able to set up the long-awaited St. Anthony-St. Benedict’s game featuring the current top two teams in the Garden State.

First-year St. Ben’s coach Mark Taylor said he’d like to keep the game going into future years.

“This is about the kids,” the said. “They love this game, and it’s exciting and it’s great for both teams, the atmosphere early in the year. It gets you ready for anything you’re going to face down the road.”

With former St. Patrick coach Kevin Boyle having moved on to Montverde (Fla.) Academy — and with St. Patrick having been transplanted to the South Non-Public B bracket — some of the luster has gone off the St. Anthony-St. Patrick rivalry, which for 20 years was among the fiercest in the nation.

Could Taylor replace Boyle as Hurley’s chief rival?

“No,” Hurley said, “because [with St. Pat's] somebody success is the other one’s failure. Mark is in that state Prep school tournament.

“We were talking before the game. It’s very hard for him with a team like this to get them to play all the time. It’s different for us because we have that state tournament coming, and these games are going to be great for us late in the season.

“The teams we’re facing so far have been pretty good teams and we’re not where we’d like to be, but we’re capable of beating people right now.”

Dan Hurley photo: MSG Varsity

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Nine years later, head coach Dan Hurley signed the Seahawks up for out-of-conference tilts at defending champion UConn and Friday at No. 15 Pitt.

Could history repeat itself?

The Seahawks hope so.

Picked fourth in the NEC, they are currently 7-3 with wins at Princeton and Penn, and losses to UConn, LIU and Lehigh.

Hurley scheduled the Big East games to give his team a measuring stick against arguably the nation’s top conference.

“I think it will expose for us the things that we need to get better at,” Hurley told SNY.tv in advance of the UConn game in which Wagner acquitted itself well before losing 78-66. “We’re not delusional. We’re in Year 2 of rebuilding of what was when we took over one of the five to seven worst teams in the country out of the three hundred and fifty whatever.

“We’re where we’d like to be in Year 2. This game is part of our maturation process as a program and we gotta learn from it. And we gotta go there to compete.”

Featuring a rebuilt squad under Hurley and his older brother Bobby, Wagner has a balanced scoring attack with guards Jonathon Williams (13.9 ppg), Tyler Murray (13.4) and Latif Rivers (12.9) all averaging double-figures.

Hurley himself has several connections to Pitt.

Pitt sophomore forward Lamar Patterson played his senior year of high school under Hurley at St. Benedict’s. That team finished 24-7 and ranked No. 7 nationally.

As a player for Seton Hall and an assistant coach for Rutgers, Hurley is 7-7 all-time against Pitt.

As a Seton Hall freshman in 1991-1992, Hurley played against Pitt point guard and current Arizona head coach Sean Miller.

Panthers head coach Jamie Dixon was an assistant coach on the 2002-2003 team that beat Wagner. Dixon took over as head coach of the program 25 days later on April 15.  That match-up was the only time Dixon, a TCU graduate, faced Wagner.

Pitt, meantime, is without point guard Travon Woodall (groin strain and abdominal tear), who played for Bob Hurley, Dan’s father, on St. Anthony’s undefeated 2007-8 team.

The Panthers are also without freshman forward Khem Birch, who left the program last week. He has yet to request his official release and sources told SNY.tv it is possible Birch could return to the program.

Wagner is just 2-24 all-time, against Big East teams and has lost 13-straight since defeating Rutgers 80-78 on December 16, 1995 at the RAC.

Yet if the experience of playing UConn and Pitt translates into another NEC championship, Hurley will surely make the tradeoff.

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Josh Brown’

“He verbally committed last night to Temple,” St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley told SNY.tv.

At 6-foot-2 and just a junior, Brown has a big upside going forward.

“He’s converting from being just an athlete, like a wing player,” said Hurley, coach of the reigning mythical national champs. “He’s been moved over to play the point and his on-the-job training began last April or so. In the first stage it’s gone very well. He has a good personality to be a point guard. He’s a very friendly kid. He’s a good talker. He plays extremely hard.

“He’s great going to the basket. He’s a great on-the-ball defender. He’s very, very athletic. He plays extremely hard. I think last year as a sophomore, he played as hard as anybody we had day in and day out.”

He added: “He has to get better at polishing his ball-handling, thinking like the guy running the team and improving his range on his shot.”

Dunphy attended several open workouts at St. Anthony this fall to watch Brown and fellow junior point guard Hallice Cooke.

“This speaks volumes to his work ethic and commitment,” Harrield said of Brown. “He has only been playing the point guard position since the spring and got the attention of a perennial Top 25 program.”

Brown’s commitment to Temple was first reported by Alex Kline of The Recruit Scoop.

“I always knew it was the place,” Brown told Kline. “I verballed to Temple because I love the coaching staff and I was born in Philly.”

Temple has done well in the New York/New Jersey area in recent weeks, getting singed NLI’s from 6-8 St. Raymond’s forward Daniel Dingle, 6-5 St. Joe’s wing Quenton DeCosey and 6-10 Devontae Watson, a center from Midland, Pa.

Brown becomes the third St. Anthony player committed to college, following UCLA-bound senior point guard Kyle Anderson and Hofstra signee Jimmy Hall, both of whom signed NLIs earlier this month.

Hurley said senior forward Jerome Frink had visited Manhattan and FIU, and was also hearing from Siena, Iona and Rider.

“I don’t think enough schools are recruiting Jerome Frink right now,” Hurley said. “I think a lot of the MAAC schools will come in right now.”

Hurley also expects senior guard Tariq Carey, a Newark native who transferred in from St. Benedict’s Prep, “absolutely to be a Division I player.”

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“I would assume, [if] he stays healthy,” Hurley, who led Duke to back-to-back NCAA titles in the early 1990s, told SNY.tv. “I don’t think that they’re going to start losing games anytime soon.”

Krzyzewski tied Bob Knight atop the Division I men’s career wins list with his 902nd victory in No. 6 Duke’s 96-55 rout against Presbyterian on Saturday.

Coach K improved to 902-284 during his 37th season as a college coach at Army and Duke. He can pass Knight-his coach and mentor-on Tuesday night against Michigan State at Madison Square Garden.

Hurley, now an assistant coach to his younger brother Dan at Wagner College, says Coach K, 64, has no plans to call it quits anytime soon.

“I don’t know why he would,” Hurley said. “I know he still has a real passion just in talking to him.

“And then he gets new players. You get new guys who you’re excited about coaching and he takes good care of himself. I don’t see why he would.”

Jim Boeheim (66) and Bob Huggins (58) have been mentioned as coaches who could possibly give Coach K’s record a run for its money, but Hurley doubts it, saying it would have to be somebody much younger, like perhaps a Brad Stevens at Butler.

Stevens, 35, entered this season with 117 career wins.

“I don’t see anyone in his age bracket,” Hurley said of Coach K. “You could see some of the younger coaches, maybe Stevens, someone like that that’s in a great conference that wins big-time.

“But I don’t see anyone of his peers that would.”

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Wearing green Wagner shirts, the brothers spent Monday at St. Anthony, where they both played under their father, Naismith Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley.

A day later, they walked into the St. Benedict’s gym, where Dan spent nine years helping forge the Gray Bees into a perennial national high school power.

“It was weird,” Dan told SNY.tv. “And for me to go back-to-back days, to go St. Anthony [Monday] and to come in [St. Benedict's Tuesday]. I’ve got to put something on Twitter about how strange it is going to your old high school where you have all these memories, and then go back to the place that allowed you to regain your coaching career.

“I mean, this place for me allowed me to be at Wagner right now. If Father Ed didn’t give me the opportunity to come here and build a special program, then I wouldn’t be a Division 1 head coach at Wagner.”

During Hurley’s time at St. Ben’s, he coached a slew of future college and NBA players, including Tristan Thompson, Samardo Samuels, Myck Kabongo, Corey Stokes, Eugene Harvey, Lance Thomas and Aaron Brown.

Now he’s looking to land some of the many talented players on Mark Taylor’s roster. Taylor is in his first year as the St. Ben’s coach and greeted the Hurleys with a smile and a hug.

The Hurleys have already led a dramatic turnaround at Wagner, improving to a 13-win program last season from the five-win season that preceded their arrival.

“I think we took the leap from a five-win program, one of the worst returning teams in the country, to somewhat respectable,” Hurley said. “I think we understand the jump from somewhat respectable to good is a tough leap but we feel we’ve recruited well enough now to do it.”

The Seahawks return their top seven scorers from a year ago and are also blending in some strong talent.

Hurley is especially high on 6-foot-6, 240-pound junior guard Jonathan Williams, a JUCO player from Richmond, Calif.

“He’s been outstanding,” Hurley said of the City College of San Francisco product. “He can play one through four. He’s a high-impact guy for us.”

Wagner also landed 6-8 French forward Hugo Naurais, the first commit for assistant coach Scott Smith.

“He’s been the bigget surprise for us in terms of being better than we thought he would be,” Hurley said.

Mario Moody is a 6-7 forward from East Orange, N.J., who can add a new level of athleticism to the program.

“Mario Moody will bring an athletic element to our program with his length, athletic ability and finishing around the basket,” Hurley said.

6-foot point guard Kenny Ortiz is a former New Jersey Player of the Year who sat out last season after transferring from Southern Miss.

“He looks phenomenal right now,” Hurley said.

For all their recruiting accomplishments, no one knows better than the Hurleys that St. Anthony and St. Benedict’s — along with St. Patrick — consistently produce the top talent in New Jersey.

“I think for us as college coaches now in this area,” Bobby said, “it’s more of a personal statement for us the first two days that we’re out, that we’re going to be at St. Anthony and we’re going to be at St. Benedict’s because those are the kind of programs that we want to be associated with.”

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