3,000 point club: Three highest scorers in New Jersey boys basketball history
ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. (BVM) — It’s a huge milestone for high school basketball players to score at least 1,000 points or even 2,000 — let alone 3,000 career points. It’s been well over a decade since any New Jersey boys basketball player has joined the 3,000 point club: the players in this exclusive club all graduated between 1968-2005.
There’s only three boys basketball players in New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) history to have scored at least 3,000 career points, according to data collected by NJ Advance Media. Honorable mention goes to Reggie Welch who missed the mark by a slim margin with 2,938 points on his record before he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School (Camden, New Jersey) in 1992. He went on to play for Cleveland State University and Coppin State College before playing professional ball with Roche-St Etienne in France’s Pro B.
No. 3 – Paul Gause (3,144 points)
Paul Gause was a 6-foot point guard who graduated in 2005 from Arthur P. Schalick High School (Pittsgrove Township, New Jersey) with 3,144 points on his scoring record. That year, Gause averaged 34 points a game and seven rebounds. He led the team to their first Group I state championship game, but the team fell short of the title. The team lost 69-66, but it was Gause alone who scored more than half of those points for his team.
On top of basketball, however, Gause was also on the football and track teams. He was an all-state cornerback, a sprinter and a high jumper. He went on to focus on the sport of basketball with the Seton Hall Pirates. During his junior season in 2008, he unfortunately experienced a knee injury that ended his collegiate athletic career in its tracks.
Gause continued to pursue basketball a couple of years later when he signed a professional contract with USC Freiburg in Germany’s Pro A. Most recently, he played for Seton Hall in the 2018 edition of The Basketball Tournament. The team was eliminated in Game 2, but Gause, who by this time was in his early 30’s, averaged 11.5 points and 5.5 rebounds each game.
No. 2 – John Somogyi (3,310 points)
John Somogyi of St. Peter’s High School (New Brunswick, New Jersey) held on to the No. 1 spot in New Jersey for just over 30 years before it was broken. The 5-foot-11 guard had a stellar senior season as he averaged 35 points a game for a whopping total of 3,310 career points by the time he graduated in 1968.
Somogyi became one of the best shooters that the state of New Jersey has seen at both the high school and collegiate levels. Although he played at the University of New Mexico and was the 1969 National College Freshman Player of the Year, he ultimately returned to play again in New Jersey. After transferring to Rutgers, he scored 1,000 career points in 50 games.
After college, Somogyi took on basketball head coaching jobs rather than furthering his professional playing career. For his lasting impact as a player and coach, Somogyi was inducted into the Rutgers’ Hall of Fame and the NJSIAA Gallagher/Bollinger Hall of Fame.
No. 1 – Dajuan Wagner (3,462 points)
Dajuan Wagner rounds out the top of the list with the most points scored in New Jersey high school boys basketball history. The 6-foot-2 shooting guard has a 20-year unbeatable record with 3,462 points scored by the time he graduated from Camden High School in 2001. His summative average in four years is 34 points a game. In a senior season game, he scored 100 points against Camden County Tech.
All these years later, New Jersey boys athletics has seen nothing like him in terms of point-scoring abilities. On the national scale, he’s currently ranked by MaxPreps as one of the best high school boys basketball scorers of all time at No. 70.
For his collegiate career, Wagner played with the Memphis Tigers for just one year and proved himself yet again, especially after he scored 32 points in a game against Old Dominion. Wagner is the only New Jersey player to have scored at least 3,000 high school career points and also make his debut in the NBA. He was drafted sixth overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2002 NBA Draft, but left the team a few years later after health problems. In 2006, he signed with the Golden State Warriors, but the team ultimately bought out his contract after his failed comeback.
