Dead pro basketball league coming back, will include a Jersey Shore team

Article written by :

Kevin Perrington-Turner

Asbury Park Press

Miss the Nets? Well another professional basketball team is representing the Jersey Shore in a league set to come back from the dead in March 2026.

The United States Basketball League (USBL) is actually resuming operations 17 years after the original version of the league was unable to remain solvent and folded. The New Jersey franchise in the restart will be called the Jersey Shore Breaks and they'll play their home games in the St. Rose High School gym in Belmar.

The head coach will be Shore's own Randy Holmes, who starred at Lakewood High School and Saint Peter's and is the current Jackson Township boys basketball coach.

The Breaks are among 16 teams moving to USBL from The Basketball League, a lower-level pro league.

Eric Gaines, a Belmar resident who's involved in team administration, said he's excited about giving prospects an opportunity to fine-tune their skills and possibly use their time in the Garden State as a launch pad for something bigger.

"Obviously growing up here at the Shore, we were kind of taking a look and always being involved in basketball" through a pro league, Gaines said.

The roster still has openings and tryouts are taking place but one of the slots has gone to Chris Smith, younger brother of former NBA player JR Smith. Chris, 38, played his prep years at Lakewood and St. Benedict's and went on to the University of Louisvile and then a long pro career overseas.

"I've been fortunate as a player," Smith said. "I've played in Kosovo (where) there was like one Wi-Fi service for the whole town. And it's freezing cold. You're in gyms where there's actually no heating system, and if there is a heating system, it takes two days for the gym to heat up."

The Breaks already have 15 non-profits supporting them, in which portions of the proceeds they raise will go back to them. Depending on how things go, there might be a player draft.

"There's a lot of big things that are coming in the next few months so hopefully people like, follow, share us and what have you and we're going to create this buzz in a lot of different ways," Gaines said.