Robbinsville boys basketball coach Conor Hayes swears that Tyler Bunnell hasn’t lost a sprint in the school gym in more than two years. There was a time this season when Hayes tried to give someone else a chance at practice by yelling “Go!” when Bunnell was tying his shoe. It was to no avail. “Everyone was like three quarters of the way across the court before he started that 30-second sprint, and he beat everyone still by about six steps,” Hayes said. “It’s just the mindset of, ‘I will not lose a rep.’ He’s just been an absolute joy to coach.” Hayes, who has been the head coach for 10 seasons and played basketball in his youth, says Bunnell is a Division I-bound athlete in part because his competitiveness is above anyone he has ever been around. The 6-foot-4 senior is committed to the University of Pittsburgh as a baseball pitcher, and yet he set Robbinsville’s basketball scoring record on Jan. 3 when he netted 15 points in a win over West Windsor-Plainsboro North. He now has 1,242 career points dating back to his freshman year, when he got significant varsity minutes before becoming a full-time starter as a sophomore. The record was formerly held by Bunnell’s older brother, Evan, who graduated in 2024 with 1,142 points. “It means a lot; obviously passing my brother was a big accomplishment,” Bunnell said. “It wasn’t my main focus. My main focus was going out and getting the win, doing what it takes to get the win for my team. If it means scoring points, I’ll do that more. If it means getting boards and moving the ball, that’s what I’ll try to do.” It was a special moment because Evan, now a sophomore at NYU, attended the game while on winter break. Bunnell said his brother and his father have been teasing him at home about when he would finally break the record, which was a near certainty coming into the season because Bunnell needed only 113 points. “I think it starts with both Mr. and Mrs. Bunnell. They have raised two amazing young men,” Hayes said. “I loved coaching Evan also, and that’s who he beat the record from — his own brother — but they have done a phenomenal job with both those young men, and I’ve just been fortunate to be along for the ride. I’m very thankful that he loves basketball as much as he does and he’s with us this year.” That Bunnell is playing basketball right now might be a surprise to some spectators. Despite verbally committing to Pittsburgh in October of his junior year, he never had any intention of sitting out his senior year of basketball in fear of injury to protect his scholarship. “Basketball has always been important to me,” Bunnell said. “Basketball and baseball are both my first sport. When anyone asks me, I always say, ‘They’re both my first sport. I don’t have one.’ Even though I’m going to college for baseball, I love basketball, I love competing with the people I’ve grown up with. It’s great.” Bunnell is averaging 19 points and 10 rebounds this season and believes he also could have been a college basketball player had he put his mind to it. But he’s a teenager who can throw a fastball in the low 90s, so his upside on the diamond was too great to ignore when Pittsburgh recruited him early. “Honestly, it was the coaches for me,” Bunnell said of his commitment to the Panthers. “I took a visit there. They were great, showed me around the campus. I loved the campus. I met some of the players. The players were great. The atmosphere just seemed like a place I wanted to join.” Until then, he wants to help Robbinsville compete for a CVC championship and make another state tournament run. The Ravens won at least 15 games in each of Bunnell’s first three seasons and are 6-5 so far this winter. Reflecting on Bunnell’s growth from the time he became a focal point of the team as a sophomore, Hayes marvels at his improvement on defense. “It was definitely a concern early on, especially because we did have to rely on him as a starter as a freshman,” Hayes said. “It was something that was a little raw, especially in middle school you do have a tendency to play a little bit more zone, and we have tried to stay as true to man only as possible. When you’re the big guy, there’s a lot of responsibilities in there: communicating, knowing what to do on pick and roll coverages, knowing what to do in help coverages. And that’s really where his game has continued to grow to the next level.” Always a team player, Bunnell never thought about reaching such a high point total as a freshman. He simply wanted to take it game by game and year by year. “It was never my focus to score that many points,” Bunnell said. “I just want to have good seasons with my team, make a far run in the playoffs and everything. And it led me to the scoring title.” That mentality is why Bunnell is a player whom his coach won’t ever forget. “He’s been an absolute pleasure to have in our gym for the last four years,” Hayes said. “He just works his hardest at all times. It doesn’t matter whether it is Saturday at 8 p.m., whether it’s Tuesday at 4 p.m., whether it’s on the road at a 9:30 a.m. game — he is always going to be Tyler Bunnell and bring his maximum effort and maximum abilities.” ...read more read less