Wildcats Consider Scifo 1,000-Point Scorer

His name won’t end up on the banner as a 1,000-point scorer. But Vinny Scifo has certainly left his legacy in the Wilmington basketball program.

The Wildcat senior was on pace to cruise past the milestone scoring mark, climbing to 801 career points early in the year. But a shoulder injury ended his career prematurely early and kept him from officially becoming a part of school history. 

On Tuesday night when the team ends its season against Billerica, a group of the school’s 1,000-point scorers will be honored. The athletic Scifo won’t be one of those players. But if you ask his teammates and head coach, they don’t need a banner to remember the offensive powerhouse Scifo was during his basketball career.

“It was just terrible that he had to lose his senior season,” said fellow senior Tim McCarthy, who was the team’s leading scorer in Scifo’s absence. “We still consider him a 1,000-point scorer.”

Head coach Joe Maiella said he recently looked back at statistics from Scifo’s sophomore and junior years, and they were impressive numbers. After playing sparingly as a freshman, Scifo dropped home an average of about 18 points per game the next two years.

“He knows how to score, that’s for sure,” said teammate Cole Peffer. “He’s smaller than all of us, but he could always jump higher than anyone on the team. His jump shot, he could just get above anybody and score at will, whenever he wanted.” 

The remarkable thing about Scifo is that basketball isn’t even his first sport. This fall he will attend UMass, where he hopes to recover physically and play for the Minutemen baseball team in the spring. 

“His athletic ability is through the roof,” said McCarthy. “Basketball wasn’t even his No. 1 sport and he was still going to be a 1,000-point scorer. He doesn’t work at it as much as he does for baseball, and he was still our best player.”

On and off the court, Scifo is soft-spoken. McCarthy even joked that he doesn’t believe he’s ever heard Scifo talk on the floor. He just goes about his business. 

What impressed Maiella most about Scifo was the character the senior showed after his injury. Even though he knew he would miss the entire season, and baseball season as well, Scifo still was with the team during games and practices all year.

Maiella said it will be a bittersweet night on Tuesday as the team honors 1,000-point scorers of the past, while one who fell just short sits nearby. Still, the Wildcat mentor will always remember Scifo as one of the top players he’s coached. 

“He does everything the right way,” said Maiella. “It’s a shame what happened to him. The whole plan was to have his name up there on the banner, but sometimes things don’t work out like that. When he goes to UMass, he’s going to have a great career. The good thing about Vinny is that this isn’t the end of the road for him.”