2015-16 Men's Basketball Schedule

NEWARK, NJ—What to do for an encore a season after winning a record 21 games, defeating nationally-ranked Michigan, and advancing to the semifinals of the 2015 CollegeInsider.com national postseason tournament?
 
NJIT men's basketball will answer that question with a loaded 2015-16 schedule announced today by head coach Jim Engles.
 
The Highlanders have 30 games on the regular season and more than half are against teams that qualified for 2015 national postseason tournaments. Added to those postseason teams is a game at Yale, which shared the Ivy League title, but lost a one-game playoff with co-champ Harvard by two points with a spot in the NCAA Tournament going to the winner.
 
NJIT has five non-conference games scheduled against 2015 NCAA Tournament teams, headlined by the season opener at Kentucky on November 14. The Wildcats won every one of their first 38 games in 2014-15 before falling to Wisconsin in the Final Four.
 
Other 2015 NCAA Tournament participants on the 2015-16 NJIT non-conference schedule are: Lafayette (Patriot League Tournament champion); UAlbany (3-time America East champion); Providence; and, St. John's.
 
St. Francis Brooklyn, which played in the 2015 National Invitation Tournament; Stony Brook (College Basketball Invitational); and, Kent State (CollegeInsider.com Tournament) are the other postseason teams set face the Highlanders in non-conference games this season.
 
Beginning with a January 9 home game against USC Upstate, NJIT will have 14 games (seven home and seven away) in the Atlantic Sun Conference, which officially admitted the Highlanders as the eighth full member of the A-Sun, effective July 1, 2015.
 
The new conference offers the Highlanders six more games against 2015 postseason qualifiers, two each against A-Sun champ North Florida (NCAA); Florida Gulf Coast (CIT); and, USC Upstate (CIT).
 
"This year's non-conference schedule is going to be a terrific challenge for us as we enter our first season in the Atlantic Sun," said Engles.  "We have a great mix of national powers and local mid-major rivalries that will highlight the slate.
 
"Many of these non-conference opponents have either participated in postseason last year or will be preseason picks to win their respective conferences this season. I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that will arise to help us compete in the Atlantic Sun."
 
The season-opening game in Rupp Arena against Kentucky is the first of four games for the Highlanders in the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic, sponsored by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
 
After playing the Wildcats in Lexington, KY, on November 14, NJIT will head to Tampa and the University of South Florida for the next game in the Hall of Fame Classic (Nov. 16).
 
NJIT will continue in the Hall of Fame Classic with the home opener on Thursday, November 18, when the Highlanders host Boston University, coached by Joe Jones, who was formerly head coach at Columbia, where was assisted by Jim Engles, who was on the Lions staff from 2003 until taking over as head coach of the Highlanders in April 2008.
 
The Highlanders will break from the Hall of Fame Classic for two non-conference games against a pair of 2015 NCAA Tournament teams. The first is home (Nov. 21) against Lafayette, which won last season's Patriot League Tournament. Lafayette, which has faced NJIT every season but one since 2006-07, edged the Highlanders 76-71 last Dec. 28. After that defeat, NJIT posted a 16-3 record the rest of the way.
 
After Lafayette comes the first of two games against Big East Conference teams, when the Highlanders visit Providence (Nov. 23). The Friars, 22-12 last season, including the NCAA berth, last faced the Highlanders in the 2012-13 opener and Providence prevailed, 64-63.
 
Finally, NJIT wraps up the Naismith Hall of Fame Classic with a trip to UAlbany for a November 27 game.
 
The intense early season slate continues with a block of three home games, starting with Maine Fort Kent visiting the Fleisher Athletic on November 29, followed by UMass Lowell on December 5 and first-time opponent Kent State on December 7. Like UAlbany, UMass Lowell has played NJIT four times in the previous two seasons, but will meet the Highlanders once in 2015-16.
 
Kent State, which plays in the rugged Mid-American Conference, won 23 games a season ago and, like NJIT, played in the 2015 CollegeInsider.com Tournament.
 
A four-game stretch from December 10 to December 28 sees the Highlanders take on some of the top Metropolitan (NY) area teams, starting with a December 10 tilt at St. Francis Brooklyn, the 2014-15 Northeast Conference regular season champion.
 
Next comes a December 12 game at Columbia, renewing a series that was last contested in 2009. A break for final exams follows, with the schedule starting up again on December 20 at St. John's, which will play its first season under Chris Mullin, one of the school's all-time great players.
 
After another break in the schedule around the Christmas holiday, NJIT gets back in action at home against Stony Brook on December 28. Posting a 23-12 record last season, the Seawolves lost the America East championship game by a single point and then played in the College Basketball Invitational postseason tournament.
 
Two days later, NJIT will play in Loretto, PA, at Saint Francis. Last season, also on December 30, the Highlanders won at home vs. Saint Francis, sparking the run of 16 victories over the last 19 games.
 
The big push continued last year in Maryland with a victory over UMBC and this season the Highlanders will host the same UMBC Retrievers on January 2, 2016 to begin the calendar year.
 
NJIT's non-conference schedule will end on January 6 in New Haven, CT, with a game at Yale, which won a share of the 2014-15 Ivy League championship.
 
The rest of the way, from January 9 on, the Highlanders will play in their new conference, the Atlantic Sun. The Highlanders will take on each of the other seven A-Sun members—Florida Gulf Coast, Jacksonville, Kennesaw State, Lipscomb, North Florida, USC Upstate, and Stetson--home-and-home.
 
The Atlantic Sun Conference home slate begins when the Highlanders host USC Upstate on January 9. Jacksonville (January 21), 2015 A0Sun champion North Florida (January 23), and Lipscomb (January 27) will all visit Newark within a week in late January. There will be a similar block of home conference games in February, with Kennesaw State (February 6), Stetson (February 11), and Florida Gulf Coast (February 13) making their first conference trips to New Jersey.
 
An added feature of play in the Atlantic Sun is that the postseason conference tournament is played at on-campus sites, with the higher seed serving as the host. That means a team could host as many as three A-Sun Tournament games, with the prize being an automatic spot in the NCAA Tournament.
 
NJIT, aiming to improve on its record-setting 2014-15 season, is a program on the rise. But the Highlanders are not alone in that respect among Atlantic Sun men's basketball programs. With the addition of NJIT, which reached the 2015 CIT semifinals, the Atlantic Sun can boast that fully half of its current men's basketball teams played in national tournaments last March.
 
Last season, North Florida, based in Jacksonville, captured its first A-Sun regular season title in the sport and followed that with the A-Sun Tournament championship and the accompanying spot in the NCAAs. In addition to North Florida, FGCU (CollegeInsider.com Tournament) and USC Upstate (also in the 2015 CIT) made national postseason play.