New Jersey Institute of Technology Athletics

Brian Kennedy is in his fifth season as head coach of NJIT men's basketball after serving as NJIT's top assistant under Jim Engles for four seasons (2012-16). He was introduced as the 11th head men’s basketball coach in program history on April 15, 2016. Entering the 2020-21 season, the Highlanders have posted a 126-126 (500) record since Kennedy's addition to the coaching staff in 2012.
 
The 2019-20 Highlanders won nine games, as junior captain Zach Cooks led the ASUN in scoring (19.7 ppg) and earned Second Team All-ASUN honors. NJIT's biggest victory of the season came on the road in Jacksonville as the Highlanders defeated ASUN Regular Season Co-Champion North Florida behind a program-record 37-point performance from junior San Antonio Brinson. 

Coach Kennedy made NJIT history in the 2018-19 season with a 22-13 record, 11 road wins and 13 non-conference wins – all program records. NJIT’s ASUN Championship Quarterfinals win at Florida Gulf Coast marked the program’s first-ever ASUN tournament victory.
 
Kennedy, whose involvement with the sport of basketball literally covers his entire life, is the son of the late Bob Kennedy, a former college and high school coach and the nephew of Pat Kennedy, who was a Division I head coach for 31 years at Iona, Florida State, DePaul, Montana, and Towson.
 
The Kennedy family business, the Hoop Group, began in the Trenton, NJ, CYO in 1963 with summer basketball camps and moved in 1969 to Cherry Valley, PA, and the Pocono Invitational began.
 
In 1991, the Hoop Group acquired the Eastern Invitational camp and renamed it the Hoop Group Elite Camp. A few years later, the Hoop Group began running grassroots tournaments and the subsequent years have seen numerous alumni go on to play in the NBA, including Kobe Bryant, Amar'e Stoudemire, 2010 #1 overall pick John Wall, 2011 #1 pick Kyrie Irving and 13 other first-round picks that year.
 
Numerous legendary coaches have lectured at the camp, including the late Jim Valvano and Hall of Famers Lou Carnesecca, Rollie Massimino, Hoop Group Skills Camp Director Bob Hurley, Bob Knight, and Herb Magee.
 
Kennedy, who played at both Princeton and Monmouth (1990 graduate), took over the family business after graduating from Monmouth in 1990 and was President and co-founder when it was rebranded from the Pocono Invitational to the Hoop Group and became the largest basketball instructional organization in the world.
 
He entered the college coaching ranks in 1997 as an assistant coach at DePaul on the staff headed by his uncle Pat. There, he was part of one of major college basketball's great turnarounds, as the Blue Demons, who won fewer than five games the year before he arrived, made the National Invitation Tournament quarterfinals in 1999 and then the NCAA Tournament in 2000 as a team ranked in the national Top 25.
 
"BK" as he is known to his many friends, was involved in all aspects of the DePaul program and was a leader in efforts that brought in a group named as the nation's top recruiting class in 1998 by The Sporting News.
 
Among the players he helped bring to DePaul five future NBA players: Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, Steven Hunter, Paul McPherson, and Andre Brown.
 
He stepped aside from coaching from 2002 through 2009, when he worked on Wall Street in the financial sector. 
 
He returned to the Hoop Group as Athletic Director, serving in that capacity from 2009 until 2012, when he joined the staff at NJIT.
 
In his first year as an assistant, the Highlanders captured their first Division I league title when they were regular season champions of the old Great West Conference.
 
As with DePaul in his first turn as a college coach, Kennedy spearheaded the recruiting efforts for NJIT and he faced a major task in his first recruiting year, with all three double-figure scorers from the 2012-13 Great West champions graduating in May 2013.
 
Kennedy's first recruiting class (Class of 2017) has gone down as the best to date in the history of the program were vital to the Highlanders men’s basketball reaching unprecedented success.
 
The extremely inexperienced 2013-14 team finished with a 13-16 record. But over the three seasons, the squads won a combined 52 games -- including 20 win seasons in 2014-15 (21-12) and in 2015-16 (20-15). In fact, in each of those two seasons, the Highlanders advanced to the semifinals of the national CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT).
 
In addition, the Highlanders won their first-ever game over a ranked opponent when they upset #17/#16 Michigan in December 2014 and scored their first-ever win over a BIG EAST Conference opponent when they topped St. John’s in December 2015.
 
Two members of that first recruiting class put their names all over the NJIT record books.
 
Damon Lynn, who was picked second-team all-state (all groups) by the Star-Ledger as a senior at Union Catholic High School, became the program's all-time leading scorer on Nov. 11, 2016, and finished his career with 2,153 points. He currently ranks fifth in Division-I history with 434 career three-pointers.
 
Tim Coleman came in the same class, entering NJIT after graduating from St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, NJ, where he played for Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley. At St. Anthony, Coleman was a contributor on teams that won New Jersey state Tournament of Champions crowns following his sophomore and junior seasons.
 
Coleman carried that success into his NJIT career, as he finished as the program's all-time leading rebounder (762) and fourth all-time scorer (1,462). He departed the NCAA ranks as the only active Division-I player with at least 1,400 points, 750 rebounds, 225 assists (244), 150 steals (154) and 135 blocks (135).
 
Coleman and Rob Ukawuba, also part of Kennedy's inaugural recruiting class, are now both playing professionally in the National Basketball League of Canada.
 
In the historic 2018-19 season, the winningest in program history, the team earned its third CIT berth and advanced as far as the CIT Quarterfinals following a first round win as second round bye as one of the top three seeds in the tournament.
 
For the first time in program history, NJIT received its first AP Top-25 Poll vote on Dec. 10, 2018. The Highlanders received one vote for three consecutive weeks (Dec. 10-24).
 
Kennedy’s 2018-19 team earned multiple accolades for their performances on and off the court, including Abdul Lewis (Preseason All-ASUN, First Team All-ASUN), Zach Cooks (Second Team All-ASUN), Shyquan Gibbs (ASUN All-Academic Team, CoSIDA Academic All-District), Diandre Wilson (ASUN All-Tournament Team) and Reilly Walsh (Preseason Fan-Voted ASUN Defensive Player of the Year).
 
Individually, Lewis broke Tim Coleman’s all-time rebounds record (773), eclipsed 1,000 career points (1,015, NJIT & 232 South Alabama), reached 1,000 career rebounds (773, NJIT & 227, South Alabama), broke his own single-game rebounds record versus Jacksonville with 21 boards and set NJIT’s double-double record with 22 in his three seasons for the Highlanders. Cooks also added his name to the record books by tying Damon Lynn’s single-game scoring record (34 points) against Quinnipiac in the CIT First Round and averaged 17.6 ppg, third most in NJIT history.
 
Brian Kennedy is the proud father of four children: daughters Taylor, Tatum, and Kelly; and son Brian, Jr.

(Last Updated: August 2020)