Skip To Main Content

New Jersey Institute of Technology Athletics

Scoreboard

New Jersey Institute of Technology Highlanders
Sponsored by:

Men's Basketball

Men’s Basketball is Back Home to Host Dangerous Duquesne Wednesday Night

Duquesne (9-9) at NJIT (9-13); January 29, 7 pm; Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.

The Highlander (above) and all the other loyal NJIT fans will get a chance for an in-person look at NJIT men's basketball, which is home Wednesday at 7 pm vs. Duquesne for just the second time since before Christmas
Live to live streaming video and audio play-by-play from Matt Provence on NJITHighlanders.com (subscription charges apply)
 
Live stats link (free)
 
NEWARK, NJ—NJIT men's basketball, which played eight of its nine games between December 23 and January 27 away from home, gets to host a game on Wednesday at 7 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center, when the Highlanders welcome Duquesne, a member of the powerful Atlantic 10 Conference.
 
Matt Provence, voice of the Highlanders, will have all of the action here on www.NJITHighlanders.com, with coverage beginning at least 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled 7 pm tip.
 
That Duquesne, a Catholic University in Pittsburgh, and a member of the highly-regarded A-10 is playing on NJIT's home court is an extremely unusual circumstance in the world of current college basketball.  Typically, teams from the more highly-regarded conferences (the Atlantic 10 is rated seventh among the 35 NCAA Division I conference in the latest Sagarin computer ranking published by USA Today) are selective in their scheduling and rarely leave their home court for non-conference games against lesser-known teams.
 
For example, Syracuse has played only four of its 19 games to date on another team's court and its only non-conference road game was against St. John's at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where the Orange have a huge following and have for decades, hardly a home court advantage for St. John's.
 
Duquesne, in its second year of building under Coach Jim Ferry is an exception to the rule of the teams from the power conferences being risk averse about visiting smaller programs. Duquesne has played non-conference road games at Saint Francis (PA), at UMass Lowell, at Texas Pan American, and now, at NJIT.  
 
UTPA, like NJIT, was a member of the Great West Conference, which ceased existence on July 1, 2013. With the Great West gone, the Highlanders and Broncs aren't meeting this year. However, NJIT and Duquesne have four common foes this season. NJIT beat New Hampshire, which beat Duquesne; UAlbany beat NJIT twice (once in Albany and once in Newark), but lost to Duquesne; Saint Francis lost to both NJIT and Duquesne by similar margins (by 7 to Duquesne and by 8 to NJIT); and UMass Lowell also lost to both the Highlanders and the Dukes (by 18 vs. Duquesne and by 11 vs.NJIT).
 
Duquesne, which began the season 3-5, ran off a five-game winning streak before dropping four straight from January 12 to 22. The fourth loss in the slide gave a glimpse of where Duquesne is headed under Ferry, who built powerhouses in the New York City area, first at Division II Adelphi on Long Island and then in Division I at LIU Brooklyn, which he guided to back-to-back Division I Tournament appearances.
 
The Dukes play in the difficult Atlantic 10, which has two teams in the National Top 25. Duquesne, which can become a Top 25 team if it succeeds in the A-10, isn't there yet. However, the Dukes went toe-to-toe with a Top 25 team on January 22, when they lost to #19 Saint Louis, 76-72, in a game where Duquesne held a lead in the closing minute.
 
Duquesne's tallest starter is 6-foot-8, but the Dukes start two of them, with two more 6-foot-7 men and a 6-11 on the bench.
 
One of the big starters is 6-foot-8 senior transfer Ovie Soko, who hails from London, England. He averages a team-best 17.8 points to go with 7.5 rebounds. The other 6-8 starter, junior Dominique McKoy, leads the team in rebounding (7.6 rpg), while adding 10.6 points on 64.6 shooting from the field (as a point of reference, NJIT's Terrence Smith, who is extremely accurate, is 24th nationally and makes 58 pct of his shots, significantly under McKoy's rate). On the outside, 6-foot-2 sophomore guard Micah Mason is connected on better than 60 percent of his tries (35-of-57) from 3-point distance. His classmate, Derrick Collier, an A-10 All-Rookie honoree last season, is young, but game experienced, having started all 48 games in his college career.
 
NJIT will counter with a lineup that had four double-figure scorers in its come-from-behind overtime win at Delaware State Monday night. In that game, freshman Jake Duncan led all scorers with 19 points, 15 of which came on five made 3-pointers.
 
Sophomore Ky Howard, with strong second halves last weekend at Penn and then at Delaware State, has 29 points, 12 rebounds, and 9 assists in those two games combined.
 
The aforementioned Smith is NJIT's top inside presence, averaging 12 points and a team-best 6.3 rebounds. He had 11 points and 9 rebounds at Delaware State.
 
NJIT's top scorer for the season is another freshman, guard Damon Lynn, who averages 17.3 points and ranked fourth in the latest NCAA Division I rankings in 3-point field goals made per game (3.9).
 
Lynn's next 3-pointer will tie him for the school single season record in that category (84). The record was achieved first by Clarence Pierce in 1994-95 in 30 games for an NJIT team that went 28-2 and reached the NCAA Division III Elite Eight. Pierce's mark stood lone until 2012-13, when Ryan Woods (NJIT Class of 2013) matched it in 28 games. Lynn, with 83 triples to date, will be playing his 23rd game when he faces Duquesne.
 
Print Friendly Version