All-time series tied, 2-2; NJIT won both meetings last season
Live streaming video and live audio play-by-play from Matt Provence (subscription fees apply)
Live stats link (free) NEWARK, NJ—NJIT and Maine will come into Monday night's contest hungry to put their new seasons on track when the ball goes up at 7 pm in the Fleisher Athletic Center.
NJIT comes home for its first 2014-15 game in the Fleisher Athletic Center having lost the season opener at St. John's of the BIG EAST Conference on November 14 in Queens, NY, 77-58. In that one, the Highlanders got off to an extremely slow start, falling into a 25-8 hole barely 8 minutes into the game. Trailing 37-19 at the half and falling behind by as many as 22 early in the second half, the Highlanders rallied back to within 12 points of the lead with 9:36 left, but could not get closer.
Maine, too, opened on the road against a team from the BIG EAST. Playing in Indianapolis against Butler, the Black Bears trailed at halftime, 43-27, and fell back farther in the second half, eventually losing, 99-57.
The main theme for Maine men's basketball is the arrival of a new head coach,
Bob Walsh, who comes in after Maine went 6-23 last season. Walsh, who spent 11 years as a Division I assistant coach, followed that with an extremely successful run as a head coach in Division III at Rhode Island College. In 9 seasons at RIC, his teams were 204-63 (.764 winning percentage) and made 8 consecutive appearances in the NCAA Division III Tournament.
Walsh cut his DI teeth as an assistant coach at the University of San Diego, Iona, and then 7 years at Providence before heading his own program at Rhode Island College.
In Saturday's loss at Butler, freshman guard
Aaron Calixte shared the team scoring lead with 12 points. Another freshman guard,
Kevin Little, who hails from Long Island, added 9 points against Butler.
Two veterans who generated points for the Black Bears in their season opener were sharp-shooting senior wing
Zarko Valjarevic (12 points) and junior forward
Till Gloger (8 points). Valjarevic's 6 rebounds led the Black Bears.
Valjarevic, from Serbia, scored 14 points for Maine in an 88-82 home loss to NJIT last November 19 and when the teams met again in Newark on December 4, 2013, he scored 19 points, including 5-for-10 on 3-pointers as NJIT completed a sweep of the two-game season series with an 81-72 victory.
NJIT had three double-figure scorers against St. John's, led by sophomore
Damon Lynn's 15 points. Lynn who averaged 17.2 points, the most ever by an NJIT player in Division I competition, as a freshman.
Junior
Ky Howard, who came off the bench at St. John's, scored 11 points and led the Highlanders on the boards with 7 rebounds vs. St. John's.
Senior
Daquan Holiday had a strong second half, scoring all 10 of his points for the game after the halftime intermission. It was the fourth time in his career that Holiday scored as many as 10 points against a Division I opponent. He added 5 rebounds to his opening-game line.
Sophomore
Tim Coleman, another forward, chipped in 9 points and 5 rebounds.
Their contribution, along with a few others inside, is important in the absence of junior forward
Terrence Smith, who did not play vs. St. John's due to a preseason injury he has been rehabbing.
Smith, who was third in the nation last year with an NJIT Division I-record field goal percentage of 62.9 percent (154-245), had two standout games last season against Maine. In the first meeting he had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds and in the home game vs. the Black Bears, he scored 22 points on 9-for-10 shooting from the field and also pulled down 8 rebounds. Coleman, then a freshman, had 13 points and a game-best 9 rebounds in that game.
Matt Provence will handle play-by-play in conjunction with the live streaming video feed on
www.njithighlanders.com
