NJIT leads the all-time series, 2-1
 
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NEWARK, NJ—NJIT men's basketball aims to return to the .500 mark early in the season, as the Highlanders entertain UMass Lowell on Saturday at 2 pm in the Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
Both teams come into the game with 1-2 records, with the Highlanders having lost the season opener at St. John's last Friday, come back with a 90-86 win in the first home game of the season, a victory over Maine, and then a 65-48 loss two nights later at two-time defending America East Conference champion UAlbany.
 
UMass Lowell, which is playing its first games of the young season away from home, lost at Ohio State, a national power that won 25 games a season ago. Then the River Hawks lost at Rhode Island of the highly-rated Atlantic 10 Conference. Working its way down the Atlantic Coast, UMass Lowell went from Rhode Island to Connecticut, where it got a 57-54 win at Sacred Heart on Thursday night. And now the River Hawks will visit NJIT before going a bit north and east to visit Fordham in the Bronx on Sunday.
 
Sophomore guard Damon Lynn leads the Highlanders with 15.3 points per game, including a season-best and game-high 20 points the last time out at UAlbany.
 
Ky Howard, a junior guard who has ably manned the point and also played off the ball, is averaging 13.7 points, while connecting on 14-of-19 shots from the floor (73.7 percent). At 6-foot-4, he has led or shared the team lead in rebounding in all three games, with an average of 6.7 per game.
 
Winfield Willis, who scored 20 in the victory over Maine, rounds out the double-figure scoring averages with 10.7 ppg.
 
UMass Lowell
The River Hawks are early in their second season of Division I competition, as they reclassify from NCAA Division II, where they were a power, winning the national championship in 1987-88 and reaching the 2004 Elite Eight and 2006 Round of 16 at the DII level.
 
Pat Duquette (11-20, 2nd year) is the head coach. Previously, he was associate head coach at Northeastern for 3 years after 13 years at Boston College under long-time head coach Al Skinner.
 
UMass Lowell is 1-2, but that doesn't tell much since one loss came at national power Ohio State, which won 25 games last season and the other loss was at Rhode Island. The River Hawks won Thursday at Sacred Heart, 57-54.
 
Last season, its first in Division I competition, UMass Lowell finished 10-18, but closed the season at 9-7 after opening the schedule at 1-11.
Facing key graduation losses from last year's team, the two top scorers this year are freshmen. Jahad Thomas, a redshirt freshman out injured all last season, leads the way at 17.3 ppg and a terrific 65.7 field goal percentage.  True freshman Lance Crawford is averaging 11 ppg.
 
Kerry Weldon, a redshirt senior, is the top rebounder at 6 rpg and Thomas, 6-foot-2, averages 5.7 rpg.  Matt Harris, another contributing freshman, is 6-for-14 from 3-point distance.
 
UMass Lowell graduate student guard Marco Banegas-Flores has a family tie to NJIT basketball. His older brother, Chris Flores, a 4-year starter at NJIT, graduated in 2013 as the program's all-time Division I career scorer with 1,724 points. Chris is in his second season of professional basketball in Germany. Marco played 3 years at Northeastern.
 
The series
NJIT leads the all-time series between the programs 2-1, but in Division I it is 1-1. … On Nov. 15, 1998 when both were Division II, NJIT won 57-54. … Last year, the teams played home-and-home and each won the game on its home court (NJIT, 55-44, in Newark on Dec. 7; UMass Lowell, 73-64, on Feb. 3 in Lowell).

Matt Provence will describe all the action live on www.njithighlanders.com.