NEWARK, NJ—NJIT men's basketball, fresh from the greatest win in program history, must turn its focus to the present and future starting Tuesday at 7:30 pm when the Highlanders host St. Francis Brooklyn in the Fleisher Athletic Center.
The game vs. St. Francis is part of a doubleheader with the NJIT women, winners of four of the last five games, set to host Hofstra in a 5:30 pm game prior to the men's tilt.
The Highlander men are 3-5 after defeating Michigan, ranked #17 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll and #16 in the USA TODAY coaches poll by a score of 72-70 on Saturday in Ann Arbor.
The stunning upset put NJIT near the top of the national college sports news for the weekend and the story extended to the lead of the New York evening news shows.
But the schedule does not end with a big victory, no matter how huge, in December.
There are 21 games still to play and it begins with the game against an extremely difficult opponent in St. Francis Brooklyn.
The Terriers can identify with NJIT's euphoria in beating a marquee program on the marquee program's home court. St. Francis opened the 2013-14 season with a 66-62 win at Miami (FL), which had won the championship of the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference and reached the 2013 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16. Later in 2013, the Terriers went to the wire at Syracuse before falling 56-50 in front of 23,000 fans at the Carrier Dome.
This season, St. Francis was the choice in the Northeast Conference coaches' poll to win the 2014-15 NEC championship.
On top of that, St. Francis holds a 4-0 record in its all-time series against NJIT. Last December 23 in Brooklyn, the Terriers defeated the Highlanders, 77-65.
This season, St. Francis, which has had just one home game, owns a 2-5 record, but the wins have come in the last two games after an 0-5 start.
The Terriers got on the winning track with a 59-57 win over Tennessee State in the Barclays Classic and they made it two in a row with a 65-54 road win over Liberty in Lynchburg, VA, in their last game.
Senior
Jalen Cannon, a powerful and skilled 6-6, 235 forward, is the lead dog for the Terriers, leading the team in both scoring (13.1 ppg) and rebounding (9 rpg). Cannon and NJIT's senior
Daquan Holiday were teammates and classmates at William Allen High School in Allentown, PA.
Senior guard
Brent Jones is the other Terrier averaging double figures at 12.1 ppg and he leads St. Francis with 30 assists.
Kevin Douglas, a 6-5, 220 senior forward, is second on the Terriers with 5.3 rpg and he is scoring 8.7 points per game. Forward
Antonio Jenifer has been solid (8 ppg, 4.4 rpg) in his first year in Brooklyn after starring at Hagerstown Community College and swingman
Tyreek Jewell averages 7.9 ppg.
No discussion of St. Francis Brooklyn basketball is complete without mentioning head coach
Glenn Braica.
One of the genuine good guys on the New York area college basketball scene, Braica, a graduate of Queens College, spent 15 years as an assistant and associate coach at St. Francis before landing the job as an assistant coach at St. John's. After spending six seasons on the staff at St. John's, Glenn Braica returned to the Terriers as head coach in 2010.
It's an old line about teams reflecting their coach's personality and that's true of Coach Braica's Terriers, who are known for their toughness and intensity.
NJIT, which showed a genuine team effort in the win at Michigan, gets the lion's share of its scoring from guards
Damon Lynn (18.8 ppg),
Ky Howard (12.6 ppg), and
Winfield Willis (10.4 ppg). The trio combined for 54 points and 20-for-32 shooting, including 10-for-15 on 3-pointers.
Howard, one of the top rebounding guards in the nation, leads NJIT on the boards with 7 rebounds per game. He and Lynn are close for NJIT the team lead for assists, 29 for Lynn and 27 for Howard.
One of the keys for NJIT in competing this year has been its rebounding, where the Highlanders, whose tallest starter is the 6-foot-8 Holiday, with three guards in the starting lineup, along with 6-foot-5 forward
Tim Coleman, have more than held their own.
For the season, NJIT has 33.6 rebounds per game to 35.4 rpg for the opponents. Against schools from the big conferences it was 40-46 (-6) vs. St. John's; 37-36 (+1) vs. Marquette; 32-31 (+1); and 26-26 (even) vs. Michigan.
Both Tuesday games will be streamed live on the Highlanders Sports Network (www.njithighlanders.com) with
Michael Ventola calling the women's game at 5:30 pm, followed by
Matt Provence on the call for the men's game vs. St. Francis.
