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NEWARK, NJ—One of the hottest men's basketball teams in country, North Carolina Central University, comes to Newark for a 7 pm game Tuesday against NJIT in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center, as the Highlanders bring down the curtain on their 2013-14 season.
 
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. The coverage, which is available by subscription, can be accessed as a single game pass ($6.95).
 
The visiting Eagles are not especially well-known on the national scene, but they have a chance to be one of those teams that always seem to emerge during the NCAA Tournament.
 
At this point, it's premature, since North Carolina Central still has to win its conference tournament to get a spot in the Big Dance. Still, with the schedule winding down, NCCU is having a special season with a 21-5 record that has grown with a 13-game winning streak that has seen the Eagles go unbeaten since a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference loss all the way back on January 11.
 
Playing in the MEAC, a conference comprised of 13 historically black colleges and universities along the East Coast as far north as Baltimore and Dover, Delaware, and as far south as Florida, NCCU is in the driver's seat for a first-place finish and a guaranteed spot in the National Invitation Tournament. The Eagles are 12-1 in conference play with three games left and there are three other teams in a tie for second with 9-3 marks.
 
But the Eagles have gone beyond their dominant run in the MEAC, a conference that generally sends one team to the NCAA Division I Tournament.
 
One November 20, they went to North Carolina State and defeated the Wolfpack, 82-72 in overtime. NC State has gone on to build a 17-10 record. That game was the first time NC State had ever lost to a team from the MEAC and the first time NCCU, which began Division I play in 2007-08 after having been a power at the Division II level (1989 national champion), had beaten a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
 
Like most teams below the level of the power conferences, NCCU has played all of its games against those power teams on the road. The Eagles lost all of them aside from NC State, dropping games at Cincinnati, Wichita State, and Maryland. Against Wichita State, which is still unbeaten (the only one in Division I), NCCU trailed by just 7 points with 2:19 remaining before falling, 77-66.
 
At Wichita State, Eagle senior Jeremy Ingram scored 37 points, one of four times he has scored at lead 30 points this season, while averaging a team-best 19 points per game. Alfonso Houston (10.1 ppg) is the only other NCCU player averaging double figures, but a deep veteran roster includes numerous players capable of producing on a given night.
 
When the Eagles scored a decisive 71-55 win over NJIT in the first-ever meeting between the programs on January 16 in Raleigh, NC, Ingram, playing 20 minutes and scored 10 points. But two others scored in double figures and three others added at least 7 points.
 
In that game, big (6-7, 255) junior Jay Copeland was a force, scoring 13 points and grabbing 10 rebounds despite playing just 20 minutes due to foul trouble. He averages 8.6 points and a team-leading 6.3 rebounds for the season.
 
Running the show is senior point guard Emmanuel Chapman, who has 178 assists and just 67 turnovers on the year, while averaging 6.2 points and 4.2 rebounds. His 6.8 assists per game are sixth in the nation.
 
For all the impressive offensive stats, the Eagles are a defense-first team, holding their opponents to 37.9 percent shooting from the field (4th in Division I) and allowing just 59.4 points per game (10th in Division I).
 
The Eagles received a vote in the latest national Associated Press Top 25 poll (one of eight "also receiving votes").
 
When NCCU hosted NJIT, the Highlanders shot 37.2 percent and scored 55 points, a shade under what the Eagles typically allow. In that game, Damon Lynn (19 points) was the only Highlander individual with more than 6 points.
 
Lynn, NJIT's top scorer, averaging 17 points heading into the final game of his freshman year, moved into elite company in national Division I history, raising his season's total for 3-point baskets made to 105. That total is fifth-highest by a freshman in Division I as we near the end of the 28th season with the 3-point shot as part of the playing rules. The record is 122, set by current NBA All-Star Stephen Curry, when Curry was a freshman at Davidson in 2006-07.
 
With his 105 threes in 28 games, Lynn is fourth nationally this season with 3.75 3-point field goals made per game. The three players ahead of him in the national race are seniors.
 
Also high up in the national statistical rankings is NJIT sophomore Terrence Smith. The second-leading scorer (12.4 ppg) and leading rebounder (6 rpg) for the Highlanders, Smith is fourth nationally in field goal accuracy (62.7 percent; 151-241). Smith, who has been accurate all season, has turned it up even more lately, connecting on 44-of-54 shots (81.5 percent) over the last seven games.
 
Ky Howard leads NJIT in assists (105), while Lynn is the team leader in steals with 29.