NJIT Men's Basketball; Coach Engles Still a National Story
Things have quieted a bit since the days immediately following NJIT's stunning upset, 72-70, over #17/#16 Michigan. But the Highlanders and their coach, Jim Engles, have stayed on the minds of the sports news media, nationally and locally.
John Feinstein, the acclaimed sportswriter, best-selling author and commentator, wrote about the Highlanders for his column in the Washington Post on January 3 with the headline:
NCAA basketball season already has shining moments for NJIT, Incarnate Word
Wrote Feinstein:
But NJIT over Michigan? Even Highlanders Coach Jim Engles didn't give much thought to winning. "I thought we'd benefit just playing the game, just having our guys take time to look at tape of them," he said. "We run a lot of [Michigan Coach] John Beilein's stuff and seeing it up close with players that talented I thought would help us. It was supposed to be a learning experience."
Instead, it turned into a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Michigan was ranked No. 17 nationally going into the early December game and clearly didn't take NJIT seriously until it was too late. The final was 72-70. …
… For now, Engles and his players will be content with the memory of a remarkable afternoon in Ann Arbor. "When we got back to campus, there were kids waiting for us to celebrate," Engles said. "When we beat St. Francis [N.Y.] a couple nights later the place was packed and the kids rushed the floor to celebrate the Michigan win.
"I told our players not all great moments come in the NCAA tournament, that this was something we'd all remember the rest of our lives."
Harvey Araton of the New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize nominee and an award-winning writer and reporter in New York since 1970, well as the author of several books, including a New York Times best-seller, has noticed NJIT basketball and written about it before.
His first story, written in 2011, was about NJIT's membership in the Great West Conference, a league that would cease operations following the 2012-13 academic year.
Working from the perspective of that story back in 2011, he had a perfect chance to revisit the Highlanders, who as an Independent, stunned Michigan.
Washington Post Full Story
Araton wrote:
Giant-Killer N.J.I.T. Stands Alone, Without a Conference
NEWARK — One day after the New Jersey Institute of Technology made a rousing statement for a Division I basketball team playing out of its league despite not actually being in one, Pete Maranzano noticed an odd message among the explosion of Twitter responses to the Highlanders' 72-70 upset Saturday of then-No. 17 Michigan.
A man named Jeremy Bronson had posted, "@NJITBookstore, heads-up — you're gonna be mailing a LOT of t-shirts to a city called East Lansing this week."
Maranzano, who manages the N.J.I.T. bookstore inside the campus center, thought it was just a good line from an acerbic Michigan State fan. Then he arrived at work Monday morning and found six pages of online orders for the school's red-and-black T-shirts and sweatshirts.
"On a typical Monday, there's usually orders for two or three shirts," said Maranzano.
The New York Times Full Story
Zach Braziller of the New York Post, the seventh-most widely-circulated paper in the United States, came to NJIT cover the first Highlanders home game after the Michigan upset (Dec. 9 vs. St. Francis Brooklyn). What he saw was a thrilling 68-66 win for NJIT in front of a standing room only crowd in the Fleisher Athletic Center.
Braziller captured the joyous night this way:
Buzziest program in college hoops waited 8 years for this
March Madness can wait. This was a Delirious December night in Newark that New Jersey Institute of Technology won't soon forget.
The chants — "NJIT, NJIT" — began as soon as the Highlanders entered the gymnasium. With every positive play, the capacity crowd erupted, the 1,500-seat Fleisher Athletic Center exploding like the game was on the line with each shot, rebound or defensive stop. ….
…"I almost got emotional when I walked into the gym and saw my big face in the stands," Engles said. "That was better than Crisler Arena [where Michigan plays]. That's what I want. That's seven years right there.
"That's building something in the community. The emotion you saw in that gym is true emotion, that's true joyous emotion.
"I think everybody experienced it."
Students at the small Newark school, known as one of the country's elite research institutions, have jumped on the bandwagon. When the team returned from Michigan, more than 200 were waiting for them. …
New York Post Full story
Dana O'Neil, one of the national college basketball writers for ESPN.com, has mentioned the Highlanders in several columns since the win at Michigan. At the end of the 2014 calendar year, the informal end of "nonconference" play, with most teams making the transition to conference play from January on, she wrote a wrap-up of the season to that point in ESPN.com's regular "Four Corners" feature.
Nonconference winners, losers
… Little guys: Who says you have to wait until March to pull off an upset for the ages? Not Texas Southern, Incarnate Word, Stony Brook or New Jersey Institute of Technology. …
… Nonconference coach of the year: Jim Engles. Since every game is a nonconference game for NJIT, this is something of a misnomer of an honor. Still, Engles deserves it. The Highlanders, the lone Division I team without a league, beat Michigan for a game and Villanova for a half (O'Neil was among the reporters covering the game at then-#7 Villanova on December 23; which NJIT led by as many as seven points in the second half)
Full column
Writing in USA Today, Nicole Auerbach focused on the Highlanders as part of her story:
Expect college hoops upsets to keep coming; intimidation factor is gone
For a half at least, it looked like the New Jersey Institute of Technology was about to pull off yet another stunner. Last week, the Highlanders led No. 7 Villanova at the break, aiming for their second win against a top-25 team this season.
That bid ultimately fell short; the Wildcats' talent proved too much to overcome….
… NJIT became a household name after beating then-No. 16 Michigan in Ann Arbor on Dec. 6. There was a rash of orders for logo-bearing T-shirts at the NJIT bookstore, with many coming from fans of Michigan's biggest rivals in East Lansing and Columbus.
"We've been trying to legitimize this for a long time," Engles said. "One win does it. … It gives us the recognition that we need to continue to keep the program moving forward — and for the school to get the recognition nationally it deserves, I think it's tremendous."
NJ.com, the website of the Star-Ledger and several other New Jersey newspapers and now part of NJ Advance Media, put the Highlanders in pretty good company as part of its year-end feature
The top N.J. sports heroes of 2014
…NJIT: It's the upset of the season, maybe of several seasons, and one that gives us a reason to smile in a down year for local hoops. Jim Engles and NJIT, the team without a league, stunning Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Among others named: Derek Jeter, who completed his surefire Hall of Fame career with the Yankees in 2004: Martin Brodeur, who did the same as the long-time face of the NHL New Jersey Devils; Tim Howard (NJ product and US National men's soccer World Cup team goalkeeper), and Odell Beckham, Jr., the rookie sensation for the NFL Giants.
