NEWARK, NJ—NJIT men's basketball, which has played 12 of its 16 games to date on the road, will play nine of its next 12 contests at home, beginning with a Wednesday night visit to the Fleisher Athletic Center from a rugged and talented Maryland Eastern Shore squad.
The game Wednesday night is part of a special day/night split doubleheader on Fleisher Family Court, with the NJIT women hosting Texas-Pan American in an 11:30 am "Education Day" tilt. Admission to both games is free to NJIT faculty and staff as well as to NJIT students with valid ID.
The Hawks, who play in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), will invade Newark having won seven of their last nine games, including the last three straight and five of the last six.
Teams from the MEAC typically play a substantial number of their pre-conference games away from home against teams from high-level conferences. Maryland Eastern Shore is no exception and the Hawks will come to Newark as a road-tested team that has played in front of four away crowds of 5,200, or more.
At 8-8, UMES has already topped the 6-24 mark it posted last season. But the Hawks are a significantly different program from a season ago when one of their losses was a 77-76 home defeat at the hands of NJIT on February 19, 2014.
At the top,
Bobby Collins is in his first season as Maryland Eastern Shore's head coach. A veteran of the MEAC as both an assistant coach and head coach at Hampton and as head coach at Winston Salem State when that school was in the MEAC, Collins also led WSSU in Division II, where it was ranked as high as #7 in the nation during the 2012-13 season.
On the court, the two leading Maryland Eastern Shore scorers are new, as well.
The top scorer is
Michael Myers, who hasn't caused as many nightmares as his fictional namesake from the slasher movie series "Halloween". Still, the real Mike Myers likely has kept some opposing coaches awake as they try to devise game plans to contain the 6-foot-9, 245-pound senior who averages 14.5 points and 6.4 rebounds while connecting on better than 61 percent of his shots from the field.
A graduate of Camden High School in South Jersey, Myers was junior college All-American as a sophomore in 2011-12. He did not play in the intervening two seasons, but has burst back onto the scene this season. He has scored in double figures 12 times in the last 13 games, including double-doubles in the last two, both UMES wins (24 pts, 14 rebs at Duquesne; 14 pts, 10 rebs at UT Martin).
The second-leading scorer is junior transfer
Devin Martin, a native of Baltimore who played junior college basketball at Monroe College in the Bronx. Martin, a big guard, averages 12.2 points.
Devon Walker, a returnee who scored 21 vs. NJIT last year, averages 9.8 points this season and has made a team-leading 36 3-pointers. Martin, the junior transfer, has made 30 threes and freshman
Ryan Andino (6.6 ppg) has made 27, giving the Hawks a trio of deep threats to augment Myers' inside presence.
Maryland Eastern Shore and NJIT have several opponents in common this season—
--Nationally-ranked Villanova (beat UMES, 81-44; beat NJIT, 92-67)
--Saint Francis U (beat UMES, 57-53; lost to NJIT, 77-65)
--UMBC (lost to UMES, 65-52; lost to NJIT, 70-55)
--Duquesne (lost to UMES, 78-69; lost to NJIT, 84-81)
Later, on back-to-back days in February, NJIT will host Maryland Eastern Shore's fellow MEAC members Hampton (Feb. 2) and Delaware State (Feb. 3) and the Highlanders will close the regular season schedule at Howard of the MEAC on March 4 in Washington, DC.
Wednesday's game in Newark will be the fourth in the all-time series between the two programs. UMES won the first two (46-42 on Dec. 6, 2008 in Maryland and 73-67 on Jan. 28, 2009 in the Prudential Center). NJIT won last year in Princess Anne, MD, 77-76.
The Highlanders are aiming for the first three-game winning streak of 2014-15. On Dec. 6 and Dec. 9, they defeated #17/#16 Michigan and St. Francis Brooklyn in consecutive games, but then lost two straight.
Now, they have back-to-back wins over Saint Francis U (Dec. 30 at home) and at UMBC (Jan. 2) ahead of this formidable challenge from Maryland Eastern Shore.
The Highlanders have three men averaging double-figure points—sophomore
Damon Lynn (17.8 ppg) and juniors
Ky Howard (12 ppg) and
Winfield Willis (10.5 ppg). Howard leads the team in rebounding (5.9 rpg) and assists (67). Lynn's 27 steals top the Highlanders, while
Daquan Holiday and
Tim Coleman shared the team lead in blocks with 22 each.
Coleman, the versatile sophomore, has scored at least 12 in each of his last four games, while making
21-of-35 shots (60 pct) of his shots from the field. He also has 7 blocks and 7 steals in the same span.
Matt Provence is on the call for all 29 games this season, describing the action live on the Highlanders Sports Network here on
www.njithighlanders.com.
