NJIT Men's Basketball Gameday Center The City of New York is one of the world's most popular destinations during the Holiday Season and the NJIT men's basketball team is crossing the Hudson River to visit the Big Apple for three straight mid-December games. The Highlanders went to Brooklyn Thursday night and brought back a 92-86 overtime win over St. Francis Brooklyn. Now, they visit Columbia in Manhattan,
The renewal of the series with Columbia, which has been dormant since January 2009, will take the Highlanders to Manhattan Saturday night; and NJIT will go to Queens to challenge NYC's marquee college team, St. John's, on Sunday, December 20.
NJIT plays the first of three straight away games leading up to Christmas. The games will all take place in three boroughs of New York City, starting with St. Francis (Brooklyn), Columbia (Manhattan) on Saturday, and St. John's (Queens) on December 20.
Streaming coverage of the game at Columbia is available on the websites of the two competing teams. Streaming TV coverage provided by the
Ivy League Digital Network (pay per view) is on the Columbia website
(www.gocolumbialions.com) as well as on
www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com, Matt Provence, voice of the Highlanders, will have the audio call of the game live on the
Highlander Sports Network, which can be found on www.njithighlanders.com.
To access coverage at NJIT's official athletics website (
www.njithighlanders.com), go near the middle of the home page and find the
NJIT TV section. Click
Upcoming Events for a list of scheduled NJIT contests. After finding the event, click the camera icon to the far right of the event listing. That links you to the Ivy League Digital Network portal. For NJIT's audio webcast, find the speaker icon on the same row of the event listings and you will be connected to NJIT's Stretch Internet portal.
NJIT at COLUMBIA SATURDAY NIGHTThe Highlanders and Lions met once a year for three seasons starting in 2006-07, NJIT's first year of Division I competition, but the series has not been contested since 2009.
Jim Engles, who got his first college head coaching job when he was named to lead NJIT's program on April 10, 2008, was on the Columbia bench as the top assistant coach for the first two games in the series. The third meeting was the 16th game for Engles as NJIT's head coach.
The Highlanders' struggles in their early years of reclassification to NCAA Division I from Division II are well-documented. However, some observers may have forgotten that NJIT won its first two Division I games, taking the 2006-07 season opener at
Manhattan, a program that won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season title the previous season. Next, NJIT scored a convincing 63-52 victory in the first Division I home game against
Rider, whose star center
Jason Thompson, who would become the 12th player picked in 2008 NBA draft and who is in eighth season in the league as a member of the champion Golden State Warriors.
It wasn't until the third Division I game that NJIT lost and the opponent was Columbia, which defeated the Highlanders 73-60 in the first round of a tournament hosted by the Lions. The following season in Newark, Columbia won by 12 and the series went on hiatus following a 73-50 victory for the Lions in New York on January 9, 2009.
A LOOK AT COLUMBIA (6-5)The Lions are yet another quality foe for NJIT, which has played two nationally-ranked teams in its first 10 contests, as well as four other teams that advanced to postseason play last March.
The senior-laden team has played an extraordinary number of close contests already, losing by 3 in overtime to Northwestern of the Big Ten; by one in overtime at Fairfield, by one in regulation vs. Longwood and by two against well-regarded Saint Joseph's. Most recently, the Lions edged 2014-15 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion Manhattan on Wednesday night, 72-71.
The Lions have four men averaging in mid-double figures, ranging from 15.3 points per game for leader
Maodo Lo to 12.4 ppg for
Grant Mullins.
Columbia is a good offensive team, scoring 79.1 points a game and connecting on better than 46 percent of its shots from the floor. Not unlike NJIT, the Lions are dangerous and active from 3-point distance, having attempted 298 (27.1 per game) and made 112 (10.2) from downtown (NJIT is averaging 23.2 attempts and 8.7 made from downtown in 10 games).
The coach of Columbia,
Kyle Smith, took over his post in May 2010 after serving for 18 seasons at the Division I level. His 2013-14 Lions won 21 games and played in the 2014
CollegeInsider.com postseason Tournament (CIT) breaking a postseason drought that had dated back to 1968-69.
Columbia team stats and leaders:Scoring (team 79.1 ppg; +7.3 ppg):
Maodo Lo (6-3, Sr; 15.2 ppg);
Alex Rosenberg (6-7, Sr; 14.5 ppg);
Luke Petrasek (6-10, Jr; 13.2 ppg);
Grant Mullins (6-3, Sr; 12.4 ppg)
Rebounding (team 35.3 rpg; +2.5 rpg):
Isaac Cohen (6-4, Sr; 5.7 rpg in 7 games);
Petrasek (4.7 rpg)
Assists: Mullins (36);
Lo (34)
Blocks: Petrasek (10)
Steals:
Lo (25)
3-pt FGM: Lo (29)
A LOOK AT NJIT (6-4)NJIT is aiming to even its road record at 3-3 when it travels into Manhattan to visit Columbia. The Highlanders, who beat South Florida in Tampa in the second game of the season, got their second road win Thursday night at defending Northeast Conference regular season champ St. Francis Brooklyn.
The 92-86 overtime victory at St. Francis was highlighted by a progam-first two double-doubles, as junior forward
Tim Coleman combined a career-best 27 points with 12 rebounds and senior guard
Ky Howard notched a career-high tying 23 points and added 10 boards to the cause, as well as a team-best 5 assists.
Damon Lynn and
Rob Ukawuba scored 15 apiece, as well.
NJIT team stats and leaders:Scoring (team 78.2 ppg; +3.6 ppg):
Damon Lynn (5-11 Jr; 17.9 ppg);
Tim Coleman (6-5, Jr; 15 ppg);
Ky Howard (6-4, Sr; 13.2 ppg);
Winfield Willis (6-0, Sr; 10.3 ppg)
Rebounding (team 35.3 rpg; -1.8 rpg):
Coleman (7.1 rpg);
Howard (5.38rpg);
Assists: Howard (39);
Lynn (31)
Blocks: Vlad Shustov (6-9, So; 8);
Coleman (7)
Steals:
Coleman (18);
Lynn (9);
Howard (10)
3-pt FGM: Lynn (36)
