NJIT Men's Basketball Gameday
 

Game 8	UMass Lowell (3-3) at NJIT  (4-3)
Date/Time	Saturday, December 5, 2015/ 3 pm
Location/Venue	Newark, NJ/ Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center (1,500)
Live Video/Audio	ESPN3, streaming telecast (WatchESPN app, www.watchespn.com)  Matt Provence (play-by-play); Dave Calloway (color)
Live Stats	In-game statistics (free)
Social Media	@njithighlanders
All-Time Series	UMass Lowell leads, 3-2 (3-1 in DI) (last: UML won 71-67 on Dec. 3, 2014).
Game Notes	NJIT notes / UMass Lowell  notes

 
TICKETS CAN BE PURCHASED AT NJITTIX.COM.

NJIT plays the middle game in a stretch of three straight home contests and the Highlanders return to their home on ESPN3 (all remaining home men's basketball games and all Atlantic Sun Conference away games will be love on ESPN3)
 
Matt Provence, voice of the Highlanders, is on play-by-play and former Monmouth head coach and star player Dave Calloway providing expert commentary.
 
For details on how to watch NJIT on ESPN3, go to the section at the bottom of this page.
 
A simple way to find ESPN3 is on NJIT's official athletics website, www.njithighlanders.com. Near the middle of the home page NJIT TV section, click Upcoming Events for a list of scheduled NJIT contests. After finding the event, click the camera icon to the right of the event listing. That brings you to an ESPN3 portal where you can access the desired program.
 
UMASS LOWELL vs. NJIT SATURDAY AFTERNOON
NJIT and UMass Lowell have met just four times in men's basketball as NCAA Division I programs, but there has been interest due to similarities in the institutions and the similarity of their paths into Division I competition.
 
They are both urban public research institutions in the northeastern United States and they both made the move to reclassify to NCAA Division I from Division II since the turn of the 21st century. NJIT began Division I competition in 2006-07 and first achieved Division I championship eligibility on September 1, 2009. UMass Lowell began Division I competition in 2013-14 and is still in the process of becoming Division I championship-eligible.
 
Against that backdrop, NJIT and UMass Lowell played two games against each other, one in Newark and one in Lowell, in both 2013-14 and 2014-15. This season, with NJIT having joined the Atlantic Sun Conference, the teams will meet once, on Saturday in Newark.
 
The teams split the two 2013-14 games, with the Highlanders winning at home in November and the River Hawks winning at home in February. Last season, they played on November 22 and again on December 3 and UML won by 2 points at NJIT and by 4 points in Massachusetts.
 
The December 3, 2014 victory was the sixth win in a row and a high-water mark in DI for the River Hawks. However, they lost 5 of the next 6, suffered some key injuries and finished with a 12-17 record after being 6-2 when they beat NJIT in Lowell.
 
That December defeat dropped the Highlanders won-lost record to 2-5. Next came the trip to Ann Arbor, MI, where, less than 72 hours after losing in Lowell, NJIT stunned #17/#16 Michigan in a game that brought national acclaim to the Highlanders.
 
After departing Lowell with a 2-5 record, the Highlanders went 19-7 the rest of the way in a season that didn't end until the semifinals of the CollegeInsider.com postseason Tournament on the last day of March.
 
A LOOK AT UMASS LOWELL (3-3)
The River Hawks, now in their third season of Division I competition, lost decisively against high-major teams Northwestern of the Big 10 (79-57) and #18 Notre Dame (83-57) and posted two close Division I wins (87-84 over Sacred Heart; 80-77 over Cornell). They also clobbered Division III Wheelock (104-76). UMass Lowell, which is located in northern Massachusetts near the New Hampshire border, opened its swing to the Metropolitan area with a Thursday night game at LIU Brooklyn and lost 84-72, two days ahead of visiting NJIT.
 
Pat Duquette is in his third season with a career head coaching record of 25-37. Previously, he was an assistant coach at Boston College for 13 years and associate coach at Northeastern for the three years immediately preceding his current post at UMass Lowell.
 
Not surprisingly, given their short tenure in Division I, the River Hawks feature a young roster, with eight freshmen, two sophomores, one junior, and two seniors.
 
The top scorer and rebounder is redshirt sophomore Jahad Thomas, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound guard/forward. Thomas' thick, powerful physique and hard-nosed game conjures memories of former NJIT star Isaiah Wilkerson (Class of 2012), who is 6-3, 215 and has been playing professionally since graduation and was 2011-12 Great West Conference Player of the Year as a Highlander senior.
 
Thomas shot 7-for-11 and scored 20 points in last season's second win over NJIT and he is doing similar things this season, averaging 11.8 points and 8 rebounds. Although he is listed as a guard, he has attempted just one 3-point shot, instead doing most of his work closer to the basket.
 
Freshman Isaac White averages 11.3 ppg and freshman Keith Hayes II averages 10.3 ppg. there are three other River Hawks averaging from 9 to 7.7 points.
 
UMass Lowell team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 76.2 ppg; -4.3 ppg): Jahad Thomas (6-2, So; 11.8 ppg); Isaac White (6-0, Fr; 11.3 ppg); Keith Hayes II (5-11, Fr; 10.3 ppg); Ryan Jones (6-3, Fr; 9 ppg); Tyler Livingston (6-6, Jr; 8.5 ppg); Matt Harris (6-1, So; 7.7 ppg)
Rebounding (team 36.5 rpg; -2 rpg): Thomas (8 rpg); White (4.7 rpg)
Assists: Thomas (16)
Blocks: Dontavious Smith (6-8, Fr; 5)
Steals: Mark Cornelius (6-3, Sr; 8); White (8)
3-pt FGM: White (13)
 
A LOOK AT NJIT (4-3)
NJIT got back on the winning track last Sunday afternoon when they defeated Maine Fort Kent by 29 points. That win snapped a two-game skid that had seen the Highlanders lose to #23/#24 Providence by 7 points and to 3-time defending America East champion UAlbany by a single point.
 
Earlier, the Highlanders lost to now-#1 Kentucky in the season opener, but bounced back with three quality wins bringing their record to 3-1. Then came the back-to-back losses at Providence and UAlbany, the first losing "streak" in nearly a year.
 
NJIT team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 75 ppg; +3.1 ppg): Damon Lynn (5-11 Jr; 19.4 ppg); Ky Howard (6-4, Sr; 13.2 ppg); Tim Coleman (6-5, Jr; 12.6 ppg)
Rebounding (team 34.1 rpg; -1.9 rpg): Coleman (6.4 rpg); Howard (5.5 rpg);
Assists: Howard (21); Winfield Willis (6-0, Sr; 19); Lynn (19)
Blocks: Vlad Shustov (6-9, So; 7)
Steals: Coleman (12); Howard (8); Willis (8)
3-pt FGM: Lynn (29)
 
How to watch NJIT sports programming on ESPN3
ESPN3 is the live platform for at least 23 NJIT men's basketball games this season.
 
Starting in January, every NJIT game played in the Atlantic Sun Conference, home and away, throughout the regular season game and into the A-Sun postseason tournament will be covered on ESPN3.  Before that, NJIT and ESPN3 will offer live coverage of every remaining men's basketball non-conference home game.
 
ESPN3 is ESPN's live multi-screen sports network.  It is accessible online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. 
 
The network is currently available to more than 99 million homes at no additional cost to fans who receive their high-speed Internet connection or video subscription from an affiliated service provider. 
 
ESPN3 is also available at no cost to approximately 21 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via computers, smartphones and tablets connected to on-campus educational and on-base military broadband and Wi-Fi networks. That means devices served by NJIT's on-campus computer network can link directly to ESPN3.
 
Others can access ESPN3 through WatchESPN if they receive ESPN programming from an affiliated service provider. Those users need to provide the username and password they use in online communication with their regular service provider (can usually be found on regular billing material from the service provider).
 
Here is a link to Frequently Asked Questions about WatchESPN.