NJIT Men's Basketball Gameday Center
 

Game 9	Kent State (4-2) at NJIT (5-3)
Date/Time	Monday, December 7, 2015/ 7 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); Rob Kennedy (color)
Live Stats	In-game statistics (free)
Social Media	@njithighlanders
All-Time Series	First meeting
Game Notes	NJIT notes / Kent State notes

 
NJIT plays its last home men's basketball game before Winter Break and the opponent, Kent State, is formidable. The Golden Flashes, winners of 23 games a season ago, will invade Fleisher Athletic Center for a 7 o'clock game Monday night.
 
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The game will be shown live on ESPN3 (all remaining home men's basketball games and all Atlantic Sun Conference away games will be live on ESPN3)
 
Matt Provence, voice of the Highlanders, is on play-by-play and Rob Kennedy is on board to provide expert commentary.
 
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.
 
For more details on how to watch NJIT on ESPN3, go to the section at the bottom of this page.
 
KENT STATE vs. NJIT MONDAY NIGHT
NJIT has never faced Kent State. In fact, Kent State is the first-ever men's basketball opponent from the Mid-American Conference (MAC), which consistently ranks in the top half of the nation's men's basketball conferences and sometimes ranks in the top third of conferences.
 
Comprised of 12 large public institutions (Kent State has more than 27,000 students on its main campus),  the MAC is one of 10 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) conferences in Division I.
 
Last season, six MAC men's basketball teams went to national postseason tournaments, including Kent State in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT), whose field also included NJIT, which advanced to the CIT semifinals. In fact, Kent State lost in the CIT quarterfinals at Northern Arizona a few days before the Highlanders fell in the semis, also at NAU.
 
A LOOK AT KENT STATE (4-2)
Kent State, which has appeared in 18 national postseason tournaments (5 NCAA; 9 NIT; 4 CIT) finished last season 23-12 and was the regular-season champion of the Mid-American Conference. This season the Golden Flashes return three starters for fifth-year head coach Rob Senderoff. They are all big men—Jimmy Hall (6-8, 235, Jr), Chris Ortiz (6-8, 225, Sr), and Khaliq Spicer (6-9, 230, Sr).
 
The most recent win for the Flashes came Saturday, 66-62 over Cleveland State, one of three teams defeated by NJIT last March in the 2015 CIT.
 
Kent State's two losses came at Southern Illinois and at perennial national power Pitt. In addition to Cleveland State, the Golden Flashes have defeated Youngstown State, Marist, and Saint Francis (PA).
 
NJIT fans may recall Xavier Pollard, a big (6-4, 210) senior guard for Kent State. Pollard played his first three college seasons at Maine before transferring. Pollard faced NJIT for Maine  and finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds December 4, 2013 in Newark.
 
Kent State team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 74.7 ppg; +4.5 ppg): Jimmy Hall (6-8, Jr; 16.5 ppg); Kellon Thomas (5-11, Jr; 11.5 ppg); Xavier Pollard (6-4, Sr; 11.3 ppg); Khaliq Spicer (6-9, Sr; 10.7 ppg)
Rebounding (team 40 rpg; +9.3 rpg): Hall (8.3 rpg); Spicer (8 rpg); Chris Ortiz (6-8, Sr; 5.7 rpg)
Assists: Hall (19); Galal Cancer (6-2, Gr; 17); Pollard (15)
Blocks: Spicer (9)
Steals: Cancer (8); Pollard (6)
3-pt FGM: Thomas (7); Cancer (7)
 
A LOOK AT NJIT (5-3)
NJIT won its 10th straight home game dating back to last February 16, with a 90-77 victory Saturday afternoon over UMass Lowell, which, incidentally, pulled a stunning upset win at Boston College the next day on Sunday afternoon.
 
The Highlanders are 4-0 on Fleisher Family Court this season and 19-2 at home since the start of 2014-15.
 
NJIT began 2015-16 with a loss at now-#1 Kentucky, bounced back with a win at South Florida and came home to beat Boston University and 2014-15 Patriot League champ Lafayette. The Highlanders lost by 7 points to #23/#24 Providence and then by a single point at three-time defending America East champ UAlbany. They beat Maine Fort Kent before topping UMass Lowell.
 
NJIT team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 75 ppg; +3.1 ppg): Damon Lynn (5-11 Jr; 17.5 ppg); Ky Howard (6-4, Sr; 13.4 ppg); Tim Coleman (6-5, Jr; 12.9 ppg); Winfield Willis (6-0, Sr; 10.5 ppg)
Rebounding (team 33.8 rpg; -1.7 rpg): Coleman (6.6 rpg); Howard (5.4 rpg);
Assists: Howard (27); Lynn (27); Willis (22)
Blocks: Vlad Shustov (6-9, So; 7)
Steals: Coleman (13); Lynn (9); Howard (8); Willis (8)
3-pt FGM: Lynn (31)
 
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.