NJIT Men's Basketball Gameday Center
 

Game 16	NJIT (9-6) at Yale (7-5)
Date/Time	Wednesday, January 6, 2016/ 7 pm
Location/Venue	New Haven, CT/ John J. Lee Amphitheater (2,800)
Live Coverage	Live video: Ivy League Digital Network ($$$)  Live audio: www.njithighlanders.com Matt Provence (play-by-play)
Live Stats	In-game statistics (free)
Social Media	@njithighlanders
All-Time Series	Yale leads 2-1 (last: NJIT won, 78-71 on Jan. 9, 2015)
Game Notes	NJIT notes / Yale notes

 
Streaming coverage of the game at Yale is available on the websites of the two competing teams. Streaming TV coverage provided by the Ivy League Digital Network is on the Yale website (www.yalebulldogs.com) as well as on www.ivyleaguedigitalnetwork.com (a pay per view subscription is required ).
 
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 (no charge).
 
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 YALE WEDNESDAY at 7 pm
NJIT, a member of the Atlantic Sun Conference for the first time this season, wraps up the pre-conference portion of the schedule with a trip to Yale, which is a good team playing its best basketball of the season.
 
The Highlanders, who are 4-4 in away games, with two of the road losses coming against teams ranked Top Nine in the latest national polls (Providence is #8 and Kentucky is #9 in Associated Press poll and the positions are flip-flopped in the USA Today Coaches poll). A third away loss came by 1 point to 3-time defending America East Conference champ UAlbany and the fourth came at Columbia, with Yale, one of two Ivy League teams on NJIT's schedule.
 
Yale leads the all-time series, 2-1, but the NJIT win came last year at home (78-71 on January 9) in one of the signature victories of the record-setting 2014-15 season for the Highlanders.
 
The first all-time meeting was on January 7, 2009 in the Prudential Center and NJIT visited Yale the following year, with the Bulldogs winning comfortably both times.
 
A LOOK at YALE (7-5)
There's a strong case to be made that Yale was the best team in the country not to make national postseason play in 2014-15. A further case can be made that the Bulldogs were better than a substantial number of  teams that did make it to 2015 postseason tournaments.
 
A big part of that lies in the way the Ivy League conducts championship play. All Division I conferences get an automatic qualifying berth for their champion into the NCAA Tournament. However, the Ivy League is the only league that chooses its champion based solely on regular season play, as opposed to the winner of the conference tournament.
 
In recent years, conference regular season champions have received a guaranteed spot in the National Invitation Tournament as a consolation prize if they don't win the conference tournament or receive an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament.
 
Last year, Yale was 22-9 in the regular season, including 11-3 in the Ivy League, which tied Harvard for the top spot. As a result, Yale and Harvard played off for the Ivy championship and Harvard was a 53-51 winner to earn an automatic spot in the NCAA field.
 
That created a Catch-22. Harvard, having won the one-game playoff, got the champion's berth from the Ivy League into the NCAAs. But there was more than one regular season champ in the Ivy, so the Bulldogs were denied an NIT bid. Ranked #66 out of 351 teams in the final official NCAA Ratings Percentage Index, Yale was also bypassed by the other two national tournaments (College Basketball Invitational and CollegeInsider.com Tournament).  
 
Wednesday night's NJIT game will be the next-to-last for Yale before it goes into Ivy League play. The Bulldogs have convincing wins in their last two games, having belted Connecticut in-state rivals Central Connecticut (62-42 on December 30) and Hartford (88-53 on January 2), both on the road.
 
Veteran coach James Jones is one of the most successful coaches in Ivy League history, having been named Ivy Coach of the Year in 2015 and ranking fourth all-time for most Ivy League victories. He has been Yale head coach since 1999.
 
Yale's marquee player is senior Justin Sears, a 6-foot-8 product of Plainfield, NJ, who was just named Ivy League Player of the Week for the 12th time in his career, making him the all-time leader for winning that award. He is aiming to become a three-time All-Ivy League honoree at season's end.
 
The Bulldogs rely on strong defense and rebounding, as they allow less than 64 points per game and are outrebounding their foes by more than 12 rebounds per game.
 
Yale team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 71.2 ppg; +7.4 ppg): Justin Sears (6-8, Sr; 16.6 ppg); Makai Mason (6-1, So; 16.1 ppg); Jack Montague (6-0, Sr; 9.9 ppg); Brandon Sherrod (6-6, Sr; 9.3 ppg)
Rebounding (team 42.3 rpg; +12.1 rpg): Sherrod (7.6 rpg); Nick Victor (6-5, Sr; 6.9 rpg); Sears (6.7 rpg).
Assists: Mason (51)
Blocks: Sears (21)
Steals: Montague (12)
3-pt FGM: Montague (30)
 
A LOOK at NJIT (9-6)
NJIT has won its last two games, pulling out victories in games it trailed at halftime.  
 
NJIT defeated Saint Francis in Loretto, PA, on December 30 and then won 86-83 in a wild finish at home on January 2 vs. UMBC.
 
Rob Ukawuba came off the Highlander bench for 17 pts to pace the win at Saint Francis. Tim Coleman had 16 pts and 7 rebounds, and Damon Lynn had 12 pts and a career-high 8 rebounds. Freshman Mohamed Bendary added 8 rebounds in 9 minutes of action.
 
Damon Lynn led NJIT with 20 points in the win over UMBC, followed by Tim Coleman and Ky Howard with 19 apiece and Terrence Smith, who made all six of his shots from the field, added 14 points. Emmanuel Tselentakis' 7 rebounds led the Highlanders in that department. Lynn had 6 assists and tied the program record in steals (6).
 
NJIT team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 76.3 ppg; +1.9 ppg): Damon Lynn (5-11 Jr; 17.3 ppg); Tim Coleman (6-5, Jr; 14 ppg); Ky Howard (6-4, Sr; 13.4 ppg);
Rebounding (team 35.5 rpg; -2.1 rpg): Coleman (7.3 rpg); Howard (5.1 rpg);
Assists: Howard (65)
Blocks: Coleman (14)
Steals: Coleman (25); Lynn (23)
3-pt FGM: Lynn (50)