NJIT Men's Basketball Gameday Center
 

Game 29	NJIT (16-12; 7-5 A-Sun) at Jacksonville (16-13; 8-4 A-Sun)
Date/Time	Saturday, February 20, 2016/ 7 pm
Location/Venue	Jacksonville, FL/ Swisher Gymnasium (1,500)
Live Coverage	ESPN3 streaming telecast (WatchESPN app; www.watchespn.com)  Live audio: www.njithighlanders.com; Matt Provence, pbp
Live Stats	In-game statistics (free)
Social Media	@njithighlanders
All-Time Series	NJIT leads, 1-0 (NJIT, 83-63, at NJIT, January 21, 2016)
Game Notes	NJIT Game Notes / Jacksonville notes

 
The game will be shown live on ESPN3.
  
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.
 
Matt Provence, voice of the Highlanders, will have the audio call of the game live and free of charge on the Highlander Sports Network, which can be found on www.njithighlanders.com (no charge). Access the audio feed by clicking the speaker icon on the NJIT TV Upcoming Events listing for the Jacksonville game.  

Atlantic Sun Conference Game: NJIT at Jacksonville (Saturday, 7 pm)
Three teams entered play Thursday night leading the A-Sun standings with 7-4 records in-conference. They were: NJIT, defending champ North Florida, and Jacksonville.
 
North Florida pounded NJIT, knocking the Highlanders back down the proverbial hill and into a third-place tie with Florida Gulf Coast. Jacksonville, meanwhile, beat USC Upstate, allowing Jacksonville to remain tied with its crosstown rival, North Florida.
 
Needless to say, the loss at North Florida was a bitter disappointment for the Highlanders, who had reached the top of the standings behind a season-best five-game winning streak only to get knocked back down the hill in a couple of hours..
 
Saturday's game at Jacksonville is the next-to-last in the regular season for NJIT, so time is short. The only hope left for the Highlanders to finish first is if they win both remaining games (at Jacksonville and at USC Upstate on February 25) and North Florida loses to Upstate on Saturday and then to Jacksonville on the 25th.
 
A North Florida win or an NJIT loss will eliminate the Highlanders from a shot at first place and the top seed in the upcoming A-Sun Tournament, which will determine the A-Sun representative in the NCAA Tournament.
 
Jacksonville needs a win over NJIT Saturday in order to make next week's finale vs. UNF a showdown for the regular season championship.
 
First meeting
NJIT scored a wire-to-wire 83-63 victory over visiting Jacksonville … NJIT's Damon Lynn led all scorers with 20 points, collecting 17 of them in the second half on the strength of 6-for-7 shooting from the floor that included 4-for-5 on 3-point tries.
 
Lynn led a parade of five double-figure scorers from the Highlanders, who got 14 apiece from Ky Howard and Rob Ukawuba, while Tim Coleman and Terrence Smith each chipped in 10 points (Ukawuba and Smith both missed NJIT's game at North Florida due to injuries sustained last weekend).
 
Coleman, the versatile junior forward, pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds—11 on the defensive end—to pace NJIT, which held a 43-32 advantage in total rebounds over the visiting Dolphins.
 
Howard, the senior point guard for the Highlanders, made 5 of 6 shots, including both of his 3-point tries and also connected on his two free throws. He added 4 assists.
  
In addition to winning by 20 points and outrebounding the visitors, NJIT put up an impressive assists-to-turnovers ratio of 24-to-11, coupled with assists on three-quarters of its baskets (24 assists on 32 field goals).
 
Jacksonville's top scorer Thursday night was junior swing man Marcel White with 19 points, 18 of which came on his six 3-point field goals. Junior JR Holder added 12 points for JU. … Kori Babineaux and classmate Josh Adeyeye were the top rebounders for the Dolphins with 7 apiece.
 
A LOOK at JACKSONVILLE (16-13; 8-4 A-Sun)
Picked to finish fifth out of eight teams in the A-Sun coaches' preseason poll, Jacksonville is A-Sun's surprise team, entering the final week of the regular season tied for first place.
 
Since losing the conference opener at UNF, the Dolphins won 7 of the next 8, with the only loss in that span coming at NJIT in January. A much better team at home than on the road, JU lost a couple of away games last week.
 
However, the Dolphins came home to historic Swisher Gymnasium and beat Upstate on Thursday and pushed their record at home to 12-0.
 
The head coach is Tony Jasick, who is in his second season. Prior to Jacksonville, he headed the program at IPFW, where he was 2014 Mid-Major Coach of the Year.
 
Senior guard Kori Babineaux was the Atlantic Sun Newcomer of the Year in 2014-15 after playing two seasons of junior college ball in his native California. He was a unanimous pick by the A-Sun coaches for the preseason all-conference team.
 
Jacksonville team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 76.4 ppg; +1.1 ppg): Kori Babineaux (6-4, Sr; 18.9 ppg); Marcel White (6-6, Jr; 16 ppg); Darius Dawkins (6-7, R-Jr; 13.9 ppg)
Rebounding (team 38.4 rpg; +0.4 rpg): White (5.7 rpg); Babineaux (4.9rpg); Antwon Clayton (6-6, So; 4.6 rpg)
Assists: Babineaux (116)
Blocks: White (23)
Steals: Fernandez (48)
3-pt FGM: White (76)
 
A LOOK at NJIT (16-11; 7-4 A-Sun)
The less said about Thursday's loss at North Florida with a share of first place on the line, the better, from NJIT's point of view.
 
For the record, the top scorer for the Highlanders on Thursday was Chris Jenkins (16 points), while Ky Howard has 13 points, 5 rebounds and a team-best 6 assists. Damon Lynn also scored 12 and senior Emmanuel Tselentakis was the top rebounder with seven.
 
A loss by NJIT would eliminate the Highlanders from any chance of finishing in first place in their inaugural season as members of the Atlantic Sun Conference.
 
They will end the regular season at USC Upstate on February 25 and will play the last two games with an eye toward clinching home court for the quarterfinals of the A-Sun Tournament, which begins on March 1 at campus sites, with the top four seeded teams hosting in the opening round.
 
NJIT team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 76 ppg; +1.1 ppg): Damon Lynn (5-11 Jr; 18.2 ppg); Tim Coleman (6-5, Jr; 13.8 ppg); Ky Howard (6-4, Sr; 13.4 ppg);
Rebounding (team 34.9 rpg; -1.3 rpg): Coleman (7 rpg); Howard (4.7 rpg); Terrence Smith (6-6, Jr; 4.3 rpg)
Assists: Howard (124)
Blocks: Coleman (25)
Steals: Lynn (47); Coleman (41)
3-pt FGM: Lynn (96)
 
How to watch NJIT sports programming on ESPN3
ESPN3 is the live platform for at least 23 NJIT men's basketball games this season. Every NJIT game in the Atlantic Sun Conference throughout the regular season and into the A-Sun postseason tournament will be covered on ESPN3. 
 
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.