NJIT Men's Basketball CollegeInsider.com National Tournament Gameday Center
 

Game 32	Army West Point (19-13) at NJIT (17-14)
Opening round	2016 CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT)
Date/Time	Wednesday, March 16, 2016/ 7:30 pm
Location/Venue	Newark, NJ/ Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center (1,500)
Live Coverage	ESPN3 streaming telecast (WatchESPN app; www.watchespn.com)  Matt Provence (play-by-play); Rob Kennedy (analyst)
Live Stats	In-game statistics (free)
Buy Tickets Online	NJITTix.com
Social Media	@njithighlanders
All-Time Series	Tied, 3-3; (most recent: NJIT won, 89-85 at Army; Nov. 15, 2013)
Game Notes	NJIT notes / Army notes

 
NJIT's CIT Promo (Video)

March Madness Resumes, as Highlanders, Black Knights Open Play in the 2016 CIT
Both teams having taken their shots at winning their respective conference postseason tournaments, will get back in action on Wednesday night in the opening round of the 2016 CollegeInsider.com national tournament.
 
Army won a game in the Patriot League tournament before falling to eventual champion Holy Cross on March 6. NJIT last played on March 1, when it fell to Stetson in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament. Stetson would advance to the A-Sun title game, where it lost in overtime to Florida Gulf Coast.
 
No one knows the impact of a more than two-week layoff, but there's a good chance it will prove beneficial to the Highlanders, who played the final weeks of the regular season and the A-Sun Tournament with key players either out completely or playing below their full capacity due to a variety of injuries.
 
With a chance to press the reset button ahead of the 2016 CIT, NJIT is aiming to recapture the kind of magic that pushed the Highlanders to three wins and a semifinal berth in the 2015 CIT.

Tickets are on sale
A sellout is expected in the 1,500-seat Fleisher Athletic Center and Highlander fans are urged to get their tickets in advance to avoid being shut out.
 
Follow this link for details on advance ticket purchases.
 
Live coverage on ESPN3
The game will be shown live on ESPN3 with Matt Provence, voice of the Highlanders, on play-by-play, with analysis from Rob Kennedy.

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.

Previewing NJIT vs. Army West Point; March 16, 7:30 pm, Fleisher Athletic Center
 
A look at Army West Point (19-13)
Whereas this marks the second-consecutive appearance in the CIT for the Highlanders (17-14), it marks the Black Knights' first trip to the postseason in 38 years since they appeared in the 1978 National Invitation Tournament (NIT).
 
Army, a member of the Patriot League, finished the regular season with a 19-13 record -- and now has an opportunity for a 20-win season for the first time since that 1978 campaign and for the fifth time in the program's 113-year history. The coach in 1978 was Mike Krzyzewski, who would lead the Black Knights for two more seasons before heading to Duke.
 
He guided Army to its last 20-win season (20-8 in 1976-77) and the last 20-win season before that was 22-6 in 1969-70, when the team was coached by another future Hall of Famer, Bob Knight.
 
The Black Knights earned a No. 4 seed in the conference tournament this season and defeated Colgate, 79-72, in the quarterfinals before falling at home to eventual tournament winner Holy Cross, 60-38, in the semifinals.

Being away from West Point might actually be an advantage for the Blacks Knights. With an 11-5 road record this season, Army tied for the fourth-highest road win total in D-I this season -- trailing the nation's leader, Monmouth (13-4), by just two road victories.
 
The Black Knights also sport a 2-1 all-time record in Newark, including a dramatic, 63-60 victory at Fleisher Athletic Center on Nov. 18, 2010 -- which featured a game-winning, 45-foot jumper at the buzzer by Jeremy Hence.
 
This season in the Patriot League, Army had three all-league players, headed by First Team senior Tanner Plomb, who led the PL in scoring at 19.8 ppg. Additionally, the Black Knights had representation on Second Team in senior Kevin Ferguson, who was also an All-Defensive selection, and on the Third Team in senior Kyle Wilson. Wilson is just six points away from becoming the fourth player in academy history to score 2,000 career points.
 
The superb subplots extend to the sidelines. Army Head Coach Zach Spiker, who owns 102 career wins during his seven years guiding the Black Knights, is one win away from moving past the legendary Bob Knight (1965-71) for sole possession of the second-highest win total in program history.
 
In addition to their matchups as head coach of Army and NJIT, respectively, Spiker and Jim Engles of the Highlanders, had overlapping coaching tenures as assistant coaches in the Ivy League, with Spiker serving at Cornell, while Engles was coaching at Columbia.
 
Army West Point team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 77.2 ppg; +2.5 ppg): Tanner Plomb (6-7, Sr; 19.8 ppg); Kyle Wilson (6-4, Sr; 16.2 ppg); Kevin Ferguson (6-10, Sr; 13 ppg)
Rebounding (team 40.7 rpg; +4 rpg): Ferguson (9.4 rpg); Plomb (6 rpg); Larry Toomey (6-6, Sr; 5.7 rpg)
Assists: Dylan Cox (6-4, Sr; 135)
Blocks: Ferguson (43)
Steals: Plomb (24)
3-pt FGM: Wilson (96); Plomb (71)

The Series
NJIT and Army have split the six meetings since the Highlanders' transition to Division I for the 2006-07 season. Although the all-time series sits tied at 3-3, NJIT has won the last three contests including the most recent showdown -- an 89-85 win at Christl Arena on Nov. 15, 2013. The Highlanders also own a 3-1 advantage during the reign of eighth-year head coach Jim Engles.
 
Beginning with Army's last win in the series on Jeremy Hence's 45-foot buzzer beater that lifted his team to a 63-60 victory on Nov. 10, 2010, every game in the series has been a thriller. … On Nov. 30, 2011, the Highlanders got their first win in the series, 54-53, despite going scoreless for the game's last 3:43. A last-second Army layup try rolled off the rim as the buzzer sounded. … The next year, on Dec. 12, 2012, Chris Flores scored a layup at the buzzer for a 69-67 NJIT win in a game the Highlanders trailed by 12 with 3:06 remaining. … And in the most recent meeting, on Nov. 15, 2013, NJIT came away with an 89-85 come-from-behind victory at West Point, led by 27 points from Damon Lynn, who was playing his third college game and set a then-program record for points by a freshman. Kyle Wilson, then a sophomore, scored 26 in defeat for Army.  

A LOOK at NJIT (17-14)
NJIT had a season-best 5-game winning streak from January 30 through February 13 that lifted the Highlanders into a 3-way tie for first in the A-Sun.
 
Then came a first-place showdown at North Florida and NJIT was clobbered, 107-71. Two days later, the Highlanders visited the third team that began the weekend in the first-place tie and the NJIT scored a 73-58 win, which resulted in a 3-way tie for second place with FGCU and Jacksonville.
 
Finally, NJIT visited USC Upstate and trailed nearly the entire game. Down 20 near the midpoint of the second half, NJIT rallied and took its first lead, 71-69, on a Chris Jenkins 3-pointer with less than 7 seconds remaining. However Malik Moore hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer on the other end, marking the second time this season that Upstate defeated NJIT on the final shot of the game with less than a second left.
 
Seeded #2 in the A-Sun Tournament, with a home game in the quarterfinal, NJIT suffered a disappointing upset loss against #7 Stetson, a team the Highlanders beat twice in the regular season. Stetson, as it turned out, was on a special run, following the win at NJIT with another one at Lipscomb before finally falling in the A-Sun title game at Florida Gulf Coast, 80-78 in overtime.
 
With just over two weeks to regroup, NJIT is home in the Fleisher Athletic Center, where it was 3-0 in last season's CIT and where the Highlanders are 24-8 over the last two seasons combined.

NJIT, which finished second in the Atlantic Sun Conference, boasts a First-Team All-Conference performer in junior Damon Lynn, who ranks fifth in the league in scoring at 18.3 points per game.

Lynn needs just 13 points to break his own NJIT single-season record for scoring (578), which he set as a sophomore last season.

Another junior, Tim Coleman, is a mere six points away from becoming the sixth player in NJIT history to reach the 1,000-point career milestone.

NJIT team stats and leaders:
Scoring (team 75.5 ppg; +1 ppg): Damon Lynn (5-11 Jr; 18.3 ppg); Tim Coleman (6-5, Jr; 13.7 ppg); Ky Howard (6-4, Sr; 12.9 ppg);
Rebounding (team 34.7 rpg; -1.7 rpg): Coleman (7 rpg); Howard (4.7 rpg);
Assists: Howard (134)
Blocks: Coleman (25)
Steals: Lynn (51)
3-pt FGM: Lynn (99)

How to watch NJIT sports programming on ESPN3
ESPN3 is the live platform for 22 NJIT men's basketball games so far this season. Every NJIT game in the Atlantic Sun Conference throughout the regular season and into the A-Sun postseason tournament was 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.
 

#NewarksTeam