NEWARK, NJ—NJIT women's basketball coach Margaret McKeon announced the addition of five student-athletes slated to join the Highlanders as freshmen, continuing their academic and athletic careers in 2011-12.
Two of the newcomers—Denisa Domiterova and Nicole Maticka --hail from Slovakia in Europe. Maticka is a 2011 graduate of Life Center Academy in Burlington, NJ, as well. The other three freshmen are from the United States, including Alyssa Albanese and Kim Tullis, both from Maryland, and Sarah Olson, a resident of Freehold, NJ, who is a 2011 graduate of Howell (NJ) High School.
The recruits from Slovakia all have international experience, having played on age group National Teams as girls.
Domiterova is a 5-foot-9 combo guard from Zvolen, Slovakia, who played for the national u16 and u18 teams in the European championships and who won domestic national championships at both age levels. Maticka, from the national capital, Bratislava, is a 6-foot-4 center who played on her country's u16, u18, and u20 teams. They were coached on the national team by Tibor Vasilko.
Olson, from the Shore area of New Jersey, is a 5-foot-9 guard, while the two Maryland recruits are guards, as well. Albanese is a point guard at 5-foot-4. A resident of Fort Washington, she is a graduate of Elizabeth Seton High in Bladensburg, MD. Tullis, a 5-foot-9 off-the-ball guard, lives in Silver Spring and graduated from Our Lady of Good Counsel HS in Olney, MD.
Here is a closer look at the five newcomers, with comments from Coach McKeon:
Denisa Domiterova was the third-leading scorer (9.2 ppg), fourth-leading rebounder (4.9 rpg) and second in assists (2.8 apg) for the Slovak Republic, which placed second in group play (behind Spain) and in ninth-place overall at the 2010 u18 European Championship.
Playing in eight games at the 2010 competition (she played in the 2008 u16 Euro championships and in the 2009 u18 championships, as well), she reached double-figure scoring in three games, with a high of 19 vs. Slovenia (she also had a pair of 9-point games). Her rebounding high was 10, also vs. Slovenia, for her only double-double of the competition. Other big games included 12 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists vs. Hungary and 9 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists against Russia. Domiterova made 15 3-pointers in the eight games and shot 75 percent on free throws.
Said Coach McKeon, who scouted the European u18 Championships in person: “She started on her national team and is a floor general who is a great passer and she also possesses deep 3-point range.”
Nicole Maticka will be the tallest player on the NJIT team at 6-foot-4. As a senior at Life Center Academy in South Jersey, she posted strong numbers in 2010-11, including one that jumps out in particular—4.9 blocked shots per game. Maticka had a high of 12 blocks in one game (against Academy of the New Church from PA) and seven other games with at least five blocks.
She also checked in with averages of 9.7 points, 6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.3 assists per game. Her scoring high was 18 points vs. Girard College, a boarding school from Philadelphia, and her rebounding high was nine against The Hun School of Princeton, NJ.
Said Coach McKeon: “She's a 6-4 post who is mobile and skilled for her size. She's a shot blocker who can sprint the floor and will be able to rebound. She also has a nice shooting touch and can make shots from 3-point range.”
Sarah Olson, the 2011 Howell High School grad, led her senior team to a 21-4 record, an undefeated regular season in the Shore Conference A North and a berth in the semifinals of the Central Jersey Group 4 state sectional tournament.
A member of the National Honor Society, the three-year captain and four-year starter, will enroll in NJIT's Albert Dorman Honors College and major in environmental science.
The A North coaches voted Olson to their all-division team and the News Transcript named her to its all-district first team after she averaged a team-best 11.6 points per game, including 30 3-pointers and a 79 percent success rate at the foul line. An all-conference honoree in earlier years, she also played in the 2011 Shore Conference Senior All-Star Game.
“Sarah is a team player, very coachable,” said McKeon. “She's a 3-point threat and she's also a banger who will set screens. She played on a great AAU team (Central Jersey Hawks), which had seven or eight Division I players and she fit in well in that group.”
Alyssa Albanese, who was a first-team all-county player for Elizabeth Seton High School in Bladensburg, MD, about 10 miles outside of Washington, DC, received an 85 “scouts grade” (described on the ESPN Rise web site as a “player is a multiyear starter at the mid-major level) and three stars (out of five possible) after ranking 79th at her position in the 2011 class from the ESPN unit that covers high school sports and tracks college recruiting.
As a senior, she averaged 10.3 points and shot an impressive .824 (56-68) at the foul line. She had 11 double-figure scoring games, including a high of 26 vs. St. Mary's Ryken. Despite her small stature, she routinely battled her way to at least five rebounds and grabbed 11 in a game against Bishop O'Connell. Adding to her value as a point guard, the position that controls the ball late in games, she never missed more than two free throws in a game and one of those times was a 10-for-12 effort in the season opener against St. Vincent Pallotti, as part of a 22-point game.
Assists, which will be a key component of her game, are not normally an official stat in high school, but most accounts from her high school career and her AAU play with the Maryland Terps club, praise her ability as a ballhandler and passer.
“Alyssa has great vision and a flair to her game that makes her a crowd-pleaser,” commented Coach McKeon. “She fits the style we want to play and she's someone who can advance the ball and also shoot threes. We like the fact that she's played in winning programs in high school and AAU and she's played alongside and against Division I players, which has prepared her for the next level to help us.”
Kim Tullis who also hails from the DC suburbs of Maryland (born in Cheverly, resides in Silver Spring), is one of those players who comes to college having been a complementary player on a loaded high school team. Her senior team at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Olney, MD, posted a 29-5 overall record in 2010-11 and was the 12th-ranked team in the country and second in Maryland on the authoritative web site maxpreps.com (ESPN Rise listed her team 48th nationally).
Tullis was an honorable mention all-conference selection in the WCAC, where her team was 15-3. Her high scoring game was 13 points in a season-opening win against Bullis School, which went on to a 21-7 finish.
“She's a player where the stats don't tell the story of how good she is,” said Coach McKeon. “Kim is a fierce competitor who is a great defender and she is one of those unselfish players who does the little intangibles. She's played on great high school and AAU (Maryland Flames) teams and she's going to be a great asset to us here at NJIT.”
In describing what will be the NJIT Women's Basketball Class of 2015, McKeon, who built an NCAA Tournament qualifier in her previous head coaching stop at Boston University and earlier assisted on numerous postseason teams, including one that made the Elite Eight in the NCAAs, conveys a strong sense of optimism. “There are real impact players in this group and they are the kind of players we want,” said the coach. “They are all competitors. And this group knows basketball--they have a high basketball IQ. That will make a big difference for us as we build this program.”
