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NEWARK, NJ—After taking a nine-day hiatus from games to wrap up academic duties for the Fall Semester, NJIT will host first-time opponent Holy Cross on Saturday at 2 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
The game will be the final home appearance for the Highlanders in the 2013 calendar year and their last home game until mid-January.
 
Once the Holy Cross game is complete, the Highlanders will hit the road in nine of the next 10 games.
 
But first things first, NJIT must take on a Holy Cross team, which, like the Highlanders, has won exactly half its games.
 
Holy Cross, which first played intercollegiate basketball in 1900, has a long, rich tradition, having won the 1946-47 NCAA championship.
 
Long before it was the "Big Dance", the NCAA Championship was a season-ending 8-team tournament held at Madison Square Garden. Those champion Crusaders closed the season with 23 wins, led by future Hall of Famer Bob Cousy, who might be the first player ever referred to as a "point guard".
 
Although the Crusaders are no longer in position to win a national title, they have continued as a program capable of reaching the NCAA Tournament. In all, Holy Cross has played in 12 NCAA Tournaments, including four in this century, most recently in 2007.
 
Holy Cross, a charter member of the academically-elite Patriot League, which began sponsoring basketball in 1990-91, has won the PL Tournament five times.
 
In addition to the similar split of games on the schedule to date, the Highlanders and Crusaders have remarkably similar offensive and defensive points per game averages. NJIT is scoring 73.2 points per game, while Holy Cross averages 73.7 ppg. On the defensive end, the Highlanders yield 73.9 ppg, compared to 72.9 ppg for the Crusaders.
 
The teams have similar shooting percentages, as well. NJIT makes 45.9 percent of its shots from floor, while Holy Cross connects at a 44.9 clip. Both teams are strong at the foul line, where the Highlanders shoot 74.2 percent and Holy Cross shoots 74.0 percent. One difference is in the teams is that Holy Cross is more inside oriented, attempting less than a third of its shots from 3-point distance, while NJIT tries a bit more than a third of its shots from downtown and makes more than one triple per game than do the Crusaders. Not surprisingly, given the close overall scoring, Holy Cross scores almost 5 more free throws per game than NJIT does.
 
Three Holy Cross players average double-figure scoring, led by 6-foot-9 senior Dave Dudzinski (17.4 ppg), who is also the team's top rebounder (7.8 rpg). Cullen Hamilton averages 16.2 points per game, but he has missed the last 5 games and is not listed as a probable starter for Saturday. Freshman Malachi Alexander hasn't started, but he is playing over 26 minutes a game and averaging 10.4 points and 4.6 rebounds for fourth-year head coach Milan Brown's squad.
 
Holy Cross and NJIT share two opponents so far in 2013-14. The Highlanders lost both ends of a home-and-home set vs. UAlbany (71-65 in Albany on November 12 and 66-55 in Newark on December 1). Holy Cross beat the Great Danes on December 4 in Albany. Both squads beat New Hampshire at New Hampshire. The Highlanders prevailed 71-63 in the Granite State on November 17, while the Crusaders made the shorter trip from Worcester, Mass., to beat UNH 63-52 on November 30.
 
NJIT is aiming to get back in the win column after falling at Seton Hall, 71-55, on December 10 and then at home two days later against 3-time defending Northeast Conference champ LIU Brooklyn, 96-93.
 
Freshman guard Damon Lynn leads the NJIT scorers at 17.8 points per game, while sophomore Terrence Smith follows with 12.8 ppg and a team-best 5.2 rebounds. Another sophomore, Winfield Willis, raised his season scoring average to 10.8 points per game by virtue of a 30-point night against LIU-Brooklyn. The 30 points for Willis set a new school record for points against a Division I opponent.
 
Matt Provence, voice of the Highlanders, will have all the play-by-play action live here on www.NJITHighlanders.com. Matt's coverage begins at least 15 minutes before tipoff.