NJIT Men's Basketball Gameday Information How to watch the gameThe game is being shown live exclusively on
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Link The NJIT at Kentucky game is the 11th listing under "NCAAM" for 11/14. After clicking on that listing, you will be prompted to enter information regarding your regular service provider. (Ability to access SECNetwork Plus varies and depends upon the identity of your regular service provider and whether or not it offers the larger SECNetwork as part of its channel lineup).
LEXINGTON, KY -- Coming off the overwhelmingly best season in program history, the Highlanders men's basketball team tips off 2015-16 against one of the overwhelmingly best programs in the country. The season begins s Saturday, when NJIT takes on #2/#1 (tie) University of Kentucky at Rupp Arena in Lexington at 8 p.m.
The NJIT broadcast will be available via
free audio stream at www.njithighlanders.com. Matt Provence will be on the call.
Game previewNJIT put itself on the national basketball map on December 6, 2014 with a 72-70 win at #17/#16 Michigan in front of front of 12,226 fans in Ann Arbor.
Now, little more than 11 months later, the latest edition of the Highlanders will step on one of the few stages in college sports bigger than the one they commanded at Michigan.
They will open the 2015-16 season on Saturday at 8 pm in Lexington vs. Kentucky, ranked #2 in the national
Associated Press preseason poll and tied for #1 with North Carolina in the other major poll (
USA Today Coaches Poll).
The game will be played in Rupp Arena, which is roughly double the size of Michigan's Crisler Center.
No program in college basketball has a thicker resume than does Kentucky and its coach
John Calipari.
Last season, Kentucky fell just short of its bid to become the first team in the history of the college game to play 40 games in a season and win them all. The Wildcats won their first 38 games, many by overwhelming margins. They were finally beaten at the NCAA Final Four, dropping a 71-64 decision in the semifinal to Wisconsin.
The last time a men's Division I team finished undefeated was in 1975-76, 40 seasons ago, when Indiana won the National Championship with a 32-0 record.
In the offseason, Coach Calipari was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He has 593 wins in a college head coaching career that began in 1988-89 at UMass, a program he led to the Final Four in his last season there (1995-96). From 2000 to 2009, he led Memphis to the NCAAs four times, including a spot in the 2008 National Championship game.
He is 191-38 at Kentucky, winning at least 29 games in each of his six seasons, including the 2012 National Championship.
On top of that, Kentucky's tradition of excellence far precedes Calipari's tenure as head coach. His national championship in 2012 was the eighth all time for UK, starting in 1948. Kentucky as won the Southeastern Conference (SEC) regular season title 46 times and is the preseason favorite to add another crown this season.
In recent years, Calipari has built an unparalleled reputation for preparing college players to star as professionals in the National Basketball Association. Since
Derrick Rose went first in the 2008 NBA draft after playing at Memphis under Calipari, he has coached four men taken first in the draft (Rose in 2008;
John Wall from Kentucky in 2010;
Anthony Davis in 2012; and
Karl-Anthony Townes in 2015). Going back farther, Calipari's first great protégé,
Marcus Camby, went second in the 1996 NBA Draft, as did
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist in 2012. In 2015 alone, six Kentucky players were taken in the draft, four in the top 13. T
wenty one ex-Wildcats were on Opening Day rosters in the NBA this season. Usually, graduation and early departures for the NBA are devastating losses for college programs. But the success of former Calipari players in the pro game has created a self-perpetuating powerhouse, with a continuous flow of the world's most talented teenage players enrolling at Kentucky to learn under the Hall of Fame coach.
For example, 6-foot-11 freshman
Skal Labissiere, who won't play his first college game until Friday night, is already the favorite of many experts to be taken with the first pick in the 2016 NBA draft. He is one of three freshmen listed as probable starters for Kentucky entering the season. The other two are
Isaiah Briscoe, who hails from Union, NJ, and was the consensus top high school point guard in the country last year when he played at Roselle Catholic, and
Jamal Murray, who already stars for the Canadian National Team and has a chance to be the best one of the best players ever produced in that country.
The other two probable starters for UK are junior
Marcus Lee (6-9, 224), who played in all 39 games for the 38-1 Wildcats last season, and 5-foot-9 sophomore guard
Tyler Ulis, a first-team preseason All-SEC pick. In 37 games as a freshman last year, Ulis averaged 5.6 points and had 135 assists to only 38 turnovers.
Kentucky under Calipari is also known for its balanced statistics. Last year, despite being loaded with top draft picks, no Wildcat averaged more than 11 points per game, but six players averaged at least 8.7 ppg.
Kentucky opens its season on Friday at 7 pm vs. UAlbany, the three-time defending champions of the America East Conference and a team that has played the Highlanders four times (twice each season) the last two seasons. NJIT will face Kentucky 25 hours after UK hosts UAlbany and the Highlanders will visit Albany on November 27 for a 7 pm game.
NJIT OutlookThe Highlanders return the top five scorers and six of the top seven scorers from last season, which was the program's best ever, with a record 21 wins that included the victory at #17/#16 Michigan and a run to the semifinals of the
CollegeInsider.com national postseason tournament (CIT).
Playing as the only Independent program in Division I college basketball, the Highlanders defeated teams from nine different conferences, including three wins over teams that ended as conference champions.
NJIT team stats and leaders (all stats from 2014-15):Scoring (team 71.8 ppg; +4.3 ppg):
Damon Lynn (17.5 ppg);
Winfield Willis (12.2 ppg);
Tim Coleman (11.5 ppg);
Ky Howard (10.9 ppg)
Rebounding (team 33.6 rpg; -0.6 rpg): Howard (5.7 rpg); Coleman (5.1 rpg);
Daquan Holiday (4.6 rpg-graduated);
Assists: Lynn (123)
Blocks: Holiday (49); Coleman (42)
Steals: Lynn (58)
3-pt FGM: Lynn (126; 2nd in the nation); Willis (59)
Matt Provence will provide play-by-play here on
www.njjthighlanders.com. Programming is scheduled to begin at least 15 minutes before tipoff.
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