WASHINGTON — All across the nation this week and next, teams from conferences big and small will compete for their respective tournament championships, with the winners guaranteed a bid to the big dance — the NCAA Tournament. Every Division I team will get their chance to live the dream for their one shining moment. Every team but one.
As the lone remaining independent school among the 351 D-I programs in America, the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) will play its final game Wednesday evening against Howard University at the Fleisher Athletic Center, in Newark. Barring an invitation to a postseason tournament, it will be the final game of the season for the Highlanders.
But that invitation, a pipe dream a few years ago, might be a possibility. In the midst of the best season in school history, NJIT also owns college basketball’s most stunning upset win, one that put the program on the radar.
On December 6, a 2-5 Highlanders team walked into the Crisler Center, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to face a Wolverines squad that had made trips to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament each of the previous two seasons. Ranked 17th in the nation at the time, Michigan scored the game’s first eight points, but struggled to shake the Highlanders, leading just 32-27 at the half. Then, NJIT went on a 13-0 run early in the second half to storm ahead.
With the game on Big Ten Network, word began to spread on social media of the potential upset.
“So many people told me they actually saw the second half, or the end of the game, thanks to Twitter,” says NJIT head coach Jim Engles.
In the end, his Highlanders held on for dear life, knocking down two key free throws in the final seconds to walk away with a stunning 72-70 victory. It’s the kind of win that marks a sea change for a program like Engles’, one that has risen from the depths of obscurity and failure in just a few short years.
The only time most anyone had heard of NJIT before the Michigan game was when the program had reached the peak of its infamy. For 702 days between 2007 and 2009, NJIT went winless. They lost 51 straight games, including an 0-29 season in 2007-08.
“People would watch in the past because it was a train wreck,” says Engles, whose grandfather Ken Engles played and coached at Georgetown. “Like an accident on the side of the highway.”
Things were so bad, Engles couldn’t get anyone from New Jersey to play for him. That’s why, despite being a public school with more than 90 percent of the student body from the Garden State, the Highlanders sport only four in-state players on the roster, along with players from Greece and, of all places, Siberia. The latter was discovered at a poorly attended public workout by one of Engles’ assistant coaches and recommended.
“Nobody local would come,” says Engles. “They didn’t want to be associated with it.”
The players that did choose to attend fit a certain mold that Engles looks for. They are often undersized, undervalued, under-recruited and under-appreciated — therefore, overlooked.
In other words, they fit right in at NJIT.
One other thing — they are usually academically minded.
Engles, who has coached in the Ivy League at Columbia, believes his current institution is every bit the academic equal of those schools. NJIT ranks 149th among national universities by US News and World Report, but boasts a heavy math and technical curriculum, with more than 50 percent of degrees coming in engineering and computer science. As such, Engles expects intelligence on and off the court from the players he recruits.
“When we look at a transcript or an SAT score, math is the first thing we look at,” he says.
Finally, near the end of Engles’ first season at the helm in 2008-09, the Highlanders captured their first and only win. They have posted double-digit win totals every year since, topping out at 16 two years ago. NJIT moved to 17-11 with a win over Sarah Lawrence last week, and can further improve upon the best D-I season in school history with a win over Howard Wednesday night.
But still, they have no conference. The conversation is an ongoing one, a constant test of patience and frustration for Engles and the athletic department, as they search for a more permanent home. One possible excuse for the delay has been the lack of a top-notch athletic facility, as the Fleisher center was built in 1967 and seats just 1,000 spectators. That’s about to change.
Just weeks ago, NJIT announced it will break ground on a new $100 million athletic complex this summer. The cornerstone will be a sparkling 3,500-seat basketball arena, with a projected completion date in 2017.
“It has all the bells and whistles of a mid-major program,” says Engles of the new facilities. “It’s a huge selling point right now.”
Engles hopes that between the Highlanders’ season on the floor and their construction plans, the school can make some traction in the next 60-90 days in a renewed push to find a conference. The nearby America East has nine teams, four of which the Highlanders played this season (three of them twice). But with UAB potentially leaving Conference USA, even more options may be on the table.
NJIT will take whoever will have them.
“It’s a huge burden,” says Engles of trying to fill up a 29-game schedule without a conference. “It’s not like people are afraid of us, but there’s not much to gain from playing us right now. I understand.”
That means NJIT has to take any game it can get, whenever, wherever. They play a front-loaded schedule, because most coaches don’t like squeezing extra games into their docket in the middle of conference play. This year, that meant four games in four states in nine days. That stretch began with the thrilling win in Ann Arbor, but ended with a sloppy, exhausted loss at LIU-Brooklyn.
Despite it all, they’ve played their best season yet.
“In the past, people probably felt like NJIT would be a drag,” Engles says when talking about his school joining a conference. “Now, we’re a threat.”
Hopefully, that threat only adds to the prestige of adding NJIT.
“It’s everything,” says Engles. “Being in a conference, number one, gives us stability. Getting to play in a conference tournament gives us a new lease on life.”
This year, the Highlanders will have no last chance to fight their way into college basketball’s promised land. After Wednesday, their season is over.
Most people who know anything of NJIT probably only saw the Michigan game. But the Highlanders led Villanova, a possible NCAA Tournament #1 seed, in Philadelphia at the half. They’ve got an RPI of 173, better than A-10 teams such as St. Joseph’s or George Mason.
After the NCAA committee selects its 68 teams, the NIT picks 32 more, effectively rewarding the top 100 teams in the nation. But there are two more 16-team tournaments — the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) and the College Insiders Tournament (CIT). They give 32 more teams another chance to play for something more: to end their season with a meaningful victory.
“We’re trying to find programs that are deserving, whether they are from a power-five conference or one of the other guys,” says Ray Cella, director of media relations for the Gazelle Group, the organization that puts on the CBI.
He stresses the general criteria include teams with winning records, and those in the top 200 in RPI. NJIT meets both of those marks, but it might be the best fit due to the final characteristic cited by Cella: “We’re looking for schools that want to keep playing basketball.”
A number of teams, for a variety of reasons, have turned down bids to the secondary tournaments over the years. But young, hungry teams looking for something to prove usually find great opportunity in those settings. VCU ran all the way to the CBI title in 2010. In 2011, they made the Final Four.
Engles is hopeful his team can follow in the Rams’ footsteps.
“I really believe that’s going to come through, which would be a tremendous situation for our guys,” he says of a postseason tournament invitation. “I think it would be another big springboard for us going into next year. Our guys really deserve it.”
NJIT could conceivably return five double-figure scorers next year. They’ve weathered injuries and limited depth this year, but should be reinforced by a good recruiting class and buoyed by better health. But whatever the future holds — a new conference, a new gym, another marquee upset — all the Highlanders really want right now is one more game.
“If they contact us and say they’re interested, that’s certainly going to help,” says Cella.
Consider this official notice.
