The NJIT Highlanders Come to EagleBank

By Palmer Johnson

Mason will be playing the 1-4 NJIT Highlanders, out of Newark, New Jersey, today in EagleBank Arena.

The Highlanders are coached by first head coach Grant Billmeier. Billmeier was on Kevin Willard’s Maryland staff with Tony Skinn, and was on Seton Hall’s staff during Skinn’s time there.

I watched the first half of NJIT’s game vs. Delaware State, here are my takeaways.

NJIT Scouting Report (1^st Half of Delaware St.)

Looking at their roster supports this, but it seemed like every time a NJIT player touched the ball, the announcer would say “youngster”. They have a lot of freshmen.

They have two freshmen PGs, their starter, Sebastian Robinson, and their bench guy, Tariq Francis. Francis is willing to take threes in guys’ faces. He hit two of them. Robinson doesn’t look too much like a freshman, but Tariq does. The backup PG threw a lob to a guy who was chilling in the corner on the fast break. Mason may be able to take advantage of him if his autopilot turns on.

It didn’t seem like they were having too much trouble with the press, but they weren’t exactly breaking it either. This makes sense since they probably practice against it a lot. Having no veteran option at PG is interesting, if Mason rattles them early and they have no other option, it could get out of hand. They were turning it over a decent bit, getting two travels pretty close together, but not enough that it was extremely concerning.

On defense, they run a full-court press. In the half court, they opened in a zone. Their zone defense plus playing a small ball lineup leads to giving up a lot of offensive rebounds. Even when they are getting their rebounds on defense, it isn’t clean, it’s been tipped around a couple times. It must be in their gameplan to let the other team take long twos, since they were walking away from guys as soon as they realized they were shooting. Delaware St. made their first two attempts, but NJIT was okay with whatever happened.

On offense, I can tell they rely on getting to the line a lot. They were shooting free throws on their first two possessions. Their guards are very willing to take shots in crowded paints. The Newark-based team started 6 for 12 from three, with their interesting PF Adam Hess being 3-3.

Both offenses were playing well. NJIT scored 20 in the first five minutes, there’s a chance they might not score that many in the entire first half against Mason. The Highlanders seem like a very hot and cold team. After scoring 20 in the first five minutes, they scored 7 in the next nine. They ended up scoring 46 in the first half, but most of those came in the first and last five minutes of the half.

I can see similarities between Mason’s and NJIT’s style of play, which makes sense since their coaches both come from the same tree. Mason just executes it way better.

NJIT By The Numbers

NJIT is the 354^th ranked team on KenPom, compared to Mason’s 107.

The Highlanders are the 325^th tallest team in the country, with their average height being 6’4.2. For comparison, Mason’s is 6’5.6.

NJIT plays somewhat fast, with their tempo being six possessions per game faster than Mason’s.

The New Jersey Institute of Technology has three guys in their 6^th season playing college basketball and are still decently below average when it comes to D-1 experience among their players. They have nine freshmen on their roster and five grad. students.

Billmeier has three freshmen in the starting lineup, with their tallest starter being 6’7. Their starting 4, 25-year-old Adam Hess, is only 6’4. This could be a Keyshawn Hall night.

I guess their centers are left-handed.

NJIT takes a lot of free throws, shooting 43.7 free throws per 100 field goal attempts. 24.6% of their points come from the line, which puts the mat 29^th in the country.

The Highlanders have good defense from two, awful at defending the three. Their opponents are only hitting 47.1% from two, which ranks them at 107 in the country. Seems like they aren’t too good in the paint, but opponents aren’t hitting their mid-ranges.

NJIT is awful at defensive rebounding, giving up a 41.2% offensive rebound rate. So even if Mason misses, there’s a decent chance they’ll get a second chance.

I am being as nice as possible with NJIT while being informative. There is a lot of red on their KenPom page (that is bad). I’m glad Skinn gets to coach against his buddy.

Prediction

Mason wins 90-71. The Patriots gets out to a 20ish point lead late in the first half and Skinn takes his foot off the gas pedal out of respect for his former coworker. The only way I can see Mason struggling is if they cannot hit quality outside shots. I think the leading scorers will be Keyshawn Hall, Darius Maddox, and Amari Kelly.

Similar to how Mason must take every game seriously, so do the fans. Show up and show out, Mason Nation. Show that it doesn’t matter who they’re playing, you’ll be there.