Game! Of! The! Night! 12/10/2007: New Jersey Tech at Stony Brook
New Jersey Tech (Independents) at Stony Brook (America East) Tonight's eight game slate gives us this standout contest, between two schools that have combined for 18 losses so far, with only one win between them. Lest you think that finals week has made us resort to a game like this, know that it's exactly the kind of game I would drive three hours for. (Not today, though, it's real icy out.) NJIT (0-11) is -- how shall we put this -- the worst team in Hoops Nation right now. The RPI is being charitable with a No. 337 ranking, but there's no way that Jacksonville State, Campbell, North Florida and Eastern Illinois are worse. All those teams have actually won games and are averaging more than 51.5 ppg. Basketball State's new rating system tells it like it is, punishing them for their home losses and recognizing that yes, there are 340 teams better than the Highlanders. NJIT opened the season by getting a soul-destroying, humiliating 70-28 revenge beatdown by Manhattan for the school's first-ever NCAA win a year ago, and they've just never recovered from it. And here's the exciting part, for all you fans of history (and/or the 2004-05 Savannah State Tigers)... Stony Brook might actually be the last beatable team it faces this season. Stony Brook (1-7), on the other hand, is a team that should be doing a lot better. The Seawolves started out 0-4 with three close losses after a reasonably-expected bad opening-game drop to Villanova, and they did destroy Dartmouth two weekends ago. But they've just been getting smoked in second halves lately. Ricky Lucas is a decent senior guard who can score a little (12.8 ppg), but the rest of the team can't shoot (37.6 percent FG), and doesn't want to share the ball (8.0 team apg, fourth-worst in the country). Offense is the problem here, a the defense has been, well, America East-quality. We'll see what Stony Brook does tonight in a game that should only take 52 points to win. |
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