Highlanders! There Can Be Only One!

The College Basketball Closer is written by the gang at Storming the Floor.

I can't really take any glee from the fate of the 2008 New Jersey Institute of Technology basketball team. It's like taking Charlie Brown's last nickel. The team from Newark, New Jersey suffered 28 straight L's, beginning on November 10th and ending on Saturday, for good or ill, when they play fellow indie Utah Valley State in their 29th and final game of the season.

Seventh-year head coach Jim Casciano gave up the ghost on Wednesday, announcing that he would resign following the final game of this season. One imagines the competition for his empty spot will be... less than fierce. Casciano doesn't leave the cupboard bare, however. Montenegran forward Nesho Milosevic played his negromontes off even as the losses piled up, averaging 13 points and 8 rebounds and notching ten double-doubles. The Junior is eligible to return next year. Even the Titanic needs a captain. Inside the numbers with NJIT this season:

• The Highlanders' lowest point total came in their first game against Manhattan, when they scored 28. The St. Louis Billikens scored 20 total later in the year. • Freshman G/F Anthony Collier couldn't unglue himself from the Highlanders' bench. He got in one game, at Fordham, and grabbed two rebounds (one offensive, one defensive) in less than a minute to fill out his stats for the season. • Most of their losses were by a double-digit margin. They came within nine points of victory twice, both times on the road. Once at Lehigh and once at Stony Brook. • The Highlanders held two opponents (Army and Texas-Pan American) to 54 points but found themselves also unable to put the ball in the ol' peach basket. • Team field goal percentage: .356. From behind the arc: .282. • Combined records of their opponents: 296-324. The best teams they faced were Rider (18-9) and Cornell (16-5). The worst? Fellow DI starter kit Longwood (8-22).

The good news is, the NCAA has placed a moratorium on moving teams into Division I for a while. Perhaps this cautionary tale will keep some future Not Ready for Prime Time Players from leaping before they look.

Get Me the Name of Harangody's Barber. Notre Dame 82-Pitt 70. Pitt is reeling, as six of their seven overall losses have come in the Big East. Harangody had his usual double-double, but player of the game kudos go to Irish guard Tory Jackson - usually a threat for the points/assists version of the twofer - who put up 16 points and 13 boards while dishing out five dimes.

Does the Champion Win an Actual Sun Belt? South Alabama 69-Western Kentucky 64. This is the best small conference race none of us are watching. Which, in all fairness, most of us simply can't, because the Sun Belt doesn't have its own network... yet. Western Kentucky has NBA-quality guard Courtney Lee, and the super-cool "hand waving a towel" logo. But Team USA has coach Ronnie Arrow, who even made the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders look good. That was enough to put the Jaguars ½ game up in the race for the #1 conference tourney seed.

The Weekender

This is Bracket Buster weekend, so we have a chance to check out some likely tournament teams that we don't see nearly often enough.

Friday

Davidson (20-6) at Winthrop (18-9). Everybody remembers Davidson's frantic efforts against Maryland from last year's tournament, which made a star out of Stephen Curry, but the Wildcats lost that game. Winthrop had the true breakthrough, gunning down Notre Dame for their first tournament victory ever. Should be a blast.

Saturday

Drake (23-3) at Butler (25-2). Michael Vick will surely be watching from his jail cell as these two Bulldogs try to rip each other's throats out. Drake has looked a little lackluster since clinching the MVC regular-season title, so maybe this meeting with the team they'd like to grow up to be will spark them back to life in time for the postseason. Mike Green is currently leading the Butler 'Dogs in points, rebounds, and assists, while A.J. Graves gets all the pub.

Tennessee (24-2) at Memphis (26-0). Can Tennesee beat Mempis? This game is like a nucular explosion that none of us can excape. Pour over the box score with me on Sunday morning.

Kent State (22-5) at St. Mary's (23-3). Kent State never gets the press that some of the more glamorous mid-majors do, but they've just notched their tenth straight season with 20+ victories, which isn't easy to do in the MAC. Anyone who stayed up to watch the Gonzaga at St. Mary's game earlier this year probably remembers it as one of the most exciting, and yet most poorly lit games they have ever seen.

Sunday

Wake Forest (16-8) at North Carolina (25-2). Wake has rebounded from a tough off-season to get themselves on the NCAA bubble with a big win over Duke this week. If the Deacs can win a couple for dearly departed Skip Prosser, and make the dance, it might just help get the taste of Kelvin Sampson out of our collective mouths.

Eric Angevine writes about college hoops at Storming the Floor, and at CAAZone. He can be reached at [email protected].