0-4 NJIT, high-usage Miles Coleman looking for more on offense
NJIT's slow starts on offense are going to need correcting before the Highlanders can make a mark in the win column.
NEWARK – The NJIT Highlanders, fresh off a two-game trip to Southern California the previous weekend, played their home opener Saturday afternoon. They had five days between games; a decently-sized crowd at the Wellness and Events Center following the women’s team’s overtime victory; and a fine but beatable opponent, American, in the building.
Their first three possessions ended in turnovers. Neither team scored for the first 3:30 of the game, until American got a layup to fall. And NJIT was held to one singular free throw until its first field goal finally came more than six minutes in, on a layup by Miles Coleman.
The good news for the Highlanders came in the second half, when their offense got going and more players became involved. The unfortunate news is that the slow start was nothing new – in their season opener at Saint Peter’s, the Peacocks took a 17-0 lead and held NJIT to 20 first-half points – and it’s going to need correcting before the Highlanders can make a mark in the win column.
“I feel like we (put up) an attack, got more to the rim” in the second half, Coleman told me after the 58-53 loss. “Didn’t settle for, you know, weaker post-ups. We made more free throws, but free throws are what cost us. Free throws and turnovers.”
NJIT made just 13 of 25 free throws Saturday and ranks 342nd in Division I with a 58.8% rate for the season.
What’s been even worse, though, is the chemistry and production on offense overall. As of Monday, KenPom.com rates the Highlanders 353rd of 363 teams in adjusted offensive efficiency.
The go-to guy has been Coleman, the senior forward who had a breakout season last year by finishing in the top 10 of both scoring and rebounding in the America East. One game after going for 28 points and nine rebounds at San Diego, he finished with 23 and eight against American.
What I found most interesting was that he stayed on the floor for all 40 minutes; the San Diego box score had him down for 39 minutes of action. Coleman told me it isn’t up to him how much coach Brian Kennedy uses him, but he’s prepared for any workload.
“I don’t mind,” Coleman said. “Whatever they want me to do, I do it.”
Coleman now leads the America East in minutes per game. Last season, he played 38 or more minutes six times and 35 or more 15 times. But there’s more to it than how much time a player spends on the court – there’s also usage rate, which considers field goals, free throws, turnovers and minutes to calculate how often a player is contributing to his team’s plays.
Coleman came away with a 31.03 usage percentage in the American game. The number was not obscenely out of whack with his teammates’ usage, a sign that others are indeed involved.
So who else on this team will step up to flank Coleman on offense? There’s starting five Souleymane Diakite, a 6-foot-9 fifth-year who was having a strong start to the season before I showed up Saturday. Diakite had a tough afternoon, scoring just four points on 2-of-5 shooting, missing all three free throws he took and giving up four turnovers, including a few poorly executed lob passes toward the basket. But he’s second on the team at 11 points per game, with an unreal 76% shooting percentage.
Little Rock transfer Kevin Osawe may start to have a bigger impact. He’s started all four games on the wing opposite Coleman and plays with a ton of energy. Three of his nine rebounds Saturday came on the offensive glass, pairing with eight points.
“He brings a lot of toughness, defense and inside scoring – and outside when the time comes,” Coleman said of Osawe. “He’s still getting in the flow of it. He’ll be better.”
Then there’s Paul McMillan IV, carrying the label of the highest-rated recruit in program history. The freshman guard started NJIT’s first two games and put up 12 points and three steals in his collegiate debut, but I was told he came down with an illness during the California trip, explaining why he missed the San Diego game.
He returned Saturday, this time coming off the bench. As with Diakite, it wasn’t McMillan’s brightest hour; American players got past him on defense and he made his only field goal at the final buzzer with the result already decided.
But McMillan has the potential to be dangerous when he gets going. He was Ohio’s Gatorade Player of the Year and the state’s No. 6 scorer all-time in boys basketball.
“He’s a really good teammate,” Coleman said. “He’s still learning, you know, he’s a freshman, but it’s only four games in so I feel like he’ll catch his groove.”
Of the eight Division I programs in New Jersey, NJIT has the furthest to go to become a contender. But some teams start clicking midway into the year, once all the principal characters are used to one another and know how their games fit together. The Highlanders’ defense hasn’t burned them yet, and the offense could have what it takes to surprise some teams once more shots begin to fall.
Their next opportunity is Tuesday at Sacred Heart, followed by a return home the Sunday after Thanksgiving to face Wagner.
“We’re gonna just get back to work and try to knock out a couple wins,” Coleman said. “That’s all we can do.”
………
Happy Monday, and thanks for reading. Appreciated NJIT having me out, as they were one of the few teams I didn’t cover live during the 2021-22 regular season. I’m still very much interested in telling the stories of New Jersey’s mid-majors, despite the challenging starts for NJIT, 0-4 Monmouth and 1-3 Rider.
For some stray notes and observations, time to clean the glass:
After the Iowa loss, Seton Hall got right back on the horse and clobbered Wagner 82-44, remarkably close to its 80-44 final score over Saint Peter’s. We’re going to be discussing Al-Amir Dawes a ton more in the coming weeks and months. The Newark native drew into Hall’s starting lineup for the first time, and he responded with a terrific all-around game, featuring a game-high 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting, 5-of-7 shooting from the arc, four rebounds and three steals. As long as he’s got the hot hand, probably best for him to be in the starting group and Jamir Harris to come off the bench. (Harris still played 23 minutes Sunday, because this is a Shaheen Holloway-coached team, after all.)
I recommend this piece from Adam Zagoria about where Holloway and Seton Hall stand right now in the recruiting and NIL space.
With no Caleb McConnell or Paul Mulcahy, Rutgers fell to Temple 72-66 on Friday at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. Tough shooting nights from Cam Spencer (0-for-5 from 3) and Derek Simpson in his first college start (1-for-11 overall) put Rutgers in a hole, but it’s pointless to panic when the Scarlet Knights were without their two best guards and Temple already had a Villanova upset on its resume. I’ll be visiting Piscataway soon, though I’ll have to watch Tuesday’s tilt between Rutgers and Rider remotely.
The Scarlet Knights’ loss means no unbeaten teams remain in New Jersey on the men’s or women’s side. Don’t expect Seton Hall or Rutgers to receive votes in the AP poll releasing later today, though after last Wednesday I’d put Iowa in my Top 25 if I had a ballot.
Saturday was fun, because I tried something I hadn’t done in as long as I can remember: I covered a sporting event without live-tweeting it, without even mentioning it on Twitter. It felt bizarre at first – like I was forgetting to do something crucial – then freeing. I could keep my head out of my laptop screen and see more of the game unfolding live.
A supermajority of Twitter users believed the site would die Thursday night, which convinced me to share these reflections about social media. The site was still standing on Saturday, but I was certain none of my 1,070-odd followers needed live play-by-play of a low-major college basketball game. (I’ve lost followers anytime I’ve tweeted from a Seton Hall game, for that matter.)
We’re all going to need to re-think the way we utilize social media in the 2020s. That goes double for me and my colleagues in sports media. I don’t see a sports community forming on Mastodon, at least not yet. Whether or not Twitter falls apart in the coming weeks, I’m going to lean more on the small followership I’ve cultivated on Substack, use LinkedIn more for professional connections and stick to telling my Facebook friends about any “personal news.”