How could smart people be so dumb?
Let me tell you something about the New Jersey Institute of Technology. NJIT, would be the abbreviation. They are referred to as "New Jersey's Science and Technology University" which means students and faculty should be awfully smart. Right? It seems that way, looking at the fields of study and some of the historical achievements on their website.
It's been my experience that smart people tend to think they have it all figured out. For example, they probably thought they had the game of basketball all figured out by now. It seems pretty simple, and a lot of the game, especially in college, thrives on strategy. Surely, they could make a jump to Division 1 without a problem, right?
Wrong.
Not only are the Highlanders losing, they are losing to bad teams and losing by an awful lot. They scored 28 against Manhattan, and were outscored by 26 and 28 by Rider and Maine in two consecutive games. It's been a rough season for NJIT which joined D-1 last year. They won their first two games (against Manhattan and Rider, ironically) but proceeded to go 3-24 over the rest of the season, winning twice against Longwood, a school in which I am too classy to make an inappropriate giggle at. At least Longwood is 2-8 this year, and has played better opponents than NJIT (not that they should be happy about losing 100-49 to Indiana).
So, where did NJIT go wrong? By assuming smart people should be good at basketball. The best basketball players are going to go to schools where they can't be bothered with studying, or foolishness like that. NJIT has a history of challenging it's students to achieve, which would leave no time to dedicated basketball players to practice. Thus, the Highlanders will continue to be humiliated on the court.
Moving to Division 1 was at best, a terrible idea.
Labels: Blowouts, NCAA Basketball, New Jersey Institute of Technology
posted by Ryan | 4:19 PM
2 Comments:
In fairness, NJIT is still in its DI infancy. I imagine this makes a big difference in the type of players they've been able to get. I'm not sure if they moved from DII, DIII, or NAIA, but regardless, they've only been able to give enough athletic scholarships to field an entire team since last year.
My guess is that the transition can take some time. With a good coach and support from the administration, their recruiting ability could change drastically. This isn't to say that they didn't make a dumb mistake, but only that it might be too early to tell.
As a former NJIT athlete I can't help but leave a response. While we may not have had the athletic achievements to back a move to D1 it does move us into a new bracket of competition. The move seems consistent with the goals of the president of the university.
Improvement will be slow. They need to start using scholarships to recruit a few outstanding players who will then lay the groundwork for establishing NJIT as a D1 school. At this point the word that NJIT is D1 probably hasn't made it far past outside the boarders of NJIT. All good things take time.
Besides, no one said that smart people should be good at basketball, any athlete knows that no sport is entirely about the physics behind it, but I for one would be proud if NJIT held to a level of academic competence rather than lowering standards to place higher in collegiate sports standings.
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