New Jersey City University Athletics

CENTERVILLE, MA (NJCUGothicKnights.com) | The New Jersey City University men's  basketball team has earned its 30^th post-season appearance in 31 years with the announcement of the 2013 Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III Metro Tournament championship bracket on Monday afternoon.
 
NJCU (14-12), winners of a record six ECAC Metro championships in its history, will seek a seventh title as the No. 6 seed in the eight-team bracket. To begin that quest, NJCU, for the second time this season, will travel to New York City to face New York University in the ECAC Quarterfinals round on Wednesday, February 27 at the Cole Sports Center.
 
The Violets (15-10) are the tournament's third seed. The schools previously met on December 3 when the Gothic Knights stunned then #21 ranked NYU and snapped the Violets' 24-game non-conference home court winning streak with a 60-50 upset victory. NJCU held the Violets without a field goal for the final 7:23 of the game and outscored the Violets 12-1 to close the night.
 
NJCU and NYU will meet twice in the same season for the first time in their histories. This season's first meeting marked the only regular-season matchup between the schools. NJCU leads the all-time series with NYU, 4-2; the previous five meetings all came during the post-season.
 
Sixth-year head coach Marc Brown, the 2012-13 NJAC Coach of the Year, said: “we have a pretty tough draw. We are going to a team we're pretty familiar with, which is a good thing, because we played them earlier in the year. They're a different team, but so are we. We're looking forward to it. We want to get to the next round.”
 
“For a lot of our guys this will be their first experience playing in a post-season tournament in college,” Brown mentioned. “We had a great week of practice last week. I gave them the weekend off, the week was so great. The guys are practicing hard.”
 
NJCU will make its 19^th appearance in the ECAC Tournament. The Knights own an all-time 26-12 (.684) record in 38 tournament games but have lost four consecutive ECAC Quarterfinal contests since winning their sixth title in 2006.
 
NJCU's record six ECAC Metro championships saw the Knights land titles in 1981, 1983, 1993, 1994, 2001 and 2006.The Knights also qualified in 1976, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008,  2010, and 2012.
 
In all, NJCU will be making its 37^th post-season appearance as an NCAA Division III program, including its 18^th NCAA Tournament appearances (17-21, .447, 38 games).
 
All inclusive, NJCU will be playing its 77^th post-season game in its history. It owns an all-time post-season ledge of 43-33 (.566).
 
Since opening the year with a 2-7 record (0-6 NJAC) thru December 12 and a 4-9 mark (0-7 NJAC) as of January 5, the Knights pulled off a streak of 10 wins in 12 games and claimed seven consecutive victories to conclude the regular season with a mark of 14-11 and 9-9 (.500) in the league before losing by four points in the NJAC Quarterfinals on February 16 at Richard Stockton College, 55-51.
 
The winner of the NJCU/NYU game will face the winner of #2 SUNY-Old Westbury (22-4) and #7 Baruch College (17-10) on Saturday, March 2 at a site and time to be determined after the completion of the quarterfinal round.
 
The ECAC finals will be held on Sunday, March 3 at the same site as the semifinal rounds. The other half of the bracket includes top-seeded Richard Stockton (19-7) hosting eighth-seeded The Sage Colleges (13-13) and fifth-seeded John Jay College (15-13) visiting defending ECAC champion and #4 seed Mount Saint Mary College (NY) (19-8).
 
NJCU is 3-2 this year against teams in the ECAC Tournament. The Knights own wins in New York City over NYU and John Jay; the Knights won at the Dogpound, 65-62, on January 14.
 
NJCU and Stockton split their NJAC regular season meetings with each school winning on its home court (Stockton, 77-58, December 5, at Galloway, NJ; NJCU, 60-50, January 30, at Jersey City, NJ) before the Ospreys hung on to win the NJAC Tournament rematch.
 
NJCU and Stockton are the two NJAC teams represented in the field and with Ramapo College and Rutgers-Newark qualifying for the NCAA Tournament, give the NJAC four post-season teams this season. The Skyline Conference is represented by three teams (Old Westbury, Mount Saint Mary, and Sage) and The City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) also has two schools (Baruch and John Jay). NYU is a member of the University Athletic Association (UAA).
 
Brown summarized the tournament bracket, saying: “It's a pretty good field. It's a good tournament anywhere. There are obviously some quality teams. We have a pretty tough draw. To have to go back to NYU in Manhattan and win again is going to be pretty difficult but we're going to be up for the challenge.”