FRISCO, Texas – The Southland Conference and the New Jersey Institute of Technology have entered into a multi-year affiliate membership agreement for men’s and women’s tennis, beginning in 2021-22, the league announced Tuesday afternoon.
NJIT’s men’s and women’s tennis programs will participate in the Southland Conference Tournaments and will be eligible for the league’s automatic berths to the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Tennis Tournaments. The Highlanders’ tennis programs will not officially participate in the single round-robin league schedule during the regular season, and its teams shall be placed in the seeded tournament bracket through a process to be determined.
“We are very happy to welcome NJIT tennis to the Southland, and we look forward to providing the Highlanders’ men’s and women’s teams with an outstanding NCAA postseason experience,” Southland Commissioner Tom Burnett said. The 2022 Southland Tennis Tournaments will be held April 22-24, at the University of New Orleans’ Tennis Center.
“I am very excited to have our men's and women's tennis teams become part of the Southland Conference,” NJIT Associate Vice President/Director of Athletics Lenny Kaplan said. “As we switched conferences last summer, our tennis student-athletes were the only ones left without a way to compete for a conference championship. Finding them a home became a priority for us, and I am grateful the Southland Conference was willing to consider the addition of both our teams as associate members. I want to thank Commissioner Burnett for his hard work and diligence in, not only making this happen, but doing so in such an expeditious manner.”
Following a 7-5 season playing as a Division I independent program in 2021, NJIT’s men’s team finished sixth in the Oracle/ITA Northeast Regional rankings.
“The men's and women's tennis teams are very excited to be joining the Southland Conference,” Coordinator of Men’s and Women’s Tennis/Head Men’s Tennis Coach Ira Miller added. “We have been practicing hard and preparing for this moment to compete for a championship and a bid to the NCAA team tournament. The Southland has a fine winning tradition and we appreciate their generous invitation to join. A special thanks to our AD Lenny Kaplan. At a time when schools are losing programs, he chose to make the extra effort to find us a new home. The players and the coaching staff salute him."
NJIT will join current Southland men’s tennis programs Incarnate Word, New Orleans, Nicholls and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Other Southland women’s programs include Incarnate Word, McNeese, New Orleans, Nicholls, Northwestern State, Southeastern Louisiana and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
About the Southland Conference:
The Southland Conference, founded in Dallas in 1963, and with member institutions in major metropolitan destinations Houston, San Antonio and New Orleans, sponsors 19 NCAA Division I sports, including FCS football. The Southland Conference is headquartered in Frisco, Texas, one of America’s fastest-growing cities, and where the Southland annually serves as the host conference for the NCAA Division I Football Championship Game.
About New Jersey Institute of Technology:
One of only 35 polytechnic universities in the United States, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) is a top-tier research university that catalyzes economic growth and prepares students to become leaders in the technology-dependent economy of the 21st century. NJIT is one of only 131 universities rated an “R1” research university by the Carnegie Classification®, which indicates the highest level of research activity. NJIT conducts more than $155 million in research activity each year and has a $2.8 billion annual economic impact on the State of New Jersey. Ranked No. 1 nationally by
Forbes for the upward economic mobility of its lowest-income students, NJIT also is ranked in the top 2% of colleges and universities nationally for the mid-career earnings of graduates, according to PayScale.com. NJIT also is ranked No. 39 nationally by
The Princeton Review as a Best Value College and is rated third in New Jersey and among the top 100 colleges and universities nationwide by the QS World University Ranking
® 2021.
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