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Derek Kellogg

AMHERST - Terrell Vinson deflected any personal praise for the University of Massachusetts men's basketball team's strong start heading into tonight's game against New Jersey Tech at 7 at the Mullins Center.

But the first two games of his junior season have been a considerable improvement over his sophomore season where he never quite got healthy. Vinson's averaging 15.5 points and 7.0 rebounds and has been a key part of the UMass offense. His 3-point shooting has been up as well, shooting .375 (3-for-8) after making 26 of 110 over his first two seasons (.236).

"It's the first two games of the season. I've got to keep it up," Vinson said. "We've got 28 more games left. It's a step in the right direction."

The Minutemen will try to extend their season-opening winning streak to three games tonight against a program that has only been playing a Division I schedule since 2006. The Highlanders arrive in Amherst at 1-1. They lost their opener 62-48 to Manhattan and then beat Penn State-Abington, a non-Division I school, 113-61. Isaiah Wilkerson, a 6-foot-3 senior guard, leads NJIT in scoring at 16.5 points per game to go with 5.0 rebounds. Arjun Ohri is second with 12.0 points per game.

"There's some things that concern me. They shoot a lot of 3s," UMass coach Derek Kellogg said. "The kid Wilkerson is capable of putting up a lot of numbers. And they're playing a four-guard offense which is tough when you're trying to press and play fast."

The Minutemen are expecting to have Raphiael Putney back in the lineup. The sophomore forward has been out of action since injuring his head and his elbow in Friday's opener against Elon.

"We're easing him in. Hopefully he can give us quality minutes, probably not a full game, but enough to get his legs back under him," Kellogg said.

McCARTHY vs. McCARTHY - The game could feature an inside matchup between UMass 7-foot-1 redshirt freshman center Andrew McCarthy and his older brother, NJIT junior big man Sean McCarthy, who is 6-10.

Neither McCarthy has seen much action so far. Andrew has played the last minute of each UMass game, while Sean has played a combined seven minutes over the two games, coming off an injury. Kellogg only planned to use his McCarthy if it made sense in the game, but he hoped he'd have an opportunity to.

"It would be good for he and his brother to do a little battling," Kellogg said. "It would be good to get him some minutes to see if he can help us at some point. If we go against someone his size, I think he can help us at some point."

The McCarthys have been teasing each other about the potential matchup.

"Of course it's fun. We're not trying to kill each other," said Andrew McCarthy, who predicted his mom would wear an NJIT sweatshirt because she doesn't get to see as many of Sean's games as she does Andrew's. "We're just trying to have fun."

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.