Jan. 15, 2008

Box Score

NEWARK - Cornell, one of the top contenders for this season's Ivy League men's basketball championship, played its final pre-conference game Tuesday night, defeating NJIT, 64-33, in the Prudential Center in downtown Newark.

Each team had one double-figure scorer, as Cornell's 7-foot junior Jeff Foote led the Big Red with 10 points and NJIT's senior captain Kraig Peters scored 10 to lead the Highlanders.

Cornell, which had a slight 36-35 team rebounding advantage, was paced in that category by Alex Tyler and Geoff Reeves, who pulled down five rebounds apiece. Foote and Collin Robinson each had three assists for the Big Red.

Peters, who is in the midst of the best string of rebounding games in his career, grabbed a game-high seven rebounds, bringing his total in the last three games to 23.

Freshman point guard Tyler Epps led the Highlanders with three assists and did not commit a turnover in 31 minutes. He and center Dan Stonkus shared the NJIT steals lead, with two apiece.

NJIT scored the game's first two points on a dunk at 17:23 by forward Kyle Edwards, a junior making his first start of the season.

That was the only lead for the Highlanders, but they stayed in contention several minutes longer as both offenses were slow to get untracked and the score was just 6-4 in favor of Cornell with 14 minutes left.

But Cornell eventually got untracked and built a 25-9 lead by halftime, led by Foote's six points. Peters, with five points, led the Highlanders.

The Big Red scored the first five points of the second half on a three-pointer and a layup by junior guard Adam Gore and Cornell went on to the comfortable win.

NJIT, which is in the middle of a six-home-games-out-of-seven stretch, will play the only road game in the stretch on Saturday when it visits Chicago State for a 4 pm Central time game in the Windy City.