Box score
STONY BROOK, NY—Stony Brook sophomore guard Bryan Dougher poured in a career-high 25 points and tied his high of eight rebounds, leading the Seawolves to a 60-46 non-conference men's basketball win over visiting NJIT Saturday afternoon.
The win lifted Stony Brook's record to 4-1, the program's best start since 1993-94, when the it competed at the Division III level. Stony Brook joined Division I in 1999.
In a game where NJIT made less than a third of its shots and where the Seawolves not named Dougher made 36 percent of their shots, the sophomore shot 7-for-13 from the field overall, 5-for-8 from three-point range and 6-for-6 at the foul line. His 13 points in the first half were as many as anyone else scored in the entire game and he was Stony Brook's only scorer in double figures.
Dougher's eight rebounds matched his previous high, done last December against Lehigh and his teammates, fellow sophomores Dallis Joyner and Tommy Brenton, shared game honors on the boards, with nine rebounds apiece.
NJIT had three double-figure scorers, led by sophomore Isaiah Wilkerson, who finished with 13 points. Junior Jheryl Wilson and freshman Drejon Scott added 10 points apiece for the Highlanders.
Wilson and center Ryan Regis were the top rebounders for the Highlanders, with five boards each. Regis set a career high with four blocked shots.
The game started slowly, with the teams combining for just three baskets in the first nearly six minutes, including a three-pointer by Danny Carter that gave the Seawolves a 5-3 lead and actually put Stony Brook ahead for good 4:41 into the contest.
Despite playing from behind the rest of the way and trailing 22-16 with 5:40 left in the half, NJIT hung around and used what qualified for a rally on a day when its shots weren't falling with any consistency, scoring five unanswered points, with a tip-in by Sean McCarthy at 2:50 and a three-pointer by Scott that made it 22-21 with 2:06 left in the half.
Stony Brook's response was ominous. Down by one after Scott's trey, the Highlanders stopped a Dougher layup, but Stony Brook's 6-foot-7, 250-pound Joyner, went up, caught the ball as it came off the rim and dunked it back through with 1:48 left.
The teams traded a basket each and the halftime score was 26-23, as Dougher led all scorers with 13 points, while Scott had eight for the Highlanders.
Stony Brook's Brenton, who came in averaging close to 10 rebounds a game, got his team's first points of the second half on a followup dunk and yet another putback dunk gave the Seawolves their first double-digit lead of the game, 37-26, as they outscored NJIT 11-3 over the opening 5:10 of the second half.
The Highlanders could not get closer than eight points the rest of the way, as they continued to struggle from the field, making only 30 percent of their tries from the floor in the second half and just 5 of 20 three-points tries in the game, despite working the ball well to get some open looks from long range.
NJIT faces a daunting task on Monday night, making what might be the shortest “road trip” in college basketball, heading the mile or so from campus to downtown Newark for a game in the Prudential Center against Seton Hall, which was 3-0 as it prepared to host LIU on Saturday night. Numerous experts have picked Seton Hall as a potential “breakthrough” team in the powerful Big East Conference this season.
