Box Score
NEWARK, NJ—Defense carried the night for NJIT, which also got a game-high and personal-best 17 points from freshman guard Chris Flores in a 78-40 men's basketball win over visiting SUNY Cobleskill Thursday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
The Highlanders, now 3-4 in their second season under coach Jim Engles, had their own scoring issues early in the game and trailed 11-8 when Cobleskill freshman Michael Hooper made a layup at the 12:17 mark of the first half.
But the Highlanders turned that three-point deficit into a 22-11 lead by blanking the Fighting Tigers for more than six minutes. The 14-0 NJIT rally opened with a pair of Flores layups, the first assisted by classmate PJ Miller, who would finish with a game-high and personal collegiate-best six assists.
The visitors lived up to the Fighting part of their nickname, responding to the 11-point deficit with a pair of unanswered baskets and the Highlanders did not get back into a double-digit lead again until junior Jheryl Wilson, assisted by Miller, drained a three on the last shot of the half for a 31-19 advantage at the break.
NJIT delivered the coup de grace almost immediately to start the second half, shutting out SUNY Cobleskill for the first 6:49 of the period and expanding the lead to 42-19 before Cobleskill's Damon Franklin finally made a jumper with 13:11 left. Franklin, a 6-5 junior who came in averaging a team-leading 18.1 points per game for the Fighting Tigers, managed just one other point and shot 1-for-7 from the field in 33 minutes.
The Highlanders, who outscored the visitors in the second half, 47-21, continued to stretch their lead and built game-high bulges of 41 points twice in the closing 2:36.
The freshman guard Flores, who also had four assists for NJIT, was one of the team's four double-figure scorers on the night. Wilson added 13 points for the Highlanders, while Isaiah Wilkerson had 12 points and a team-leading six rebounds, and freshman Drejon Scott chipped in 10 points, to go with three assists and three steals.
Cobleskill, which was facing a Division I opponent for the first time in school history, clearly was not accustomed to the kind of defensive pressure it felt from the Highlanders and NJIT took advantage of 28 turnovers by the visitors for a 39-8 differential in points-off-turnovers. NJIT had just nine offensive miscues.
Cobleskill's only double-figure scorer was freshman guard Haneef Scott, who came off the bench for 13 points. Junior center Carl Thomas collected seven rebounds to pace the Fighting Tigers to a 38-29 team rebounding edge.
Another key in NJIT's win was its defensive play against the two most dangerous Fighting Tigers offensive players. In addition to the junior Franklin, the Highlanders held Cobleskill's other big gun, 6-foot-7 sophomore Andrei Lucas, who was averaging 17 points per game, to just three points, as well. He made one of four shots on the night in 24 minutes.
The task gets exponentially more difficult for the Highlanders in their next home game, as they host Vermont at 2 pm on Saturday in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
One of the top mid-major Division I programs in the East, Vermont owns a 4-4 overall record that includes a 77-71 win at Rutgers the last time the Catamounts visited New Jersey on November 22.
Saturday's game at NJIT will be the ninth in a stretch of 10 straight games away from home to open Vermont's season. The Catamounts have won both all-time meetings with NJIT, including 73-47 on January 23, 2009 in Burlington.
