NEWARK, NJ—There was plenty to like for NJIT men's basketball and its fans in Saturday's 71-46 Great West Conference win over visiting Utah Valley in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.

First, the Highlanders won their second game in as many tries, following last week's program Division I record-setting 66-37 conference win over Chicago State with another comprehensive win over Utah Valley, which was picked second in Great West Conference coaches' preseason poll and which had defeated the Highlanders in all six of the programs' meetings over the preceding three seasons.

Sammy Schickel came off the bench to lead all scorers with a career-high 18 points, shooting 7-for-10 from the field, including 4-for-6 on three-point attempts for NJIT (7-13, 2-2 Great West Conference).

Freshman guard Chris Flores added 16 points, grabbed a team-leading 5 rebounds, handed out five assists (without a turnover) and made a game-high four steals, while junior guard Jheryl Wilson chipped in 12 points and a game-high six assists for the Highlanders. Wilson also swatted away a career-best three Utah Valley shots.

Ryan Regis, NJIT's sophomore center, also posted a career high for points (9) and blocked a pair of shots and sophomore PJ Miller, playing his second game since missing eight games with a stress fracture in his left foot, made four of five shots, finishing with eight points, while handing out three assists without a turnover in 21 minutes.

As a team, the Highlanders, who have been competing in Division I since 2006-07, set a new program DI record for field goal percentage (54 percent on 27-50, surpassing .517 set against Longwood in February 2007). They also committed just 10 turnovers in the game against Utah Valley. Indeed, the points-off-turnovers favored NJIT, 27-2.

Utah Valley (9-12, 2-3 Great West) picked up 12 points off the bench from junior guard Aaron England, who did all of his scoring in the second half, connecting on four of five three-point tries. Jordan Swarbrick added 10 points for the Wolverines, who trailed at the half, 40-18, after making just three of 24 attempts from the field in the opening 20 minutes.

Utah Valley shot better in the second half (10-22, 45.5 percent). But the Highlanders were better than that, making 60 percent of their shots in the half (12-20). NJIT's 54 percent shooting for the game included 7-for-15 from three-point distance, plus near-flawless execution in halfcourt offense that resulted in numerous backdoor layups. Twice in the second half they ran the shot clock down as low as it could go and scored as the shot clock buzzer was sounding.

The game started slowly with the first field goal for either team coming nearly five minutes in on a layup by NJIT's Flores at the 15:09 mark. But the Highlanders outscored the visitors, 24-7, over the last 8:36 of the first half for the big 40-18 advantage at the break. Flores led all scorers at halftime, with 10 points, while Swarbrick, a senior, paced the Wolverines, with nine.

Utah Valley, which has lost its last two games and is 0-8 in away games, never got closer than 17 points in the second half.

With the win, NJIT has won back-to-back games over Division I opponents for just the second time. The first time came at the dawn of NJIT's Division I era, which the Highlanders opened with consecutive victories over Manhattan and then Rider in November 2006 (the Highlanders also won two straight this season in late December, defeating Wagner and NYU-Poly to end calendar 2009, but NYU-Poly is not a Division I team).

In addition, NJIT had never beaten a Division I opponent by more than 11 points before topping Chicago State by 29 last Saturday. Now, the Highlanders have won two in a row by a combined margin of 54 points.

Saturday's opponent, Utah Valley, makes NJIT's win all the more impressive. The Wolverines, who were widely regarded as the best of the Division I Independents before joining with NJIT and five other schools this season in the newly-expanded Great West Conference, were a 17-win team a year ago and they defeated the Highlanders by 50 points the last time the teams met on February 28, 2009 in Utah. In fact, the Wolverines had never beaten NJIT by fewer than 12 points in any of the six previous games between the schools.

On top of all that, NJIT played Saturday without sophomore captain, leading scorer and rebounder Isaiah Wilkerson, who is sidelined with a stress fracture in his right foot. Freshman Sean McCarthy, too, is sidelined with a stress reaction in one of his feet (a stress reaction is similar to a stress fracture except that there is no detectable fracture in the medical imaging). Both injuries require rest combined with physical therapy.

The Highlanders, who are 6-2 at home this season, will return to the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center next Saturday, February 6, for a 2 pm non-conference game against Longwood. That game is part of men's basketball Alumni Day and will include the annual alumni game in the morning.