Box score
BROOKLYN, NY—St. Francis dominated early and late in each half of its convincing 72-47 non-conference men's basketball victory over visiting NJIT Thursday night.
The Terriers, who had won six of seven before falling in back-to-back games in the Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden on December 20 and 21 against Northwestern and Davidson, got back on the winning track against the Highlanders.
Senior guard Ricky Cadell led the way for St. Francis (7-5), scoring a game-high 20 points, while classmate Akeem Bennett was close behind, with 18 points, plus a team-leading 9 rebounds. Junior Stefan Perunicic added 13 points for the winners.
NJIT which had an encouraging offensive game just two nights earlier, had one of its worst offensive games of the season against St. Francis.
Against LIU on Tuesday night, the Highlanders scored 82 points and made better than 50 percent of their shots from the field—their best performances in either category in their nine games this season against Division I teams.
Just 48 hours later against St. Francis, NJIT (2-9) scored 47 points and shot 35 percent from the field on 20-for-57. The 47 points were the second-lowest total of the year for the Highlanders after their 45 points vs. Seton Hall and their shooting percentage was the third-lowest of the year, ahead only of Seton Hall (.304) and Maryland (.321).
The only player who shot well for NJIT on Thursday was senior Jheryl Wilson, who scored 19 points and made eight of 12 field goal attempts, including 2-for-3 on three-point tries.
Freshman Kherel Silcott was a positive contributor, as well, coming off the Highlander bench to tie for game rebounding honors, with 9, while also blocking two shots. The nine rebounds were a career-best for the Brooklyn resident playing his first college game near his home.
St. Francis tied an NJIT opponents' season-high with 12 three-pointers—four from Cadell and three from Perunicic—and became the first Highlander foe with fewer than 12 turnovers. The Terriers had just eight turnovers and were credited with 17 assists, led by junior Dre Calloway, who had 8 assists without a turnover in 30 minutes.
St. Francis scored 15 points in the first 5:10 of the game, building a quick 15-4 lead, with nine of the points coming on three-point shots.
The Terriers cooled down in the ensuing minutes, but still led 22-11 before NJIT's Wilson caught fire for three-and-a-half minutes. Starting with a jump shot at the six-minute mark, the senior scored the next 12 Highlander points, with his three-pointer at 2:30 capping a 12-3 NJIT run that trimmed the deficit to 25-23.
As quickly as NJIT and Wilson climbed the hill, St. Francis pushed them back down. Faster, actually. The Terriers responded to the threat with 10 unanswered points in the last 2:02, closing the half with a 35-23 lead, as Bennett scored a bucket, Perunicic made a deep three, Cadell made a three with 28 seconds left and Calloway punished an NJIT turnover with a driving layup with six seconds remaining.
Cadell, who came in with more than 1,300 career points, led everyone at the break with 15 points, while Bennett had 10. Wilson accounted for 14 of NJIT's 23 first-half points, shooting 6-for-8, while the rest of the team was 4-for-16.
NJIT, which had scored the first basket of the game, also scored the first basket of the second half, but St. Francis used a 9-2 spurt to go up 44-27, after Akeem Johnson's layup 3:19 into the second half.
The Terriers later worked their lead to 20, 50-30, at the 13:38 mark. But NJIT, playing its best basketball of the night, scored the next eight points and pulled back to the halftime deficit of 12, at 50-38, following a three-pointer by Lamar Kearse at 9:40.
The teams played even for a few more minutes and the margin was still 12, at 55-43, when Isaiah Wilkerson drove for an NJIT layup with 7:32 left.
That would be it for the Highlanders, who again lost the momentum as quickly as they had claimed it, managing only four points the rest of the game.
The Highlanders are off until Tuesday, January 4, when they host Lehigh at 7 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center. Lehigh, the defending champion of the Patriot League and a participant in the 2010 NCAA Tournament, is 7-6, with a New Year's Eve game scheduled at Yale before its trip to Newark. The Mountain Hawks have won three of their last four heading into the Yale game.
Tuesday's game vs. Lehigh marks the beginning of a four-game homestand that will include the Great West Conference opener (January 12 vs. Texas-Pan American).
