Box score

NEWARK, NJ—Colgate senior guard Mike Venezia scored 12 of his team-leading 15 points in the second half of a 76-73 non-conference men's basketball win for the visiting Raiders in NJIT's Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center Wednesday night.
 
Colgate (7-15) snapped an 11-game road losing streak with Wednesday's victory, while NJIT (9-12) absorbed its first defeat at home since losing to St. Francis (NY) on Nov. 26. The Highlanders had won six straight home games since then. Colgate had won its season opener at Binghamton on Nov. 12 before losing its next 11 road games.
 
In addition to Venezia, Colgate got 14 points each from senior center Nick Pascale and sophomore guard Pat Moore. NJIT's junior guard Chris Flores netted a game-high 17 points as one of four starters in double-figures for the Highlanders, who have lost three in a row following a season-best three-game winning streak.

After Flores, NJIT got 14 points from Isaiah Wilkerson, 12 from PJ Miller (one shy of his career-high) and 10 points from Ryan Woods, all in the second half.
 
Colgate connected on an NJIT opponents' season-best 56.3 percent of its shots from the field (27-48) and the Raiders' 58.3 percent accuracy on 3-pointers (7-for-12) was the second-best this season against the Highlanders.
 
Venezia, who graduated from Westfield (NJ) High School less than 15 miles from Newark, led his team from beyond the arc, making all four of his 3-point tries. The 6-foot-1 Venezia also topped his team in rebounds, with five. The visitors, who were averaging about two fewer rebounds per game than their opponents coming in, dominated the rebounding totals, 36-22, with four other Raiders backing Venezia by grabbing four rebounds apiece.
 
NJIT backup center Kherel Silcott came off the bench for a game-high seven rebounds,  Wilkerson collected five rebounds, and Woods had four, but no other Highlander got more than two.
 
Colgate scored four points on its first two possessions in the opening 34 seconds, but NJIT fought back, using an 11-2 run, capped by a highlight-reel breakaway dunk for Miller to take what would be its biggest lead of the night, 25-15, at the exact midpoint of the first half.
 
However, Colgate answered right back with an 11-0 run in the 2:36 that followed the Miller dunk, seizing a 26-25 lead on two made free throws by Pascale at the 7:24 mark of the first half.
 
Neither team led by more than two until the Highlanders claimed a 34-30 lead on Miller's layup with 3:03 left in the half. However, the Raiders scored the last six points of the period, including a buzzer-beating tip-in for Brandon James that gave them a 36-34 lead at the break.
 
Moore made a layup at 2:33 and Sterling Melville tied the score for Colgate with 48 seconds left. After a Highlander turnover, just their third of the first half, the Raiders ran down the clock for a final shot and they found Melville on the left block for what looked to be the final shot.

Melville's close-in shot was rejected by NJIT's Silcott, but it stayed alive for James, who was open on the opposite block and scored easily to give his team a two-point lead at the break. The James tip-in provided the seventh and eighth second-chance points for Colgate, which enjoyed an 8-0 edge in that department for the half.
 
The leading scorers at halftime were NJIT's Flores and Miller, with 10 points apiece, while Pascale, the 6-foot-10 Colgate senior, had nine for Colgate, which had eight different scorers in the opening half.
 
NJIT scored the first five points of the second half, all on free throws by Wilkerson, who would salvage a difficult shooting night from the field (2-14) by going 9-for-10 at the foul line.   
 
The last three free throws in the early sequence came when Wilkerson was fouled attempting a 3-point shot 1:01 into the second half. However, Venezia answered immediately for Colgate with a rare 4-point play on the next possession, putting the Raiders back on top, 40-39, with 18:39 left in the game.
 
Colgate led the rest of the night and it used a 10-2 run that included eight points from Moore to build a game-high 13 point lead, 61-48, with 10:04 remaining.
 
The Raiders still held a seemingly comfortable 11-point bulge heading into the final 5:07. However NJIT, which made 18 of 19 free throw attempts in the second half after a 2-for-6 opening half at the stripe, mixed 6-for-6 foul shooting with five points from Woods on a 3-pointer and a jump shot, for an 11-2 spurt that trimmed the Colgate lead to 70-68 with 3:27 on the clock.
 
The Raiders worked the ball for a dunk by Melville that pushed their advantage back to four at the 2:58 mark, but Flores scored eight seconds later, connecting from downtown for the Highlanders, who closed to within a point, 72-71, with 2:50 left.
 
Senior Yaw Gyawu, a 1,000-point career scorer who comes off the bench and is averaging under 7 points per game this year, answered the Flores three with a layup for Colgate at 2:21.
 
After a couple of empty possessions both ways, Melville, fouled on an offensive rebound, made the second of two free throws to give Colgate a four-point lead, 75-71, with 37 seconds left.
 
Lamar Kearse's drive pulled the Highlanders back to within two points with 11.7 seconds left. Extending their defense full-court, the Highlanders fouled Gyawu in the backcourt and he made the first of two free throws with 5.5 seconds remaining.
 
When Gyawu missed the second foul shot, Wilkerson grabbed the defensive rebound and opted to advance the ball himself. Dribbling from near his own baseline to the 3-point line on the other side of the court, Wilkerson got off an off-balance try at the buzzer and his shot fell off the rim.
 
The Highlanders, who finished with a 36-24 deficit on points in the paint and 14-4 in second-chance points (however, a much more manageable 6-4 in the second half), had a 26-12 advantage in points off turnovers, including 16-8 in the second half, when they rallied back from the double-digit deficit in the closing minutest.
 
NJIT, already without its biggest player, 6-foot-10 Sean McCarthy, since early January, played Wednesday's game against a big Colgate squad without senior center Ryan Regis, who hurt his knee in practice on Tuesday. Regis had started the first 20 games at center, but his DNP vs. Colgate leaves Wilkerson as the only Highlander to start every game this season.
 
Freshman Garrett Frick got his first college start in place of Regis, but the sophomore Silcott and freshman Daquan Holiday claimed the bulk of the playing time in the post against Colgate, with Silcott playing a career-high 23 minutes and Holiday playing 12, for his highest minutes total in five appearances vs. Division I opponents.
 
Silcott and Holiday set new career highs with three blocked shots each and they combined for 11 points, seven for Holiday, who was 5-for-5 at the foul line, raising his season free throw shooting to 15-for-18 (83.3 percent).
 
Wilkerson's 14 points raised his career total to 1,398, moving him past Warren Rogers (1,390 from 1983-87) for seventh on the NJIT career list. Seventh is likely where Wilkerson, the top scorer in NJIT's Division I era, will finish, as the next man on the list, Clayton Barker (2002-07) finished with 1,617, some 219 points ahead of Wilkerson, who has eight regular season games left in his senior season.
 
Flores, the NJIT junior, raised his career total to 1,089 points, advancing past Ahmad Rasool (1,082 from 2000-03) into 23rd on the career list.
 
The next five games for NJIT are in the Great West Conference, beginning with a contest Saturday at Chicago State. That game, the second half of a women's-men's doubleheader, will follow an earlier game between the NJIT and Chicago State women's teams. The women's game will tip at 2 pm (CST), followed by the men's game, which is slated for a 4:30 pm (CST) start.
 
After the five straight Great West games, NJIT will host non-conference games against Division I Independents CSU Bakersfield (Feb. 22) and Longwood (Feb. 25) before closing the regular season with a home game vs. Chicago State on March 3.