Box score

CHICAGO—North Dakota made it two straight Great West Conference Tournament championships in men's basketball, outscoring NJIT by 13 points over the last 7:46 of a 75-60 win by the Fighting Sioux over the Highlanders in Saturday's 2012 title game hosted by Chicago State.
 
North Dakota (17-14), which had trailed by 14 at halftime of its semifinal game vs. Texas-Pan American, but outscored the Broncs by 18 in the second half of a 63-59 win on Friday, trailed the championship against NJIT at the half, 29-27. But the Fighting Sioux came out of the locker room for eight unanswered points in the opening 2:12 of the second half and never trailed the Highlanders again.
 
North Dakota did look back, however. The Sioux seemed to take control with a 22-7 run to open the half and eventually built a 13-point lead, going ahead 49-36 after a pair of Josh Schuler free throws with 12:05 left.
 
But NJIT (15-17), which had won a season-high four in a row coming in, erased all but two points of the 13-point deficit with an 11-0 run in a span of 2:52, closing to 49-47 after a Chris Flores layup with 8:23 remaining.
 
However, the Fighting Sioux answered NJIT's 11-0 run with six points of their own in 64 seconds to trigger a 26-13 race to the finish over the game's last 7:48.
 
The Highlanders lost despite game-high totals of 19 points and 11 rebounds for Isaiah Wilkerson in the final game of his splendid career.

Wilkerson, a ferocious competitor who was a catalyst in NJIT's rise from a 1-30 record in his freshman season to a run to the conference championship game in the final contest of his senior year, is the leading career scorer and rebounder in NJIT's Division I era, which began in 2006-07.
 
An undersized 6-foot-3 power forward the last two years of his college career after playing every position but center his first two seasons, Wilkerson finishes with 1,577 points (#7 all-time and first in DI) and 616 rebounds (#10 all-time and first in DI). The 2011-12 Great West Player of the Year in the regular season, he was named to the 2012 GWC all-tournament team.
 
Saturday's double-double was the fourth this season for Wilkerson and the 12th of his career and he was a double-figure scorer in his last 45 games against Division I opponents.
 
The second of two double-figure scorers in the game for NJIT against North Dakota was junior guard Chris Flores, who finished with 15 points, 12 of which came in the second half. He also had three assists, raising his season total in that category to 104, the most by a Higjhlander in the DI era. Flores completes his junior year with 1,233 points, which is 12th all-time at NJIT overall and third in the Division I era behind Wilkerson's 1,577 and 1,359 by Jheryl Wilson from 2007-11.
 
Flores, a second-team all-GWC pick who tied the tournament record with 27 points in the overtime semifinal upset of Utah Valley, joined Wilkerson on the 2012 all-tournament team.
 
Sophomore center Kherel Silcott collected seven rebounds in 15 minutes of action off the Highlander bench, bringing his total for the last six games to 38 (6.3 pg).
 
North Dakota, which had lost five of its previous six games against NJIT, including a quarterfinal loss to the Highlanders in the 2010 Great West Tournament, was exceptionally balanced in winning the 2012 championship game.
 
The Fighting Sioux had five double-figure scorers. Only point guard Aaron Anderson among the starters failed to reach double-figures, but he scored eight and picked up four assists without a turnover in 33 minutes of action.
 
The top scorer and rebounder for UND was lanky sophomore wing Troy Huff, who finished with 15 points and eight rebounds. Senior Patrick Mitchell added 12 points, all in the second half, while starting guard Jamal Webb and backup guard Josh Schuler came away with 11 points apiece. Center Brandon Brekke finished with 10 points and would have had more, if not for 4-for-10 foul shooting.
 
The rebounding was balanced, as well, for the Fighting Sioux, who outrebounded the Highlanders in the game, 40-35, including 21-13 in the decisive second half. After Huff's eight boards, North Dakota got seven from Webb, six from Brekke, and five from Anderson, who is 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds.
 
North Dakota, the 2011 GWC Tournament champ, came into the 2012 affair at Chicago State's Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center seeded second, having posted a 6-4 league record in the record season, a mark that included a split of its two games against NJIT. The Fighting Sioux had won by 17 at home on January 26 and lost the return game to NJIT by 15 in Newark on February 11.
 
For having come in second place, the Fighting Sioux received a bye into Friday's semifinal game against Texas-Pan American that saw them advance on the come-from-behind 63-59 win.
 
NJIT, seeded fifth after going 5-5 in the GWC regular season, had a more difficult route to the final, having to play three games in three days compared to two in two days for the other three semifinalists.

The Highlanders edged Houston Baptist, 65-64, in the opening round on Thursday and then went to overtime in Friday's noon semifinal to defeat runaway regular season champion and top seed Utah Valley, 88-78.
 
Despite the 85 minutes of pressure-packed, physically-demanding basketball in the previous 48 hours, NJIT scored on its first two possessions and raced to an 11-3 lead on Wilkerson's jumper 3:50 into Saturday's championship game.
 
The Highlanders slowed considerably after that. Even though there weren't any glaringly long scoreless droughts, they managed just six points in the next 10 minutes, or so, after the 11-3 lead.
 
North Dakota was more efficient, but not explosive, taking its first lead after scoring 16 points during the 10-minute NJIT slowdown. Brekke's jump shot in the lane put ND on top, 19-17, with 6:39 left in the first, Wilkerson tied the score for the Highlanders on two free throws 28 seconds later.

The teams went back-and-forth until NJIT's Arjun Ohri, also playing his final college game, made his only bucket of the day for a 27-23 Highlander lead with 1:42 remaining in the half.
 
The Highlander lead was still four when Wilkerson converted a traditional 3-point play 46 seconds later, but Huff, who had not scored previously, got on the scoresheet with a put-back layup to reach the halftime score of 29-27, NJIT. Wilkerson had 10 points and six rebounds at the break, both game-high, while Brekke's eight points paced the Sioux.
 
North Dakota, which outscored Texas-Pan American by 18 points in the second half of Friday's 63-59 semifinal win, got 3-pointers from the previously scoreless Mitchell on its first two possessions of the second half and then a layup by Huff for a quick 35-29 lead over NJIT.
 
PJ Miller finally broke the second-half ice for NJIT on a layup with 17:27 left and Flores made the second of two foul shots to get his team back within three 10 seconds later.
 
However, Huff canned a pair of free throws less than a minute later, putting North Dakota on the way to a 21-for-25 showing at the foul line in the second half after the Sioux had gone a dismal 7-for-15 in the first half that ended with them trailing by two points. Huff, 0-for-2 in the opening half, shot 7-for-8 at the line in the second half.
 
Having quickly gained the upper hand, North Dakota took awhile to build some separation as its lead fluctuated between five and seven points for a couple of minutes after the first two Huff foul shots.
 
Wilkerson made a pair of free throws to pull NJIT within five points, 41-36, with 14:36 left. However, Anderson, who repeatedly used his speed to drive into the heart of NJIT's defense, was fouled on one of his drives and hit two free throws at 14:19, sparking a 9-0 ND spurt that pushed the lead to 49-36 on two Schuler foul shots 2:14 after Anderson's free throws.
 
Flores, who made so many big plays in his 27-point effort against Utah Valley the day before, then took over for the Highlanders, scoring nine points points in NJIT's 11-0 run in less than three minutes, cutting the deficit to 49-47 with plenty of time, 8:23, remaining.
 
The Highlanders appeared poised to pull even when, on the next possession, they deflected the ball from North Dakota's Webb and a hustling Ryan Regis, another of NJIT's five seniors, dove to recover the ball and called timeout to avoid being tied up while on the floor.
 
Looking to extend their 11-0 run and down just two, the Highlanders lost the ball to Huff, who stole it in his defensive end and then raced for a layup on the other end for a 51-47 lead with 7:46 left.
 
NJIT missed a layup on the next possession and then the Fighting Sioux found Webb open in the left corner and his try that looked something like an old-fashioned set shot found the bottom of the net for a 3-pointer that pushed the ND lead from a tenuous two points to a more comfortable seven in a matter of just 41 seconds.
 
The Highlanders got back to within five points, 55-50, a final time on a traditional 3-point play for Lamar Kearse with 6:01 remaining, but North Dakota answered with a 17-2 run in less than four minutes, putting the game far beyond NJIT's reach.
 
NJIT, which finished 2011-12 with 15 wins, tying its program high at the Division I level, matching the 15 it got last season in a 15-15 finish to 2010-11, said goodbye to five seniors, who wore a Highlanders uniform for the final time in the 2012 GWC championship game.
 
In addition to Wilkerson, the Division I era career leader in scoring and rebounding, the program bids farewell to Regis, who played in 118 games and started 72, including all 30 he played as a senior; Ohri, who played two years at NJIT after starring at DIII NYU-Poly and made 70 3-pointers in years for the Highlanders; and, the Schickel twins, Sammy and Teddy, who also wrapped up their college careers.