Box Score

NEWARK, NJ—LIU Brooklyn built a 17-point lead well past the midpoint of the second half, but it wasn't until freshman Iverson Fleming, who netted a team-leading 22 points, made two free throws with 1.7 seconds left and an NJIT heave missed at the final buzzer that the Blackbirds escaped the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center with a 96-93 men's basketball win Thursday night.
 
The win for LIU Brooklyn (3-6) over NJIT (6-6) included some record-setting performances.
 
LIU's senior point guard Jason Brickman became the all-time career assists leader in the Northeast Conference, breaking a record that had stood for 25 years.
 
Brickman, who led Division I in assists per game last season and is tops in the nation again this season, handed out 6 assists against NJIT, pushing his career total to 808 and surpassing the old mark of 804, set by Drafton Davis for Marist from 1984 to 1988.
 
The 6-foot senior might have had more assists if he hadn't been busy scoring a career-high 21 points himself. He shot 6-for-8 from the field, including 5-for-7 on 3-pointers, plus 4-for-4 at the foul line for a new personal high (he had scored 19 on four previous occasions in his career).
 
Brickman one of six double-figure scorers for the Blackbirds. Fleming, whose scoring high in his first seven college games had been 3 points, scored 20 in the second half on 7-for-9 shooting from the floor.
 
Gilbert Parga added 14 points, followed by EJ Reed's 12, plus 10 apiece for Landon Atterberry and Gerrell Martin, as LIU Brooklyn, which has represented the NEC as champion in each of the last 3 NCAA Division I Tournaments, won on the road for the first time in seven tries this season.
 
NJIT, which scored 45 points over the final 8:34, including 22 in the last two minutes, got a program record-setting performance from sophomore Winfield Willis.
 
Playing in his first year as a Highlander after starring in 2011-12 at Clarion (PA), Willis poured in a game-high 30 points, the most by a Highlander in a Division I game (NJIT began Division I competition in 2006-07). The old record of 28 points was done in four different games, once by Jheryl Wilson (Class of 2011) and three times by Chris Flores (Class of 2013), including twice last season.
 
Willis' previous NJIT scoring high had been 14 against Lafayette on November 23. In addition to his scoring record, Willis, who played 28 minutes off the bench before fouling out, finished with 4 assists and no turnovers.
 
Fellow sophomores Ky Howard and Terrence Smith added 17 points and 14 points, respectively, for the Highlanders. Smith shot 7-for-9, while Howard's 5 assists led the Highlanders.
 
LIU Brooklyn had a decided 36-24 rebounding advantage, led by 6 for Atterberry. In turn, the Blackbirds had a 15-7 advantage in second-chance points, with a 10-3 edge in the first half, when their more energetic play helped them to a 42-32 lead at the break. Damon Lynn's 5 boards topped the Highlanders in the game.
 
NJIT led early, but Reed's layup made the score 7-6 for the Blackbirds with 15:22 left in the first half and they never trailed again.
 
It also looked for a long time as if NJIT, for the first time in 12 games, suffer a loss without threatening the winners at any juncture. When LIU's Martin scored a layup, assisted by Brickman, it put the visitors on top by a game-high 17 points, 65-48, with 8:52 left.

Down 67-50 before Howard's layup at 6:42, NJIT made 14 of its last 18 shots from the floor, including 6 in a row in a span of 2:29 from 4:50 to 2:21.
 
NJIT trimmed the gap to 69-62 when Lynn (9 points) made a deep 3-pointer with 3:25 left. But Martin answered with a triple of his own just 13 seconds after the Lynn score and after some back-and-forth, Brickman found Fleming for a fast-break layup that put the score at 81-71 at the 1:59 mark.
 
A technical foul called against LIU Brooklyn's Atterberry for taunting after the Fleming basket  resulted in five quick points for Willis and the Highlanders. The guard made both free throws awarded on the technical at 1:57 and then he nailed a 3-pointer seven seconds later on the ensuing possession.
 
With LIU continuing to score, NJIT kept coming back and trimmed the deficit to three points five different times in the last 49 seconds. However, the Highlanders were always having to score to create a one-possession deficit until the final 12 seconds.
 
Willis, fouled in the act of shooting a 3-point try, made all three chances to pull his team to within two at 93-91 with 12 seconds showing.
 
NJIT fouled Reed of the Blackbirds almost immediately after the ball came inbounds and the sophomore hit one-of-two.
 
With such little time remaining, NJIT, unable to find an open look from beyond the 3-point arc, sent the ball inside to Smith, who scored a layup with five seconds left for a 94-93 score.
 
Fleming, fouled on the inbounds play, shot two free throws with 1.7 seconds left and made both. The second crucial one put NJIT in a spot where its only option was a 3-point try and even that could do no better than force overtime.
 
NJIT managed a prayer shot from just inside the center court stripe, but it missed with the final buzzer sounding.
 
Having played three games in a span of six days and with the academic part of the semester wrapping up, NJIT will take a needed break until Saturday, December 21 at 2 pm, when the Highlanders take on first-time foe Holy Cross of the Patriot League in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher.