Box score

NEWARK, NJ—Senior Ryan Woods paced NJIT with 14 points and seven rebounds Saturday evening, as the Highlanders won for the fifth time in their last six games, 63-55 over two-time defending Great West Conference regular season champion Utah Valley in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
NJIT (14-11; 5-1 Great West) also got double-figure scoring from two other senior starters--guard PJ Miller (13 points) and guard Chris Flores (12 points). Flores, the leading scorer in the Great West coming in (17.3 ppg), was held five points below his season average, but he set a new personal career high in assists, with  seven, while playing all 40 minutes.
 
They had just the three double-figure scorers, but Highlanders held a stark advantage in bench scoring, 20-2, and the NJIT reserves outrebounded their UVU counterparts, 12-3. 
 
Utah Valley (12-14; 2-4 GWC) had three double-figure scorers, as well, paced by Jason Johnson's game-high 16 points. Johnson, a junior guard, also made a game-high four steals for the visitors. The Wolverines also got 14 points and eight rebounds from senior Zach Jones and 11 points and nine rebounds from junior Ben Aird.
 
In completing the sweep of the home-and-home series vs. Utah Valley, NJIT ensured that the Great West will have a new regular season champion for the first time since South Dakota captured the inaugural GWC regular season crown in 2009-10. Utah Valley began its reign in 2010-11, going 11-1 in the GWC, and the Wolverines repeated with a 9-1 conference mark last season.
 
Saturday's result guarantees that the Wolverines will be dethroned in 2012-13, as they fall to 2-4 with just two conference games left. NJIT, meanwhile, leads the Great West standings at the 3/4-pole, holding a 5-1 mark, meaning the Highlanders can't lose more than three GWC games.
 
Additionally, 14-11 NJIT is three games over .500 for the first time in its Division I era, which began with the 2006-07 season. It had been 10 years since NJIT was more than two games over .500, going back to when the Highlanders finished 18-11 in 2002-03 as an NCAA Division II program.

NJIT coach Jim Engles acknowledged Saturday's positive outcome, saying: “This was a big win. We knew the importance coming in. They (Utah Valley) are a good team, with great coaching and they've been playing well. To beat them and end the day in first place with two conference games left is all you can ask.”

Although NJIT was outscored at the foul line on Saturday by a wide margin (19-4, as UVU shot 19-for-25, compared to 4-for-8 for the home team), the Highlanders, who beat Utah Valley in Orem, 57-52, on January 5, never trailed in the rematch that saw them hold their biggest lead of the day (13 points) on their 37-24 advantage at the halftime break.

Key in Saturday's win was a strong defensive effort that saw NJIT defend with perimeter extraordinarily well, while also holding its own on the inside.

From the outside, Utah Valley was 0-for-9 on 3-pointers, marking the first time in nearly four full years of Great West play the Wolverines have gone without a basket from downtown in a conference game. In fact, UVU had made at least one triple in all of the preceding 118 games it had played overall since that first season of GWC play in 2009-10.

Talented and heady junior point guard Holton Hunsaker, who is Utah Valley's second-leading scorer (13.2 ppg entering play) and who had made 55 threes on the season, missed all three of his shots from downtown and made just one of a game-high 14 field goal attempts against the Highlanders on Saturday.

Shooting an identical 9-for-26 from the field in each of the two halves, the Wolverines scored 15 of their 18 field goals for the game in the paint against the smallish Highlanders.

Still, NJIT avoided the kind of game most teams fear when facing Aird, the Wolverine star center. When the teams met back in January, the burly 6-foot-9 UVU post man put up a triple-double with 26 points, 13 rebounds and 10 blocked shots. In the second half alone, he put up 22 points, nine rebounds and eight blocks. The big man also had 24 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks the last time he was in Newark (99-97 double overtime win for UVU on February 9, 2012).

Fears of another Aird second-half explosion mounted when NJIT's starting center Sean McCarthy headed to the bench with his third foul just 13 seconds into the final period and then starting four man Daquan Holiday was whistled for his own third foul 28 seconds later, sending him to the bench, as well.

However, resilience is a hallmark of the 2012-13 Highlanders and they avoided the kind of serious damage that might have occurred. UVU got seven offensive rebounds, which helped lead to 10 second-chance points in the second half. But Aird, who picked up three second-half fouls of his own, produced six points (one field goal) and three rebounds, while playing 17 of the last 20 minutes.

Although NJIT led from its first possession on a jump shot from PJ Miller that began a game-opening 7-2 run, the Highlanders did not expanded their advantage into double-figures until an 8-0 spurt (five points from Woods), stretched the lead from 15-12 to 23-12 from 10:16 to 6:48.

With the lead at eight, 31-23, following a pair of Hunsaker free throws with 2:06 left, NJIT got a big lift from junior post player Quentin Bastian, who came off the bench to score six points in the final 1:46, including a baseline jump shot that pushed the Highlander lead to 37-24 with six seconds remaining in the half.

“One of the reasons we've had some success is that even though we're small as a group, our big men all bring something positive to the table. If we use them right, they can give us what we need (at a given time),” said Engles. “Quentin might have been the difference in this game, especially when he made those shots late in the first half.

“We've been without Terrence (Smith), who's really talented (has not played due to injury since December 13). But that's opened time for other guys. Daquan (Holiday) has played really well. Today it was Quentin, last game it was Odera (Nweke; 10 points, 6 rebounds vs. Chicago State). They've all helped us.”

First-half leaders Saturday were: Miller (10 points), followed by Woods (8 points, 6 rebounds), plus six assists for Flores. Zach Jones paced Utah Valley in scoring with nine points, while Aird had five points and six rebounds.

Although NJIT held a comfortable lead at the break and it ultimately proved too much for Utah Valley to overcome, the Wolverines made a challenge to open the second half, scoring seven unanswered points in the opening 1:13, before Bastian rung the bell for the home team, throwing down a put-back dunk for a 39-31 advantage with 18:16 on the clock.

Still, the Wolverines stayed in contention and did not let the deficit reach 10 again until a Flores jumper put the Highlanders on top, 50-40, with 8:05 left.

But UVU had one more push left and responded to the Flores bucket with six straight points, closing to within four, 50-46, on Johnson's layup with 6:37 remaining.
Nweke broke the Wolverine run with a layup and Zach Jones hit the first of two free throws, extending the Utah Valley spurt to 7-2. But NJIT's Woods delivered what might have been the game's biggest basket, swishing a 3-pointer from close to 25 feet away with the shot clock running down, for a 55-47 Highlander lead with 5:37 left.

While that Woods triple gave his team some much-needed breathing room, the NJIT advantage still stood at five, 57-52, heading into the closing three minutes. A Flores three with 2:57 left and then a Woods steal and knockout three by the senior sharpshooter, also from nearly 25 feet away, put the win on ice with a 63-52 lead at the 2:08 mark.

With his four 3-pointers in the game, Woods has 76 on the season—an NJIT Division I record and just eight shy of the overall school record (84 by All-America Clarence Pierce in 1994-95, a season that saw the Highlanders reach the NCAA Division III Elite Eight).

NJIT, which is playing out its regular season schedule with a game a week, will host New Orleans on Saturday, February 23 at 2 pm in non-conference play in the Fleisher Athletic Center. When the teams played their first-ever game, a wild one on January 21 in New Orleans, the Privateers prevailed in triple overtime, 96-94.