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NEWARK, NJ—Like an exhausted boxer trying to stay on his feet near the end of a late round, NJIT clung to the last shreds of its once-substantial lead all the way until the 3:58 mark of the second half, when Derrick Colter's 3-point basket put visiting Duquesne on top to stay in a contest that ended 71-64 for the Dukes in Wednesday night men's basketball.
Duquesne, which trailed 53-43 with 10:32 left, outscored the Highlanders 28-11 the rest of the way. The comeback win put the Dukes, who were playing the last non-conference regular season game of any men's team in the Atlantic 10 Conference, at 10-9 overall.
Duquesne has won two straight since dropping a hard-fought 76-72 A-10 defeat to Saint Louis, ranked 19th in the Associated Press national poll, last week.
Duquesne's 6-foot-8 senior forward Ovie Soko, who is being scouted by NBA teams, led all scorers with 25 points, shooting 7-for-10 from the floor and 11-for-16 at the foul line. The starting backcourt of sophomores Micah Mason and Derrick Colter added 13 and 11 points, respectively.
A key in the visitors' come-from-behind win was a 37-26 overall team rebounding advantage, led by a game-high 10 boards by junior center Dominique McKoy. Soko added 8 rebounds and Mason, who is 6-2, grabbed seven caroms.
Freshman Desmond Ridenour came off the Duquesne bench to dish off a DU-leading 5 assists.
For NJIT (9-14), low post player
Terrence Smith scored 20 on 10-for-12 shooting from the floor. Smith's 20 points vs. Duquesne were his top total since he netted a career-high 22 at Maine on December 4. Smith barely missed a double-double Wednesday night, pulling down an NJIT-best nine rebounds.
Sophomore
Ky Howard added 15 points for the Highlanders, his sixth double-figure scoring game in the last seven contests. Howard shared game assists honors with five, while no one else from NJIT had more than 8 points.
NJIT had a right to be frustrated by its rare mistakes that included two misses on uncontested layups, a 10-second backcourt violation and uncharacteristically poor second-half foul shooting (7-for-13, 53.8 percent).
Wednesday's late-game defeat for NJIT came less than 48 hours after a come-from-behind overtime win at Delaware State that saw four Highlanders notch personal highs for minutes played. The capper of the two-games-in-three days journey to Penn and Delaware State was a 160-mile bus ride back to campus from Dover, Delaware, with the team bus arriving at NJIT past midnight and then the third game in five days with the Duquesne contest.
However, no fatigue was apparent early on in the NJIT-Duquesne game that saw the Highlanders play one of their better opening halves since early December.
The home team went into its locker room at halftime with a 32-29 lead over Duquesne, the first advantage at the break for the Highlanders against a Division I opponent since December 7, when the Highlanders exited the floor with a 28-21 lead on UMass Lowell (NJIT eventually won that one, 55-44).
Mason, the Duquesne sharp shooter, made a 3-pointer to give his team a 3-2 edge 47 seconds into the game. But Smith put NJIT on top with a short jump shot on the next possession, sparking a 10-2 Highlander rally that put them in front, where they stayed for the rest of the first half and deep into the second.
The Highlanders doubled the visitors at 16-8 when
Daquan Holiday, who would finish with a season-best 7 points, converted an old-style basket and foul shot three-point play with 12:28 left in the opening period.
Perhaps some warning flags should have gone up for NJIT when its halftime lead was just 32-29 despite the fact that the Highlanders were shooting 56 percent (14-25) at the half.
One reason the score was that close, however, was Duquesne's 12-0 edge in points-off-turnovers, including several set up off of too-soft. careless passes by the NJIT guards in halfcourt offensive possessions. Ridenour had two steals backing off of the ball and then jumping into the passing lane to snag softly-thrown passes as NJIT swung the ball side-to-side outside of the 3-point arc.
The teams' two scoring big men each carried a big part of the opening-half load, with NJIT's Smith netting 12 points on 6-for-8 shooting from the floor and Duquesne's senior big man Soko collecting 11 points on 3-for-4 from the floor and 5-for-8 at the foul line.
The Dukes had a 17-13 halftime advantage in total rebounds led, 6-foot-8 junior Dominique McKoy's six boards.
NJIT, up three at the half, claimed game-best 10-point leads on three separate times in the final half. The first two came on buckets for Smith and the last one was 53-43 on two
Odera Nweke free throws with 10:32 left.
The Duquesne comeback was more of a slow drip than a quick surge. The Dukes pulled to within six points of the lead three different times between 8:10 and 6:27, but NJIT answered the first two times.
The third time, after Smith had given NJIT an 8-point edge with 6:42 to play, Duquesne was beginning the push that eventually delivered the win for the Dukes. Jerry Jones made a layup at the 6:27 mark, cutting the DU deficit to 57-51.
NJIT got a chance to answer, but the Highlanders missed the front end of a one-and-one foul opportunity. Soko, who would make 11 foul shots by the end of the night, made two of them to close the gap down to 57-53, with 5:28 left.
After what would be one of just three second-half NJIT turnovers, Colter nailed a 3-pointer, whittling the Highlanders lead to one on the only points-off-turnovers the Dukes would get in the second half.
Howard made the second of two free throws for a 58-56 Highlander lead at 4:25.
Duquesne finally took the lead, 59-58, on a 3-pointer that wouldn't have happened without a favorable bounce. Soko, tightly guarded on the baseline in the offensive end, was having trouble maintaining his handle on the ball.
But he regained enough control to flip to Colter, in what resembled a shovel pass in football, Colter, who had won Duquesne's previous game (83-81 over A-10 foe St. Bonaventure on a buzzer-beating three) actually gained some free space when the Highlanders tried to trap Soko as he juggled the ball. Instead, Colter took the underhanded flip, set his feet in the left corner and fired the ball through the basket for a one-point DU lead.
Down two with 3:10 left, the Highlanders committed a 10-second backcourt violation when they were slow advancing against Duquesne's fullcourt press.
It was still a two-point game when NJIT missed an open layup on a baseline drive, the second time the Highlanders came away empty on what looked like near-automatic scores.
Mason then put some distance between Duquesne and the Highlanders with a layup and two free throws, followed by two Colter foul shots, all in a span of 51 seconds while NJIT was missing three shots on its corresponding possessions.
Howard scored two late buckets for the Highlanders, but Colter made three foul shots in the last 12 seconds to help ice the win for the Dukes.
After shooting 56 percent from the floor in the opening half, NJIT dipped to 40.7 percent (11-for-27) in the second half, including a disappointing 3-for-13 on 3-point tries. The Highlanders were 0-for-4 from distance in the 3:58 after Duquesne went ahead.
NJIT freshman
Damon Lynn made one 3-pointer in each half Wednesday. But were both significant, as he tied and then surpassed the program record for 3-points in a season, tying and surpassing the old mark of 84 in this season's 23rd game.
His triple in the first half tied him for the school single season record for 3-pointers made (84). The record was achieved first by
Clarence Pierce in 1994-95 in 30 games for an NJIT team had its best season in Division III, winning 28 of 30 games and reaching the Division III Elite Eight. Pierce's mark stood lone until last season, when
Ryan Woods (NJIT Class of 2013) matched it in 28 games. Now Lynn has connected on 85 triples with six February contests still to be play
The Highlanders will return to action on Monday, February 3, when they visit UMass Lowell. NJIT defeated UMass Lowell, 55-44, when the teams played in Newark on December 7.