QUEENS, NY—Sophomore guard Rysheed Jordan's game-high 18 points led five double-figure scorers for St. John's in a  77-58 win over visiting NJIT in the 2014-15 men's basketball season opener for both teams Friday night in Carnesecca Arena on the St. John's campus.
 
Jordan, an All-Rookie selection in the BIG EAST Conference last season as a freshman, scored 14 of his points in the second half for the Red Storm. The winners got 13 points apiece from junior center Chris Obekpa and senior swingman Sir'Dominic Pointer; 11 off the bench from senior guard Jamal Branch; and 10 from D'Angelo Harrison, a senior who was first-team All-BIG EAST as a junior. Jordan was also the game's assists leader, with 5 for St. John's.
 
Obekpa and Pointer each finished the game with double-doubles, as the 6-foot-10 Obekpa grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds and also added 4 blocked shots and Pointer finished with 10 rebounds to go with his 13 points.
 
Despite having those two players with more individual rebounds than anyone on the smaller Highlanders, St. John's held a relatively small advantage in total rebounds, 46-40.
 
NJIT, which shot less than 30 percent from the field (28.3 percent on 17-for-60) for the game, had three double-figure scorers led by sophomore Damon Lynn's 15 points. Junior Ky Howard came off the bench for 11 points and a team-best 7 rebounds and senior Daquan Holiday matched his career-best scoring  vs. a Division I opponent with 10 points, all of which came in the second half. Holiday had scored as many as 10 points against three previous Division I foes.
 
For all intents and purposes, the winner was decided long before the first half had expired and the reason was a brutal shooting start for the visitors. At the third media timeout of the opening half, NJIT trailed on the scoreboard, 25-8, and the Highlanders' shooting numbers were 3-for-17 on all shots from the field, 2-for-7 on 3-point tries and 0-for-5 at the foul line, including two misses on the front end of possible one-and-one opportunities.
 
A few more shots went down for the Highlanders in the later stages of the opening half, but they still trailed at the break, 37-19.
 
St. John's extended that 18-point halftime lead to as many as 22 points early in the second half, going up 43-21 when Harrison made the first of two free throws with 17:53 showing on the clock.
 
The Highlanders, who would double their shooting accuracy from the first half to the second half, made a couple of mini-runs to plant a kernel of doubt, however fleeting, in the minds of the home faithful.
 
A traditional 3-point play on a driving bucket and free throw by Howard, trimmed the St. John's bulge that had been 22 points at 12:14, down to 16, 52-36, 43 seconds later.
 
Jordan scored to break the Highlander surge briefly. But then sophomore Tim Coleman, who scored all 9 of his points for the game after the break, scored 5 straight for NJIT, cutting the deficit to 12, 55-43, with 9:36 left.
 
A 12-point deficit with that much time remaining can be overcome sometimes, but not on this night by NJIT.
 
The Highlanders still trailed by 13 a couple more times, the latest after a bucket by Winfield Willis with 6:03 left. But NJIT did not get any closer to the lead than 15 points in the last five minutes of the contest.
 
The half-to-half improvement in shooting by NJIT was stark. In the first half, the Highlanders shot 18.5 percent from the field (5-for-27). In the second half, they were 12-for-33, not great, but nearly double the accuracy percentage-wise at 36.4 percent.
 
As noted earlier, NJIT was outrebounded just 46-40 for the game and in the second half it was even closer, 22-20 for the much taller Red Storm. In addition to Howard's team-leading 7 boards, NJIT got 5 each from Coleman and Holiday and 4 apiece from Rob Ukawuba and Emmanuel Tselentakis.
 
NJIT, which has a busy early schedule will play 5 more November games. Next up is NJIT's home opener Monday at 7 pm against Maine on campus in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
Maine plays its first regular season game under new head coach Bob Walsh on Saturday afternoon in Indianapolis at Butler before coming back East to visit NJIT Monday night.
 
Last season, under a different coaching staff, the Black Bears lost twice against NJIT, falling at home in Bangor, 88-82, on November 19 and again in Newark on December 4, 81-72.