NEW BRITAIN, CT—Damon Lynn's 16 points led four NJIT double-figure scorers as the balanced Highlanders defeated Central Connecticut 84-76 in men's basketball Saturday night in CCSU's Detrick Gymnasium.

Lynn, who had a quiet start with just three points until he hit an off-balance 3-point bucket to beat the first-half buzzer, pumped in 10 more points in the second half for NJIT (5-7). Lynn scored his 16 points on five 3-pointers and a free throw.
 
NJIT got 14 more points from Winfield Willis; a career-high 13 from senior post man Daquan Holiday, who shot 6-for-8 from the field; and 12 points from Ky Howard. Osa Izevbuwa and Rob Ukawuba each scored 8 off the bench, while combining to go 6-for-7 from the field, as Izevbuwa made both of his 3-point tries. Redshirt freshman center Vlad Shustov added a career-high 7 points on 3-for-5 shooting from the floor in 10 minutes of action.
 
Central Connecticut (2-8) lost despite a game-high 27 points for sophomore guard Matt Mobley, who shot 12-for-12 at the foul line. Khalen Cumberlander scored 18 and Faronte Drakeford 13, but the rest of the Blue Devils combined for only 18 points and NJIT dominated the bench scoring, 27-9.

Mobley, whose 27 points against NJIT were three shy of his career-best 30 against Fairfield in this year's season opener on November 14, has made remarkable strides in one year as a scorer. He started 21 times as a freshman and average a shade under 7 points in 30 games in 2013-14. This season, his scoring average through 10 games is 18.5 ppg.
 
Saturday's win by NJIT halted a brief two-game slide for the Highlanders, while the loss snapped a two-game victory streak for CCSU. Both NJIT losses and both Central wins had been by double-figure margins.
 

The total team rebounds were even Saturday, with each team getting 33. Matt Andrade of Central led all individual rebounders with 10 in 24 minutes as a reserve, while Holiday's 7 rebounds paced the Highlanders. The senior also notched a game-high 4 blocked shots and made a pair of steals, sharing game honors in that department with his teammate Lynn and Central's Drakeford, who brought down 7 rebounds of his own. Andrade, the CCSU senior who had 10 rebounds on Saturday, had never had more than 3 in a game before.
 
The Highlanders, who did a good job sharing the ball for quality shots, especially in the opening half and in the early stages of the second half, when they built a game-high 15-point lead, 67-52, with 12:07 remaining, got 6 assists from Lynn, 5 from Howard, and 4 from Willis. Freshman point guard Kevin Seymour's 6 assists topped the Blue Devils.
 
NJIT defied conventional wisdom by being outscored at the foul line, 26-12, but still managing to prevail. In fact, at the time they took their biggest lead, 67-52, the Highlanders had made just one free throw in the game to 14 for the Blue Devils. A further oddity was that NJIT's first 11 fouls of the game—seven in the first half and the first four in the second half—were committed in the act of CCSU shot attempts. It wasn't until more than three-quarters through the game that Howard picked up NJIT's first common foul (non-shooting) of the game at the 9:33 mark of the second half.
 
Compounding the issue, the Blue Devils, led by Mobley's 12-for-12, made 84 percent of their free throws (26-of-31).
 
Central Connecticut had its most success early, scoring the game's first five points and taking its biggest lead, 15-8, fueled by an 8-0 run, capped by Mobley's 3-pointer less than six minutes into the game.
 
Visiting NJIT  withstood the early flurry and eventually gained the upper hand, outscoring Central Connecticut 13-6 over the last 3:11 of the opening half for a 45-38 Highlander advantage when the teams headed to the locker room at halftime.
 
Willis, with 10 points, was NJIT's only double-figure scorer at the break, while Mobley had 13 and Cumberlander 11 for the Blue Devils.
 
The Highlanders, who made 58 percent of their first-half shots overall (19-for-33), including 6-for-11 from downtown, took control in the second half, shooting 9-for-12 from the field, including 4-of-6 on threes in the first eight minutes of the second half. At the 12-minute media timeout of the second half, NJIT's percentages for the game stood at 62 percent (28-for-45) on all field goal tries and 10-for-17 on threes (59 percent) on 3-point tries.
 
It would not be smooth-sailing for NJIT, however, as the Highlanders hit the 70-point mark with just over 10 minutes to play, but would make just two more field goals the rest of the game. The Highlanmders' scoring slowdown opened the door for CCSU to creep back into contention and when Andrade made the second of two foul shots with 1:52 left, the NJIT advantage, once as big as 15 points, was down to 74-70.
 
However, the Highlanders mixed some defensive stops with 9 made free throws in the final 1:39 to polish off their third road victory of the season.
 
The first two road wins had come at Duquesne, the program's first against a team from the respected Atlantic 10 Conference, and the second came at Michigan, ranked #17/#16, exactly two weeks before the game at CCSU. The win at Michigan not only was NJIT's first-ever win over a nationally-ranked opponent, it was the first-ever game, period, vs. a ranked team.
 
Next, the Highlanders will play their second nationally-ranked team in the Philadelphia area Tuesday night at undefeated Villanova. Nova (11-0) is ranked #7 in both of the the latest national polls. The 7 pm game between the Highlanders and Wildcats be televised live nationally on FOX Sports 1.

Matt Provence's live play-by-play call will stream here on www.njithighlanders.com