Box Score


NEWARK, NJ—North Carolina Central senior guard Jeremy Ingram scored a game-high 28 points to lead the visiting Eagles to their 14th straight win, 81-62, in the final men's basketball game of the season for NJIT Tuesday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
Ingram, who is averaging 20.2 points per game, was superb on both ends of the floor Tuesday night, shooting 9-for-15 from the field, including 2-for-3 on 3-pointers and 8-for-8 at the foul line. He also drew the main man-to-man defensive assignment against NJIT's leading scorer Damon Lynn, making the prolific freshman earn all of his team-leading 24 points.
 
Game-high rebounding honors went to North Carolina Central junior Jordan Parks, a product of Queens, NY, who came off the bench for 9 rebounds and also had 3 blocked shots and 3 steals, sharing team honors in that category with junior Karamo Jawara, who also had a game-best 5 assists.
 
NJIT's top rebounder was Terrence Smith with six, all in the second half.
 
NCCU, which last lost on January 11 (63-60 at Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference rival Florida A&M) raised its overall record to 22-5 with the 14th consecutive victory. NJIT, which had matched its season high with four straight wins before hosting the Eagles, completes the 2013-14 schedule with a 13-16 record.
 
In addition to Ingram, the winners got double-figure scoring totals from Ebuka Anyaorah (11 points) and 10 from senior Alfonzo Houston, who shot 5-for-7 from the floor. Anyaorah, a redshirt senior who did not enter the game until 4:14 remained on the clock, got nine of his points on 9-for-9 shooting at the foul line.
 
Lynn, whose 24 points made him the only Highlander in double-figures this night, also made six steals, a personal high and the most by a Highlander this year. It also tied the program record in the Division I era  (began in 2006-07) that was done six times previously, five times by Chris Flores (Class of 2013), including three times in his senior season.
 
Lynn made two more 3-point field goals, raising his season total in that department to 107, making him fourth all-time for 3-pointers in a season by a Division I freshman. Stephen Curry (Davidson, 2006-07) holds the all-time record with 122, followed by Tajuan Porter (Oregon, also in 2006-07) with 110 and Keydren Clark (Saint Peter's, 2002-03) with 109. Lynn also completes his freshman season averaging 3.69 3-point baskets a game, which is sixth-best all-time among freshmen for the rule that is in its 28th season.
 
The freshman ends the season with 500 points and a 17.2 points per game scoring average. The 500 points are the second-most in NJIT's Division I era, trailing only Isaiah Wilkerson (Class of 2012), who scored 517 points in 32 games his senior season. Lynn's 17.2 ppg is the best final average for an NJIT Division I player, passing Flores' 16.9 average as a senior in 2012-13.
 
Smith, the NJIT sophomore forward, who finished with 9 points and shot 3-for-4 from the field, ending the year with a school DI-record 62.9 percent field goal percentage, currently good for fourth in the nation. He shot 47-for-58 (81 pct) over the final eight games.
 
With NCCU having three conference games still to be played and the MEAC regular season title still to be clinched (NCCU is first in the MEAC at 12-1, with three others at 9-3, but needs another conference win to clinch at least a tie for the regular season title), Eagles coach LeVelle Moton likely hoped for an early knockout punch, with a big early lead in his team's final non-conference game at NJIT. That's exactly what he got with a first half that ended with NCCU on top, 43-15.
 
The Eagles never trailed, but a jumper by Smith gave NJIT a 2-2 tie 53 seconds into the game. From there, North Carolina Central ran off seven points in 79 seconds and continued to extend the lead the rest of the half, going up 10 at the 15:30 mark (15-5); 16 at 12:32 (21-5); 21 at 8:22 (28-7); and, a game-high 28 (41-13) with 2:01 left.
 
Reflecting the scoreboard at the half, NCCU was shooting 63.6 percent (14-22) from the field, 13-17 (76.5 percent) at the foul line to go with a 17-9 team rebounding lead and eight steals that contributed to 13 Highlander turnovers. To help put that in perspective, NJIT has had 16 entire games this season with 13 or fewer turnovers.
 
NJIT got five points in the half from freshman Montana Mayfield, four each from Smith and Lynn and two from Tim Coleman.
 
Coupled with the high turnovers total, the Highlanders shot 5-for-22 in the opening half, including 1-for-12 from 3-point range against an Eagles defense that ranks fourth nationally in field goal percentage defense (37.9 percent) and 10th in scoring defense (59.4 points per game).
 
With any eye on the last conference regular season games, plus the MEAC Tournament, the winner of which gets an automatic NCAA Tournament bid, it's possible Coach Moton of the Eagles wanted to stretch the lead beyond 28 and then start resting some of his key players.
 
However, no one outside the NCCU coaching staff will ever know, because NJIT, realistically limited to playing the final 20 minutes of the season for pride, produced a pride-filled second-half effort.
 
A renewed focus on defending, rebounding, and executing plays was obvious in the Highlanders from the outset of the second half.
 
With the visitors having done pretty much what they wanted in half-court offense before the teams went to the locker room, Highlander coach Jim Engles moved to extend his team's defense the length of the court. Even in half-court sets, NJIT's perimeter defenders pressured the ball 25 feet from the basket.
 
When a team opts for that type of defense, the floor opens up and the defensive team can sacrifice some easy baskets. That happened a few times Tuesday night, but the pressure and higher pace gave the Eagles some trouble, as they turned the ball over 12 times in the second half and made 10-of-25 shots (40 percent, compared to the 14-for-22; 63.6 percent,  in the opening half).
 
And the points-off-turnovers were virtually flipped from half-to-half, with NJIT winning that category in the second, 20-5, after the Eagles won it 21-6 in the opening period.
 
The Highlanders never found a rhythm from 3-point distance (2-10 in the second half), but otherwise their aggressiveness paid off with an improved second-half field goal percentage (38.5 percent, up from 22.7 percent) and 32 foul shots in the second half (25-for-32) after just four attempts (all made) in the opening 20 minutes. The rebounding was much closer, too (20-16 for NCCU after 17-9 in the opening half).
 
It all added up to a 47-38 "win" of the second half for the Highlanders after they were battered 43-15 to begin.
 
Down 28 at halftime, NJIT actually fell back a point farther, 46-17, on an early jump shot by NCCU's Houston. But the harder effort soon began paying off and the Highlanders shaved the deficit to 19 at 52-33 when Lynn made all three of his free throws after being fouled on a shot from downtown with 13:17 left.
 
NJIT, which got as close as 17, trailed  66-48 after Mayfield, who was 6-for-6 at the foul line in the game, drained a pair with 4:14 left. NCCU then went on an 11-2 run, nine points coming from the redshirt senior Anyaorah in a span of 1:48, to push the lead back to 27, erasing all but one point of NJIT's second-half comeback.
 
However, the Highlanders, still competing, outscored the Eagles 12-2 in the final 92 seconds.
 
By game's end, there was little rest for NCCU's two most important players, Ingram, who played 33 minutes before fouling out and senior point guard Emmanuel Chapman, who logged 34 minutes.
 
As terrific as Ingram's overall effort was against the Highlanders, his game-high 28 points Tuesday were below his totals from the previous two contests, when he scored a career-high 38 in a MEAC win at Savannah State on February 17 and the 30 he scored against archrival North Carolina A&T on February 22.
 
And it's not just recently that he's shown his stuff. Back on December 22, Ingram scored 36 in a loss at Wichita State, which remains as the only unbeaten team in Division I (30-0) and is ranked second in the latest Associated Press poll. He has scored in the 20s 11 times to go with four games of 30 or more points.