NEWARK, NJ—In a season filled with big wins, NJIT added another big one to its resume, coming from behind to beat visiting Yale, 78-71, Friday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
The victory, NJIT's season-best fourth in a row, brought the Highlanders' won-lost record to 9-9, the first time they've been at .500 since they were 1-1 after two games in mid-November.
 
Yale (10-6) came into Newark with an impressive resume of its own. The signature win for the Bulldogs was a 45-44 upset win at defending national champion UConn on December 5, the night before NJIT scored its monumental 72-70 upset at #17/#16 Michigan.
 
The win over UConn and some other performances against strong opponents put Yale's official NCAA RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) at #65 out of the 351 NCAA Division I men's basketball programs. The RPI is a quantity used to rank teams based upon a team's wins and losses and its strength of schedule (opponents' winning percentage and the winning percentage of those opponents' opponents).
 
Sophomores Damon Lynn and Tim Coleman led the NJIT scorers with 23 points and 22 points, respectively. Lynn, who played all 40 minutes, shot 5-for-9 on 3-pointers and had a game-high 5 assists with just a single turnover. He and Coleman shared game honors with 3 steals apiece.

Lynn scored 15 of his points in the second half and Coleman scored 13 after the break, as the Highlanders overcame a 38-33 halftime deficit to outscore the visiting Bulldogs in the second half, 45-33.
 
Coleman, who shot 7-for-11 from floor overall, including 2-for-3 on 3-point tries, also shot 6-for-8 at the foul line.
 
He is on a remarkable personal roll, having scored at least 12 points in each of the last six games after scoring no more than 12 (which he did once) in any of the season's first dozen games.
 
He began his run with 12 points against #7 Villanova on December 23; scored what was then a season-high 14 points in the next game at Lafayette; tied his existing career-high 15 points in the next contest vs. Saint Francis U; and has set new career scoring highs in each of the last two games, with 17 points vs. Maryland Eastern Shore and now 22 against Yale.
 

The last time NJIT had two players top 20 points in the same game was in a 91-88 overtime win against Lafayette on November 23, 2013, when Lynn scored 21 points and Terrence Smith, who has been out all this season due to injury, scored 24 points for the Highlanders.
 
Senior Daquan Holiday added 12 points and a team-best two blocked shots to the NJIT cause, as he finished a point shy of the career-high 13 he scored at Central Connecticut on December 20.
 
The top scorer for Yale was senior guard Javier Duren, who netted 21 points. Duren shot 9-for-9 at the foul line, all in the second half.
 
Yale's other two double-figure scorers did not start. Freshman guard Makai Mason, whose previous career scoring high was 12 points at Providence, scored 17 against the Highlanders, shooting 7-for-9 from the field.
 
Greg Kelley, a 6-fot-8 senior, came off the Bulldog bench for 16 points and fell one rebound shy of a double-double, ending with a game-best 9 rebounds. Kelley, who came into the game having made seven 3-pointers for the season (7-for-34) shot 4-of-6 from downtown against the Highlanders.
 
With Mason and Kelley leading the way, Yale flashed its deep roster, as it got more points from its bench (38) than it did from its five starters (33) and that was with one starter, Duren, coming up with 21 points.
 
In addition to Kelley's game-high 9 rebounds, fellow senior Matt Townsend, one of 32 Rhodes Scholars nationwide, finished with 7 rebounds for the Elis. Ky Howard's 5 rebounds topped NJIT in that category.
 
NJIT may have considered itself fortunate not to have trailed by more than 38-33 at the half, as Yale made 15 of its 29 field goal attempts in the opening 20 minutes, while also dominating the rebounding, 23-10.
 
Despite its dominance in total rebounds, Yale only held a 7-5 advantage in second-chance points in the opening half and that was offset by NJIT's 11-8 halftime lead in points-off-turnovers, as Yale had 10 turnovers, seven of which came on Highlander steals.
 
The leading scorers at the half were Mason and Kelley with 10 points apiece for Yale, while Coleman scored 9 and Lynn 8 to top the Highlanders.
 
NJIT "won" the second half, 45-33, holding Yale to 35 percent shooting from the field (9-for-26), while also doing much better on the boards (the Highlanders had a 16-15 rebounding lead in the second half after the 23-10 disadvantage in the opening half.
 
And NJIT continued to punish Yale's turnovers, registering a 10-2 second-half advantage in points-off-turnovers, even though the visitors have just six turnovers in the half.
 
With Yale leading at the half, 38-33, Lynn capped the first possession of the second half by hitting the first of his three second-half 3-pointers.
 
Duren made two free throws to get Yale's lead back to four and the teams then traded threes, with Coleman connecting for NJIT and Kelley answering for the visitors.
 
Trailing 43-39, NJIT ran off 10 unanswered points for a 49-43 lead at the 14:15 mark. Lynn sparked the rally with a layup and 3-pointer, the three giving NJIT a 44-43 advantage. Ky Howard kept the run going with a driving layup and then 6-foot-10 redshirt freshman Vlad Shustov drilled his first college 3-point basket from the top of the key. Shustov, who makes 3-pointers with regularity in practice, had misfired on his two previous in-game 3-point tries this season.
 
The game, which was a well-played, hard-fought contest, stayed close for a long time. Lynn's 3-pointer that made it 44-43, Highlanders, with 16:02 left, put NJIT on top until a traditional 3-point play for senior Rhodes Scholar Matt Townsend put Yale back in the lead, 61-60, with 4:49 remaining.
 
However, NJIT, which has been tested by good teams late in games earlier this season, responded immediately, taking the lead for good on the possession that followed the Townsend layup and free throw that put Yale ahead.
 
Calmly working the halfcourt offense, Lynn drove the ball down the lane and fed Holiday, who made a layup along the baseline and then a foul shot awarded when he was fouled making the layup.
 
With NJIT up a pair, 63-61, Coleman stole the ball from Yale's Kelley and was fouled by Mason. Coleman made his two free throws at the 4:06 mark and the Highlanders led by at least two points the rest of the way.
 
Yale's breaking point came just under the two-minute mark when NJIT's Lynn drained a 3-pointer to put his team ahead by five, 70-65.
 
The Bulldogs pulled to within 73-69 on a pair of Duren foul shots with 1:03 remaining. But Coleman made a free throw, Holiday made a layup, and Winfield Willis hit a pair of free throws with 20 seconds left, giving the Highlanders a nine-point lead, their biggest of the night, 78-69, before Duren scored the game's last two points on a layup for Yale with 14 seconds left.
 

NJIT managed to advance the ball into the front court against Yale's full-court press and then dribbled off the final seconds to complete the big win.
 
The Highlanders, who already gained their first-ever wins over teams from the Big 10 Conference (Michigan) and Atlantic 10 Conference (Duquesne) earlier this season, broke into the wins column against the Ivy League for the first time by defeating Yale Friday night.
 
NJIT had been 0-11 in its previous games vs. the Ivy League, eight of which came in the program's difficult first three transition years into Division I competition that began in 2006-07. The Highlanders had been 0-2 all-time vs. Yale, with both defeats coming in coach Jim Engles' first two seasons at the NJIT helm, 2008-09 and 2009-10.

Two games from now, on January 17, NJIT will visit another Ivy League opponent, first-time foe Dartmouth, in Hanover, NH.
 
Next up, however, the Highlanders will aim for another win when they host St. Joseph's of Brooklyn next Wednesday, January 14, in a 7 pm game in the Fleisher Athletic Center.