Game Highlights (Video)


BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NY—Tim Coleman, Ky Howard, and Rob Ukawuba combined to account for 18 of NJIT's 19 overtime points in Thursday night's 92-86 non-conference overtime victory by the visiting Highlanders at St. Francis Brooklyn.
 
Coleman, whose career has been on an eye-opening upward trajectory since mid-December 2014, scored 7 of his career-best 27 points in the 5-minute overtime period. Howard scored 6 points in the overtime on the way to 23 points in the game, which matched his career high, done nearly a year to the day earlier, when he scored 23 at Holy Cross on December 12, 2014.
 
Ukawuba, who continues to be a big contributor coming off the NJIT bench, scored 5 in overtime and 15 in the game, with 13 of the points coming after the first half. NJIT (6-4) also got 15 points from Damon Lynn.
 
Howard and Coleman both posted double-doubles for the winning team, with Coleman adding a game-high 12 rebounds to his game-high 27 points. The junior forward shot 10-for-17 from the field, including 3-for-4 on 3-pointers and he made all four of his foul shots. Howard matched his season's rebound high with 10 and also led the Highlanders in assists (5). He and Lynn played all 45 minutes.
 
St. Francis, which unveiled banners for winning the 2014-15 Northeast Conference regular season championship and for playing in the 2015 National Invitation Tournament in pre-game ceremonies, dropped to 3-6 in the new season following its hard-fought loss to NJIT.
 
The Terriers became the second 2014-15 conference champion to fall victim to NJIT this season. On November 21, the Highlanders defeated 2015 Patriot League tournament champion Lafayette.
 
St. Francis finished the tussle against NJIT with five  double-figure scorers, paced by 21 points from senior swingman Tyreek Jewell. Two of Jewell's fellow starters, sophomore Gunnar Olafsson and senior Chris Hooper, scored 14 points apiece for the Terriers, who also got terrific work from two men off the bench.
 
Senior Antonio Jenifer played 32 minutes and finished with a double-double (14 points, 11 rebounds) and junior Jon Doss scored 15, all in the opening half.
 
The final box score produced some unusual and noteworthy statistics.
 
Among the oddities, St. Francis scored 86 points despite shooting just 37 percent from the field for the game and making only 8 free throws in the 45 minutes of play.
 
A key in the Terriers pulling off the paradoxical shooting and scoring statistics was the fact that they got 28 offensive rebounds and owned a 53-38 advantage in total rebounds. As a result, even though NJIT's defense got a lot of initial stops, the Terriers' work on the offensive board enabled them to have numerous multiple-shot possessions.
 
Combining multiple-shot possessions with good ball control (11 turnovers) St. Francis got off 83 shots from field, 22 more than NJIT's 61 field goal attempts.
 
Among the 83 shot attempts by St. Francis were 49 tries from 3-point distance, 19 more attempts from downtown than any previous NJIT foe this season.  Thursday's 49 3-point attempts by St. Francis were the second-highest total in a Division I game this season, exceeded only The Citadel (50 3-point attempts vs. Air Force).
 
Doss, who had played in four previous games this year for St. Francis, shot 5-for-9 on threes against NJIT, while Olafsson and Jenifer were each 4-for-9 from downtown for the home team.
 
By contrast, the Highlanders, normally a prolific shooting team from beyond the arc, attempted a season-low 15 3-pointers, making five.
 
Even so, the Highlanders scored a season-high 92 points (their fifth game with at least 89 points) and were effective shooting overall, making a season-best 53 percent (32-61) of their shots from the field.
 
Coming in ranked third nationally in team free percentage (81.3 percent), the Highlanders were an uncharacteristic 4-for-9 at the line in a first half that ended with them trailing 37-35. However, they were 9-for-10 in the second half and 10-for-12 at the stripe in overtime. The 19-for-22 after halftime led to a 23-for-31 (74.2 percent) on foul shots for the entire game and NJIT outscored the home team 23-8 from the line.
 
The Highlanders, who came in never having won a Division I game in the borough of Brooklyn (0-4, including 0-2 at St. Francis), scored the game's first six points and led 22-9 after a Howard layup with 11:10 left in the first half.
 
That would be NJIT's biggest bulge of the night, but the Highlanders still led by six after a Howard jumper with just 2:48 on the first-half clock.
 
However, St, Francis would close the half with an 9-0 binge, as Doss, who came in having made five 3-pointers for the season, poured in three of them in a span of 66 seconds, the last one with 24 seconds left that gave the Terriers their first lead of the night, 37-35, an advantage they took into the locker room.
 
The Terriers led despite shooting just 32 percent from the floor and 29 percent from downtown. But they had 16 offensive rebounds, just one below NJIT's total of 17 offensive and defensive rebounds combined in the opening half..
 
Olafsson, the St. Francis sophomore from Iceland, made a 3-pointer to open the second-half scoring and put the Terriers on top by what would be their biggest lead (5 points) with 18:08 left in regulation. An Olafsson layup with 16:11 remaining gave the home team another 5-point lead, but NJIT rattled off 9 unanswered points to re-take the lead and go up 46-42 with 14:04 to play in regulation.
 
NJIT continued its surge and built a 5-point edge at three different junctures, the latest at the 5:29 mark in the second half when a layup by Ukawuba staked the Highlanders to a 63-58 advantage.
 
But no leads were long-lasting and the game saw four ties in the final 3:12 of regulation, the last one at 73-73 when Jewell scored for the Terriers with 28 seconds left in the half. NJIT had the ball for one more possession in regulation, but Coleman's layup try after a drive through the lane fell off the rim as the buzzer sounded.
 
Undaunted, NJIT scored 19 in the 5 minute of overtime and took the lead for good when Coleman's 3-pointer put the Highlanders on top, 78-76, with 3:13 left.
 
The Highlanders made 7-of-8 free throws in the last 33 seconds of overtime to seal the victory, their second away from home in five tries this season.
 
The game at St. Francis in Brooklyn was the first of three away games for the Highlanders against teams from New York City. Next up is a trip to Manhattan for a 7 pm contest at Columbia on Saturday.
 
After a break from competition for exams, the Highlanders will visit Queens and St. John's on December 20 at noon.