NEWARK, NJ—Sophomore Damon Lynn was one of four NJIT starters to reach double-figure scoring with a team-leading 16 points for the Highlanders, who defeated visiting Howard, 71-62, Wednesday night in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center.
 
The victory for the 18-11 Highlanders came on the same day the school announced that it had received and accepted a bid to host a first-round game in the 32-team CollegeInsider.com national postseason tournament (CIT) on Monday, March 16 at 7 pm. The bid marks the first time NJIT has reached national postseason play since becoming eligible for it at the Division I level in 2009-10.
 
Individually, Lynn's 16 points on Wednesday raised his career total to exactly 1,000 points. He is the fourth Highlander to reach 1,000 career points while playing his entire career in Division I and the 26th member of the NJIT 1,000-point club overall. Winfield Willis added 15 points for the Highlanders, who are 14-4 this season when the junior scores at least 10 points. Willis, who got 10 of his points in Wednesday's first half, shot 5-for-7 from the field for the game, including 3-for-5 on 3-pointers.
 
Sophomore Tim Coleman and senior Daquan Holiday each scored 11 points to round out the double-figure scorers for the victorious Highlanders.
 
Wednesday was also a happy day for Highlander junior Ky Howard, who led NJIT with 8 rebounds in his first game action since early January. Howard, who was leading the Highlanders in rebounding (5.6 per game) and assists (73) when he was injured, had missed 10 games since starring in a 78-71 win over Yale on January 9. His 4 assists in 21 minutes also paced NJIT in that category against the team from his namesake university.
 

Howard (16-15), which begins play in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference postseason tournament on March 10, got big games from some unexpected sources.
 
Sophomore Tyler Stone, who had come off the bench in the preceding 30 games, started against NJIT and generated game-high totals of 16 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots, while making 3 steals, which tied him with teammate Jared Norsworthy for game honors.
 
Howard got 14 points from junior Brandon Ford, 12 points and a game-high 6 assists from sophomore Keon Hill, and 11 points off the bench from sophomore Solomon Mangham.
 
The Howard Bison got the first score of the game on a steal and layup by Ford and then went up 4-3 on Theodore Boyomo's put-back basket with 18:23 left in the first half.
NJIT then took control with a 15-2 run that began with a pair of Lynn free throws at the 18:07 mark and concluded with two foul shots for Willis at 14:18. Willis scored 7 and Lynn 4 in the 15-2 run, which also included a 3-point basket by Osa Izevbuwa, who was successful on all three of his 3-point tries in the game.
 
That outburst put the Highlanders in the lead for the rest of the night and they took 39-24 lead with them into the locker room at halftime, helped by 6-for-11 shooting from 3-point distance over the opening 20 minutes. Willis was game-high scorer at the break with 10 points.
 
Mangham's 9 points in 17 minutes off the bench put him atop the first-half scoring list for the Bison.
 
The Highlanders didn't do a lot in the second half to stretch their advantage beyond the 15-point halftime bulge. Indeed, their biggest lead of the game was by 18 points, 69-51, with 4:43 left in the game.
 
However, they kept the lead to at least 11 points until Hill's traditional 3-point play with 11 seconds remaining trimmed the Bison deficit to 71-62. Howard scored the game's last seven points over the last 2:16, cutting a 16-point deficit to the final nine points.
 
Earlier in the second half, the visitors got within 11 points of the lead two times, but NJIT had a ready response each time. Stone's layup at 16:55 pulled Howard to within 39-28, but Lynn hit a 3-pointer for the Highlanders on the next possession.
 
Then Norsworthy made a pair of free throws for a 51-40 score with plenty of time (11:04) left for the visitors to get closer yet. But NJIT went on a 7-2 spurt in less than two minutes on a Shustov layup, an Ivezbuwa three, and a Shustov dunk.
 
A few minutes later, Howard encroached to within 12 points of the lead, 63-51, but NJIT sandwiched a pair of baskets by Coleman around a Lynn layup for 6 points in 61 seconds.
 
The Lynn layup, which came after his steal in the backcourt and drive the rest of the way down the court, came with 5:22 left and accounted for the 999th and 1,000th  points of Lynn's career, as he became the first NJIT sophomore to reach 1,000 points in the Division I era.

With the win over Howard, NJIT completed the regular season with a 12-2 record at home, matching the program's best DI total (12-3 in 2012-13). The CIT bid announced earlier in the day, guarantees NJIT at least one more home game.  The Highlanders, who know they will host the CIT game on the night of Monday, March 16, will practice between now and then as they await the March 15 naming of the complete CIT field, including their first-round opponent.