CHICAGO – Junior Christian Wall (New Orleans, La.) recorded 22 points as the Chicago State men’s basketball team slipped past NJIT by a score of 81-75 in its final game of the regular season Saturday afternoon at the Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center.
The Cougars improved their season record to 12-18 and finished with a 4-8 mark in Great West Conference play, while the Highlanders fell to 9-19 overall and 4-7 in the conference.
Wall also finished with six assists and three steals in addition to shooting 8-of-13 from the field, including 4-of-6 from three. Junior Carl Montgomery (Chicago, Ill.) added 20 points on 9-of-10 shooting with eight rebounds and three blocked shots. The final CSU player to score double figures for the game was junior Antonio Lofton (Chicago, Ill.) as he added 18 points and shot 14-of-16 from the free throw line.
Junior Jheryl Wilson paced NJIT with a game-high 26 points, six rebounds and three assists for the game. Freshman Chris Flores added 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and sophomore Sammy Schickel contributed 11 points.
“That was a really good win for us and we needed some momentum going into the conference tournament next week,” CSU head coach Benjy Taylor said after the game. “It was a good team win and we are starting to play a lot better now. NJIT is an awfully tough team and they beat us pretty good at their place, but it feels good to bounce back from that.”
Senior Brandan Smith (Dayton, Ohio) was honored by the team before the game in a senior day ceremony.
Next Up for the Cougars is the 2010 Great West Conference Tournament which begins Wednesday in Orem, Utah. The seeding for the tournament will be known on Monday following tomorrow’s NJIT-South Dakota game from Vermillion, S.D., which begins at 8 p.m.
~CSU~