Flames basketball complete comeback against NJIT for crucial ASUN win

When Liberty big man Myo Baxter-Bell pulled up on the edge of the 3-point line, the 6-foot-9-inch frame of NJIT center Souleymane Diakite right in his face, Vines Center held its breath. And then it erupted as Baxter-Bell let fly and drained a 3-pointer with ease. 

Baxter-Bell’s 14-point performance, including two 3-pointers (he’s only made four all season), proved crucial in a neck-and-neck contest against NJIT (4-8 in ASUN play) Saturday night that saw the Flames (10-2 in the ASUN) trail for the first time in four games before pulling away late in the second half for a
scrappy 62-49 win.

The Flames put up their lowest first-half points tally of the season (23) in a tepid first half, with both teams shooting a combined 15-for-54. Liberty took the lead late in the half, yet it struggled to extend its lead beyond two points until a decisive layup by Baxter-Bell halfway through the second period finally cemented a five-point lead the Flames would not give up for the rest of the night. 

“Our group found a way,” Flames Coach Ritchie McKay said. “When our offense mirrors our defense, we’re a tough out. We were struggling a little bit offensively in the first half, but our defense was consistent enough to get us the lead, and I thought we made a couple plays in the second half that were really important to our cause.”

With Saturday’s home win, Liberty extended its win streak to five games since its losses on the road against North Florida and Stetson, handing NJIT its fifth loss in a row as ASUN top-scorer Zach Cooks’ 14 points failed to drag the Highlanders out of their losing slump. 

The Flames win was far from secure as the first half began, however. 

Redshirt senior Scottie James scored a simple layup on Liberty’s first possession to give the Flames an early lead, but Highlanders guard Reilly Walsh responded with two points of his own within 30 seconds to level the game – and that pattern would continue for most of the night as both sides struggled to impose themselves on the game. 

Though the Flames had trounced the Highlanders 65-38 in January, Liberty could not seem to find its rhythm offensively, not scoring a field goal for over seven minutes after James’ layup and shooting one-for-10 at one point in the first half. NJIT duly capitalized to put Liberty behind for the first time since the Flames loss against Stetson Jan. 25.

“Having a week off, we looked a little bit out of rhythm,” McKay said. “Our last four games we’ve been clicking offensively, and we weren’t in that first half, but we got a little bit back in our lane in the second half.”

Baxter-Bell’s first 3-pointer of the night, however, injected some much-needed energy into the arena – and into NJIT’s Zach Cooks, who received a technical for unsportsmanlike conduct almost immediately after Diego Willis responded with NJIT’s first 3-pointer of the night. 

But the momentum was starting to shift. When redshirt senior Caleb Homesley came up with a steal to launch a fast break and give Georgie Pacheco-Ortiz two shots at the line with 8:13 left in the half, Pacheco-Ortiz calmly gave the Flames a 14-13 lead that the Highlanders would not reconquer all night. 

“Offensively, we were settling a lot in the first half, trying to get into the midrange, not shooting shots that we like,” James said. “But once we started getting back into rhythm, we started getting better shots.” 

Liberty went into halftime only up by two after Cooks’ second 3-pointer of the night swished the net right before the buzzer, leaving the Flames with a 23-21 lead. 

The Flames shooting efficiency improved dramatically in the second half, however, up to 51.9% from its abysmal 25% in the first half – and the Highlanders could not keep pace as the Flames offense began to heat up. 

Double-digit contributions from seniors Baxter-Bell, Homesley, James and Pacheco-Ortiz began edging the contest in Liberty’s favor, with Baxter-Bell and James playing off each other in a somewhat uncommon tandem throughout the evening. 

Liberty’s experience began to show as it pulled away from NJIT, extending its lead – first to three, then five, then eight points. As one of the voices of experience on this year’s team, Baxter-Bell sees himself and the other seniors as crucial to the team’s success.

“(I’m) always just a voice of leadership, telling players it’s going to be okay. We have four seniors on this team, and a lot of younger guys get down on themselves when we make a mistake or the game isn’t going our way – every division game you play is hard. There’s a lot of shifts and turns, lefts and rights in a game, and you have to make sure you stay with it – I think my place is just to calm everyone down and let them know we’ve been here before and we can make it out.”

Though the game had been close, Baxter-Bell’s second 3-pointer gave the Flames an 11-point lead with a little over a minute left, and the Flames comfortably held off the Highlanders to seal the win as the second half drew to a close. 

With Saturday’s win, the Flames have now won 18 home games in a row in a run stretching back to January 2019. But that run will be tested when North Florida comes into town Thursday, Feb. 20, for a potential ASUN regular-season clincher. 

With the Flames conference record currently at 10-2 and UNF’s at 11-2, Liberty will aim to ride this momentum to make up for their loss on the road after UNF edged the Flames 71-70 in Jacksonville Jan. 23.

“UNF has the same thing we have, a mature group where they start four, maybe five seniors – (but) we get to play at home. They’re a really good team that’s very well-coached (and) that’s different than you play against every day,” McKay said. “(But) we’ll get to that on Monday when we go back to practice. Hopefully we’ll get a good crowd and see if we can’t keep our streak going at home.”

Nekrasov is a copy editor. Follow him on Twitter.