La Salle easily handles NJIT

La Salle took a break from Atlantic Ten basketball last night to take on a Division I newcomer in the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Although they did not play one of their better games, the Explorers didn't have much trouble registering a 78-59 victory at Tom Gola Arena.

The biggest reaction from the 1,530 fans in the stands came when little-used reserve Brad Cohen finished off the scoring with a three-point play with 1.1 seconds remaining.

"We went around the locker room after the game, and each player mentioned a play or two they'd like to have back," said La Salle coach John Giannini, whose team improved to 8-9. "As long as we keep learning, we'll be all right."

Freshman guard Rodney Green led La Salle with 18 points and came up with five steals.

Kraig Peters, a graduate of Lenape High in Burlington County, led NJIT (3-15) with 18 points. Clayton Barker added 16.

NJIT will remain an independent indefinitely. The Newark school has an enrollment of more than 30,000 students. The Highlanders are coached by Jim Casciano, a 1977 Drexel graduate and a former Dragons player.

Now in his 21st season as a college head coach, and his sixth at NJIT, Casciano began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant under Rollie Massimino in 1974-75, then spent the next season as an assistant at Delaware. He worked with the Temple women from 1990 to 1993.

Casciano is originally from Bridgeport, Montgomery County, and bringing his team to Philadelphia was special, he said.

"I pull up here to La Salle, it's the Big Five, and stuff you've been brought up on. . . . La Salle is young, but they're talented and deep, and it's obvious we didn't match up with them very well."

But the Explorers, who led NJIT by 13 points at intermission, didn't put the visitors away in the fashion they would have liked.

After a steal and reverse dunk by NJIT forward Nesho Milosevic, La Salle's lead was 58-48 with a little more than 11 minutes to play. It was 62-52 before the Explorers finally put some points together to give themselves a 74-54 cushion with 3 minutes, 39 seconds remaining.

An alley-oop slam by Yves Mekongo Mbala (10 points, eight rebounds) capped the run.

"I knew the game was slipping away, but I didn't think they'd come all the way back," Green said.

In addition to the 6-foot-4 Peters, Casciano's squad includes 6-2 junior Courcy Magnus (Plymouth Whitemarsh), 6-4 junior Brett Johnson (Roman Catholic), and 6-5 senior Marc Milbourne Swan (Holy Spirit).

The Highlanders, who played in the Division II Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference before moving up, opened the season in a big way with upsets at Manhattan and against visiting Rider.

The Explorers used pressure defense to take control of the game, double-teaming and trapping at every opportunity.

"We had more positives than negatives," Giannini said. "We had a strong start, and a weak end to the first half, and a lackluster beginning of the second half. It wasn't a tremendous game, but we had some good stretches of basketball."