Washington, DC---James "JT" Miller poured in 30 points for the second straight game and Damon Collins and Solomon "Solo" Mangham added 19 and 16 respectively as Howard defeated American University 71-54 in a non-conference game at Burr Gymnasium. It was the first win of the season for the Bison (1-5). 

Miller, a red-shirt junior guard who is coming off a 30-point effort in the loss to Georgetown, set the tone early, connecting on 7 of 9 from the field that included an array of shots. His 17 first half points helped Howard build a 22-point lead before the Eagles (1-5) closed the half with a rush and cut the deficit to 32-26 at intermission. 

"My teammates were able to give me those open looks, and I'm using good opportunities to score the ball," explained Miller, who has had back-to-back 30-point games. ". It important to get this win but more importantly it was a home game so we wanted to secure the win, especially going into our next game against Maryland. With the absence of Byrd (James "J-Byrd" Daniel, III) and Marcel (Boyd) I have to pick up the leadership role, and push the freshmen and the team." Daniel, the team's leading scorer and nation's leader last year, has yet to play after suffering a high ankle sprain in the preseason. He is out for at least two more weeks. Boyd, the senior starting center, injured his foot in the Georgetown game and did not play against American. 

Miller continued his scoring onslaught in the second stanza, but Mangham and Collins began to chip in. The senior combo combined for 8 of 12 shooting from the field to help the Bison extend their lead. It was Miller getting any shot he wanted, Collins getting in the lane and drawing fouls and Mangham finding the range from the three-point line. 

"Today was all about execution. The seniors had to step up and show the freshmen what to do, as far as running plays and getting our touches where we need them," said Collins, who has given the team more stability since moving over to the point guard. "We also looked at our scouting report and saw that it was important for us to have hot hands all week so coming into the game we just executed and got good shots. This win establishes a type of momentum for us going up against Maryland." 

After building an insurmountable lead, Howard cruised in for its first win. Miller hit on 11 of 16 from the field while getting three assists and a career-high six steals. He has now scored 85 points in the last three games. 

Mangham registered a double-double of 16 points and 10 rebounds while Collins added three assists, four rebounds and a steal to his stat line. 

The key to the victory was the Howard match-up zone defense which flustered the visitors into 23 turnovers that the Bison converted into 23 of their points. 

"American is a very skilled team," noted Howard head coach Kevin Nickelberry. " We knew going in they needed three's to win a game. We knew that they needed the inside game to win the game. We knew we would be undersized and we needed to turn them over. Our guys did a great job getting hands on the ball and turning them over. Our goal was to get 12 steals and we got 16. I told them before the game we had an unbelievable week in practice and that we needed to carry over from that last 15 minutes of play against Georgetown in today's game. " 

American was led by freshman Sa'eed Nelson with a team-high 18 points, five assists and four steals and Delante Jones and Mark Gasperini, who each scored 12. 

NEXT UP: The Bison will travel to College Park, MD to take on the Terps of Maryland on Wednesday at 9 pm on ESPNU.