WASHINGTON (November 30, 2017) – After a long seven-game road trip, Coach Kevin Nickelberry and the Howard University Men's Basketball team earned its first win of the season after defeating Central Penn, 81-64, inside Burr Gymnasium.
 
HU shot a season-high 46-percent (30-of-65) from the floor while hitting 10 trey balls.
 
"It was good to see this young group fight through some early adversity," said Coach Nickelberry. "We were able to build off of it and have some success on defense to build our lead."
 
Sophomore Charles Williams registered a game-high 23 points and six rebounds while freshman RJ Cole fell an assist shy of a double-double, finishing with 20 points and a career-high nine dimes in the victory.
 
In the second half, HU held a three-point lead, 48-45, until they scored 16 unanswered and took a commanding 64-45 lead with under 10 minutes remaining. Central Penn was unable to recover as Howard kept the pressure on.
 
HU held its largest lead of the game with 2:13 left after a made freebie by Williams, 79-55. Central Penn continued to battle and closed out the game on a 9-2 run.
 
Off the bench, freshman Kyle Foster recorded a career-best 18 points on 5-of-9 shooting from long range.
 
"[RJ] Cole and [Charles] Williams got it going, but it was huge when we got a third scorer in [Kyle] Foster," Nickelberry added. "We started to get deflections and steals, which ignited our fastbreak."
 
Redshirt junior Jalen Jones chipped in eight points and eight rebounds in the victory.
 
Central Penn jumped out to an early 13-2 lead, capped off by a layup from Davis.
 
Howard fought back and sliced the margin down to three after a layup by sophomore Marcus Hall, 22-19, but the Knights went on a 12-5 spurt and pushed the deficit back to double-digits, 34-24.
 
With under five minutes before halftime, Howard rallied and finished the half on a 14-2 run and took a halftime lead, 38-36.
 
For Central Penn, Joel Zola had a team-high 22 points on 50-percent shooting (8-of-16). Davis added 11 points while Noah Baylor provided 10 points in a losing effort.
 
On Dec. 4, Howard concludes its brief two-game home stand when the Penn Quakers come calling. Game-time is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Burr Gymnasium.
 
Monday's contest will be the ALS College Awareness Basketball Game, presented by Full Court Press on ALS.
 
For more information, visit the Bison Athletics website at www.HUBison.com.