North Carolina A&T nearly pulled off its second upset in Texas in five years. Houston guard Joseph Young hit a 3-pointer with 35.6 seconds remaining to help the Cougars hold off the Aggies 75-71 at Hofheinz Pavilion Wednesday afternoon.
The Aggies had a chance to recapture the lead after Young's jumper, but junior Austin Witter's 3-point attempt bounced off the front of the rim. Junior DaMetrius Upchurch's put back rolled off the back of the iron as the Cougars clinched the game with two free throws with 6.4 seconds remaining.
Darien Thibodeaux and Jonathan Summers led the Cougars (7-5) with 13 points apiece. Senior point guard Marc Hill was superb for the Aggies as he finished with 18 points, seven assists and just one turnover. Senior guard Nic Simpson hit all four of his 3-pointers to finish with 14. Junior forward Adrian Powell finished with 12 points and Upchurch had a career-high 10 rebounds.
After seeing a lengthy road trip that included the Aggies playing in six different states over an 18-day span come to an end, N.C. A&T men's basketball coach Jerry Eaves came to this conclusion.
"We're getting better," said Eaves, who was trying to pull off his second upset win in Texas after beating SMU in 2006. "Sometimes you hate road trips this long. But from start to finish, my team has really improved. We are starting to play the full 40 minutes, and we're becoming a little more disciplined. The sky's the limit."
The two downsides for the Aggies throughout the road trip have been scoring droughts and turnovers. Scoring droughts were particularly harmful to the Aggies in losses at Central Florida, Hawaii and Akron. On four different occasions during the road trip, the Aggies turned the ball over more than 20 times.
Neither of those issues were huge problems on Wednesday. The Aggies turned the ball over fewer than 15 times - they had 12 on Wednesday - for the first time in over a month. When a potential scoring slump came, the Aggies had a response.
Young's 3-pointer at the 10:14 mark, gave Houston its biggest lead of the game at 51-44. The Aggies were closing in on nearly 4 ½ minutes without a made field goal as they went from being four points ahead to seven points behind.
The potential for a lengthy drought ended when Hill found Witter coming off of a down screen to hit a 3-pointer to pull the Aggies to within four.
"I thought that was a huge shot by Witt," said Eaves, who saw his team hit 12 of their 24 3-point attempts. "We really needed something to get us going again, and that was it. We had guys hit big shots all game, and those shots came out of our offense, which means we were getting the looks we wanted. As a coach, that is very satisfying because we know we can run our plays, and we've got people that can knock down shots."
Hill is one of those players. His 3-pointer with 6:39 to play cut the Cougars lead to 58-54. Powell hit a few big shots as well.
Powell's 3-pointer gave the Aggies a 63-62 lead with 3:01 remaining. The two teams traded the lead four times in the final three minutes. A Powell runner put N.C. A&T ahead 67-66 with 54 seconds remaining. Soon after the Cougars called a 30-second time out with 37 seconds remaining, Young was taking the game-winning 3-pointer from the corner.
"I was surprised he took the shot so quickly," said Eaves. "We made a mental mistake on locking down and trailing the shooter. If he misses the shot, it's our game. He made it. What can you say?"
The Aggies (4-11) are more than willing to express their willingness to put their lengthy road trip behind them. They return to action 7 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 3 at Corbett Sports Center against Carver College. It will be the Aggies first game in Corbett since Nov. 25. They host conference foe Bethune-Cookman on Jan. 7 at 4 p.m., before facing Florida A&M at 7 p.m., on Jan. 9 at Corbett.
"We're going to start to get ready for Carver like we're going into a tournament game," said Eaves, about an Aggies team looking to break an eight-game losing streak. "It's a must win. Then we have two conference games in our gym that are big. Corbett Sports Center here we come."
