GREENSBORO – Even when Cy Alexander's North Carolina A&T men's basketball team was mired in a 12-game losing streak during an 11-game road trip, there was one team attribute he noticed that outweighed all the negativity from losing.
His team was giving effort. Now that the Aggies are off the road and have had a chance to play a few home games, those hard knocks they took and the effort they exuded is starting to pay off. The Aggies (4-13, 1-2 MEAC) won their second straight game and improved to 4-1 at Corbett Sports Center with a 68-47 conference win over Savannah State Saturday night.
This marks the first time the Aggies have won back-to-back regular-season games since beating NJIT and Delaware State on Jan. 18 and 20 of 2014. Junior Bruce Beckford recorded his fourth double-double of the season with 22 points and 12 rebounds on 6-for-10 shooting from the field and 8-for-8 shooting from the line. Junior Arturs Bremers went 5-for-9 from 3-point range and scored 17.
“These young men deserve this,” said Alexander, the third-year Aggies head coach. “We lost 12 in a row but there were three or four games we could have easily won, but we didn't know how. Winning is a process and at that time we wouldn't make the right plays in the clutch. It wasn't because we weren't trying.”
Alexander credits Beckford and junior Ahmad Abdullah, the Aggies' team captains, for keeping the team together and positive. Abdullah, who has started at the point guard position the past two games, has a combined 10 assists and four turnovers in those contests.
Abdullah's steadiness at the point guard position helped the Aggies defeat Savannah State for just the second time in seven tries. In fact, 68 points are the most the Aggies have ever scored against the Tigers (4-11, 0-1 MEAC), and the Aggies came into the game shooting a combined 32.8 percent from the field against the Tigers (seven games) all-time.
But the Aggies were able to stop the Tigers' dribble penetration on Saturday and made the Tigers a perimeter team. The Aggies held the Tigers to 34.5 percent shooting and blocked 11 SSU shots. Offensively, the Aggies used their considerable height advantage to shoot over the Tigers on the perimeter and in the paint.
“Statistically we knew there Achilles' heel was outside shooting,” said Alexander. “We wanted to pack it in on them and play the drive. That's the way we felt we needed to play them, and I thought we did it relatively well.”
Beckford said he knew coming in the Aggies had superior and needed to play big in order to take advantage. The Aggies were able to out-rebound the Tigers 42-23 for the game, and led 26-16 at the half. They started the second half on a 17-3 run capped off by a Denzel Keyes 3-pointer with 12:54 remaining.
A&T's lead went to 25, 59-34, on Bremers' fifth 3-pointer. The lead would balloon to as many as 28, 65-37, on two Bremers free throws with 4:49 remaining.
“I think I could have hit two more. Two more should have gone in,” said Bremers. “But I'll take five threes any day.”
A&T took its first double-figures lead, 21-10, on two Khary Doby free throws with 6:52 remaining in the first half. The Tigers got it under 10 at 23-15 on a Treyvon Francis layup. But Bremers answered with a three that gave A&T a 26-15 lead with three minutes remaining in the first half. The lead never went under 10 again.
Saadiq Muhammad and Terel Hall had 10 points apiece for the Tigers. A&T returns to action on Monday when it hosts S.C. State at 7:30 p.m.
