EAST GREENSBORO – The Stony Brook Seawolves free throw strategy nearly worked Saturday afternoon in men's basketball Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) play at North Carolina A&T's Corbett Sports Center.
But after a couple of chances at tip-ins by the Seawolves, the A&T Aggies jumped up and down and celebrated on Cal Irvin-Don Corbett's court after a narrow 61-59 win.
The Aggies are now .500 in CAA play at 3-3 and won their second straight to improve to 8-11 overall. The Seawolves, who came into the game in fourth place in the CAA, dropped to 7-11 overall and 3-2 in league play.
Aggies junior forward Marcus Watson came up big for the second straight game. Watson finished with 18 points, seven rebounds and two steals to follow up his 20-point, eight-rebound performance at Elon on Wednesday.
"We had to get Marcus refocused and give him credit; he hit the reset button," said A&T interim head coach Phillip Shumpert. "He had two back-to-back good games, so if he continues to do that and rebound the basketball, we'll be fine.
The key to his success is inside, doing post isos, driving the basketball and getting out in transition. They're going to let him shoot threes. What they're scared of is when he gets into the paint. But it's a continual process, and he's getting better."
Watson's rebound and fastbreak 3-pointer from the top of the key pulled the Aggies to within one, 57-56, with 3:23 remaining in the game. The two teams went scoreless over the next 90 seconds until A&T senior forward Austin Johnson put back a Watson miss and drew a foul on the play from Frankie Policelli. Johnson completed the 3-point play to give the Aggies a 59-57 lead with 1:49 to play.
A&T never trailed again, but that does not mean heartburn did occur down the stretch. With 21 seconds remaining, A&T sophomore guard Kam Woods made two free throws to put the Aggies ahead 61-57.
After a Stony Brook timeout, the Seawolves had difficulty inbounding the ball, leading to the Aggie faithful screaming for a five-second call. But, instead, they got sophomore Love Bettis trying to intercept the inbound pass once it was finally tossed to Tyler Stephenson-Moore. As Bettis went for the steal, he bumped Stephenson-Moore, sending him to the free throw line.
He connected on both free throws to make it a 61-59 game. Stephenson-Moore then fouled freshman Duncan Powell before the ball was put into play. Powell missed the front end of the one-and-one, giving the Seawolves a chance to tie or take the lead.
Tanahj Pettway chose to tie the game as Bettis fouled him as he drove to the basket with 13 seconds remaining. However, Pettway missed the first free throw, leading to Stony Brook calling a timeout to set up the strategy of missing the second free throw on purpose in an attempt to get an offensive put back.
It almost worked. Pettway missed the second free throw off the back rim, and Policelli had a point-blank look at the rim on the tip-in but missed it long. Stony Brook's Keenan Fitzmorris had a faint chance of putting back Policelli's miss, but he, too, missed, leading to an Aggie celebration.
"People thought this was going to be a rebuilding year for us, but our guys have come in and competed in this league from the jump," said Shumpert. "We are not that far away from being able to be successful in this conference. That's a credit to these guys who are willing to play hard and fight until the end."
Woods led the Aggies with 19 points on 7-for-15 shooting. Johnson had 10 points and six rebounds, and Demetric had a career-high 11 rebounds. Policelli had 16 points and 14 rebounds for his league-leading seventh double-double.
For the eighth straight game, the Aggies found themselves down by double figures; this time, it was 30-20 with 3:33 remaining in the first half before rallying to score the half's final six points to trail 30-26 at the half.
"We have to remedy falling behind and having to fight back," said Shumpert. "Sometimes that works, but most times it doesn't. We're going to Hampton on Martin Luther King Day, and it will be jumping in there. It's a natural rival, so we can't come out in the first 10 minutes and be sluggish. We went Hampton last year and got bad results when we did that."
The two HBCUs will play on MLK Day, Monday, Jan. 16, at 7 p.m., from the Hampton Convocation Center.
