EAST GREENSBORO – On a historic night at Corbett Sports Center, the North Carolina A&T men's basketball team got a chance to measure itself against one of the best teams the Colonial Athletic Association's (CAA) has to offer in the 23rd-ranked College of Charleston Cougars.
The Cougars got 22 points and 10 rebounds from Dalton Bolon to down the Aggies 92-79 Wednesday night. Wednesday marked the first time a nationally ranked program played inside Corbett and the first time the Aggies faced a conference opponent who was nationally ranked.
The loss dropped the Aggies to 6-10 overall and 1-2 in CAA play. Meanwhile, Charleston won its 14th straight game to improve to 15-1 and 3-0 in the conference.
"I thought it was a great measuring stick for us to see where we need to go as a program playing in this league," said A&T interim head coach Phillip Shumpert. "It's exciting and good for the guys to play against the 23rd-ranked team in the nation. Having that type of team in your conference helps guys understand how much harder we need to work to compete in a league like this."
Sophomore guard Kam Woods appeared to enjoy the challenge. He had a career-high 30 points and added six rebounds and six assists to his totals. For the third straight game, reigning CAA rookie of the week Duncan Powell eclipsed his career high in points as he finished with 20 on 7-for-14 shooting from the field and 3-for-6 shooting from three. Powell also had six rebounds.
Despite the career performances, the Cougars size proved difficult to stop. They scored 52 of their 92 points in the paint, shot 30-for-49 (.612) from inside the 3-point arc and outrebounded the Aggies 46-37. For the fifth straight game, the Aggies did play without 6-foot-9 forward Austin Johnson, the team's leading rebounder and shot blocker.
"They came out with some tempo, drove to the basket on our guys, and put us in some isolation situations. They knocked down some threes, but they mostly pounded us on the boards and inside."
But the undersized Aggies had some answers early. A 9-0 run that included five points from Woods tied the game at 23 with 7:55 remaining in the first half. A Ben Burnham dunk helped the Cougars regain the lead before a Marcus Watson dunk tied the game again.
A&T would never get that close again. The Cougars' 14-2 run gave them a 39-27 lead with 3:52 remaining in the first half. They would push that lead to 20, 51-31, by halftime. They led by as many as 30 in the second half.
"I thought we had a great game plan," said Shumpert. "At the start of the game, we were moving the basketball and playing team basketball, and that's why we were in the game. But then guys wanted to start to be heroes, and that's how we ended up down by 20 at the half.
We played better basketball in the second half. We did a better job of sharing the basketball. But the main problem was we could not get a stop defensively. Until we take pride in our defense, we will get results like this."
Junior Marcus Watson aided the Aggies by tying his career high in rebounds (12). In addition, he had 12 points for his third career double-double.
Even though they are not nationally ranked, the Aggies will get another one of the CAA's outstanding teams in defending regular-season champion UNC Wilmington at 2 p.m., Saturday inside Corbett.
