GREENSBORO – When the announcement of North Carolina A&T forward Jeremy Robinson went out over the PA Saturday afternoon before the Aggies faced The Citadel Bulldogs at the Aggies' home opener at Corbett Sports Center, he was described as 6-foot-6. First-year A&T head men's basketball coach Montè Ross gives him 6-5 at best, and he gives him maximum respect for battling every game against bigger, taller players as an undersized post player.
Despite Robinson's 14 points, A&T's lack of size haunted them again on Saturday as The Citadel defeated the Aggies 85-68. The Bulldogs out-rebounded A&T 43-23 and outscored the Aggies 44-30 in the paint. The Citadel made no secret about what it wanted to do against the Aggies, as 14 of the Bulldogs' first 16 shot attempts came in the paint.
"What we are doing to Jeremy Robinson right now. Oh man," said Ross. "But he is battling his tail off in there. There are some games and some opponents where he is looking way up even though he's battling. It's hard because we are just undersized, and those guys are huge. But we tell them to keep fighting and keep battling, every single possession. I know it wears him out, and he wore us all out today because they were so physical."
A&T did come ready to do combat with the taller Bulldogs. The Aggies did some paintwork in the first half, scoring off dribble drives to the rim. Robinson took an entry pass from Aggies point guard Camian Shell and scored on a layup with 9 1/2 minutes remaining in the first half to give the Aggies a 22-19 lead. Three-and-half minutes later, AJ Smith tied the game at 29-29 on a 3-pointer.
But a 15-footer from the baseline by Shell and a power move on the inside from Robinson gave the Aggies their largest lead of the game at 33-29 with four minutes remaining in the first half. The Bulldogs scored eight straight points before Aggies guard Landon Glasper found an open Shell for a 3-pointer to cut The Citadel's lead to one, 37-36, with 1:39 remaining. Smith's three one minute later gave the Bulldogs a 40-36 halftime lead.
The Citadel's lead remained at four in the second half as Uchenna Kellman-Nicholes hit a short jumper to make it a 44-40 game. A Smith 3-pointer extended the Bulldogs lead to seven before Nikolaos Chitikoudis followed his miss. But Smith, who had 34 points on 13-for-17 shooting from the floor and 5-for-6 from 3-point range, continued to knock down shots.
Back-to-back Smith's 3-pointers, followed by a 3-point play by Quentin Millora-Brown, gave the Bulldogs a 56-42 lead with 14:59 remaining. The Aggies never got any closer than 11 the rest of the way, and The Citadel led by as many as 21 in the second half.
"I thought this was one of the games where our youth showed through," said Ross. "What I mean by that is, there were a number of times when they were older, bigger, and stronger than us, and they took us where they wanted to, jumped over us, and laid the ball in. We have to do a much better job of guarding the bounce. We had a good couple of days in practice of guarding the dribble. Unfortunately, none of the guys we were guarding was as big and strong as the guys we guarded today."
Glasper led the Aggies in scoring with 18 points. Shell had 10 points and a season-high nine assists. Chitikoudis also reached double figures with 11 points and five rebounds on 5-for-5 shooting. The Bulldogs shot 55 percent from the floor and 54 percent (7-for-13) from 3-point range. The Aggies only had five turnovers in their home opener.
"I enjoyed the atmosphere," said Ross about coaching his first-ever game at Corbett. "Trust me, the atmosphere will only get better once we get better, and we give the fans a reason to come out and make this an event for them every game."
