WASHINGTON, DC – North Carolina A&T never found an offensive rhythm in February, and that unfortunately extended into March as the seventh-seeded Aggies lost 76-61 to No. 10 seed Stony Brook in the first round of the Jersey Mike's Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Men's Basketball Championship Tournament at the Entertainment and Sports Arena.
Both teams were playing in their first-ever CAA tournament game, as the Aggies made their third conference transition in three years, coming from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) in 2020-21 to the Big South Conference in 2021-22 to the CAA in 2022-23.
A&T ends its inaugural season in the CAA, 13-19 overall. They finished 8-10 in the league in a sixth-place tie. The Aggies opened conference play 6-4. But the Aggies shot only 38.3 percent from the field and averaged 68.3 points in seven games in February.
On Saturday, the Aggies shot 32.3 percent from the floor. But, of course, it didn't help that the Red Wolves pulled away in the second half by going 16-for-26 (61.5) from the floor and 7-for-11 (.63.6) from 3-point range.
"We couldn't hit shots. We had good looks. We had layups at the rim, and we simply couldn't hit open shots," said A&T interim head coach Phillip Shumpert. "We went cold, and they got hot. How things were going with us not hitting shots affected us on the defensive end. Our defensive effort wasn't as good as it was in the first half because of our frustration of being unable to knock down the open shot."
The Aggies did not have the offensive blues the entire game. A&T opened the game on a 14-0 run, going 6-for-10 from the floor, with redshirt freshman Duncan Powell scoring six points and sophomore guard Kam Woods scoring five over the game's first six minutes. But over the game's next six minutes, the Red Wolves outscored A&T 17-3 to tie the game at 17 on a Frankie Policelli 3-pointer.
But the Aggies never relinquished the lead in the first half, going up seven, 26-19, on a Marcus Watson 3-pointer with 4:49 remaining in the first half. A Kyle Duke free throw put A&T ahead by five, 31-26, with 38 seconds remaining in the half before two Toby Onyekonwu free throws sent the teams into the locker room, with A&T leading 31-28.
"We knew they were going to fight back," said Shumpert about the Aggies early 14-0 lead. "We know that this is a game of runs. Every team in this league is going to fight until the end."
SBU took the fight to A&T early in the second half, opening the second stanza on a 9-1 run to take a 37-32 lead. Senior guard Demetric Horton got the Aggies to within three on a short jumper, but it seemed the Red Wolves could not miss from then on. Another Policelli three sparked a 14-4 SBU run to give the Red Wolves a 51-38 lead with 11:42 to play.
A&T never got any closer than 12 the rest of the way, the final time on a Powell putback that cut SBU's lead to 62-50 with 4:23 to play. But SBU outscored A&T 6-1 over the next two minutes to put the game away.
"It was a tale of two halves," said Shumpert. "We got off to a 14-point lead. They fought back and got it to three at halftime, and come the second half, we only shot 14 percent from 3-point range, 29 percent from the field and 59 percent from the free throw line. That's how you get beat plus-18."
Woods, a second-team all-conference performer in 2022-23, led the Aggies with 25 points, eight rebounds and three assists. Powell, a CAA's all-freshman team member, finished with 10 points and eight rebounds and ended the season with five straight double-figure scoring games. Freshman Tyrese Elliott came off the bench to score 11.
Policelli led the Red Wolves with 30 points and 16 rebounds on 6-for-9 shooting from 3-poin range. The Red Wolves advance to face No. 2 seed College of Charleston Sunday at 6 p.m. No more conference transitions are expected for the Aggies; therefore, Shumpert said getting bigger and more physical will be the key for the Aggies as they progress in the CAA.
"It's a really exciting and competitive league, where night in and night out, anyone can beat you," said Shumpert. "Every game is competitive. It's high-level basketball and physical. You've got big guards, and you've got nice size at positions 1-5. Losing what we lost early in the season really hurt us in terms of being able to match some of the physicality in this league."
