GREENSBORO – The North Carolina A&T men's basketball team came into the week with the challenge of playing three games. The Aggies will exit the week in a four-way tie for second place in the Coastal Athletic Association after a 76-69 win over the William & Mary Tribe on Saturday at Corbett Sports Center completed a 3-0 week for A&T.
The Aggies, who started the season 0-9, have won three straight to improve to 6-13 overall and 4-2 in the league play. The Tribe dropped to 7-12 overall and 2-4 in the CAA. The defense has been the key for A&T lately, specifically from 3-point range, where the Aggies' last two opponents are a combined 4-for-40 (.100) from three.
"Sometimes I look out on the court, and we have two sophomores and three freshmen," said A&T head coach Monté Ross. "Even beyond that, no matter what type of team you have, whether old or young or in between, it takes time for them to pick up the defensive principles, nuances, terms, whatever you want them to do. We're still not where we are going to be in a month from now. We're going to keep improving. But we are to a point now where we understand what to do and how to win basketball games."
The Tribe shot 35 percent from the field and made only 2 of 22 from the 3-point arc. It was a defensive play that helped the Aggies capture their biggest lead of the game as freshman forward Nikolaos Chitikoudis stripped the ball away from Caleb Dorsey and raced up the court for a slam to give the Aggies a 54-43 lead with 10 minutes remaining in the ballgame.
A&T would lead by double figures as late as 1:27 to play in the game on two Camian Shell free throws, giving A&T a 70-59 advantage. But William & Mary turned to 6-foot-5 guard Chase Lowe as he attempted to post the Aggies smaller guards. The Tribe used an Aggies turnover into a fastbreak bucket for Lowe, ending with an and-1 to cut A&T's lead to eight.
Another A&T turnover led to a Lowe layup in the paint, bringing the Aggies lead down to 70-64 with 1:02 remaining. After an A&T timeout, the two teams traded two free throws before Landon Glasper made one of two free throws to put the Aggies ahead 73-66 with 42 seconds to play.
Things got really interesting when Lowe hit a turnaround jumper in the paint and was fouled by Evan Joyner. Lowe made the free to make it a four-point game with 30 seconds to play. But A&T freshman Uchenna Kellman-Nicholes made two free throws to increase A&T's lead to 75-69. From there, the Aggies 3-point defense remained solid, as the Tribe missed back-to-back threes to clinch the win for the Aggies.
"It wasn't pretty, but it's not a beauty contest," said Ross. "It's about wins and losses. We have a lot of things to take out of the game and learn from, and we will. We didn't finish the game. We made it much harder on ourselves than it had to be. But we found a way. I was talking to the guys about finding a way to get a win. We would much rather have to learn from a win than have to learn from a loss."
Glasper followed his career-high 35-point night against Northeastern on Thursday with 27 points, and he tied a career-high with eight rebounds. His backcourt mate, Shell, had 15 points and a career-high nine rebounds on 8-for-10 shooting from the foul line. Lowe led the Tribe with 25 points and seven rebounds.
"Obviously, these two guys (Glasper and Shell) were tremendous in their efforts tonight," said Ross. "The other thing about these guys is we ask them to play so many minutes and ask them to do so much, but they never complain. They just put their heads down and get the job done. I'm happy with the win. Playing three games in a week is always tough, but we found a way to win all three of them, which is significant for us."
Next week will be a reunion week for Ross. On Thursday, he will take his Aggies on the road to face the Delaware Blue Hens. He coached at the University of Delaware for 10 seasons (2006-2106). He will then head to his hometown of Philadelphia as the Aggies will face the top team in the conference in the Drexel Dragons on Saturday.
