PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – North Carolina A&T played its first game without star sophomore guard Landon Glasper, and it showed. With only one day to prepare for the No. 1 team in the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) without Glasper, the Aggies made only one 3-pointer and shot 33.3 percent from the field in a 62-47 loss to the Drexel Dragons at Daskalakis Athletic Center on Saturday.
Glasper's absence from Saturday's game stems from an injury he sustained at Delaware on Thursday. Glasper, the reigning CAA player of the week, had a streak of scoring 20 more points in six straight games before missing Saturday's contest. He also had a streak of being the Aggies leading scorer in consecutive games. In his absence, junior Kyle Duke led the Aggies with 14 points and four assists.
They fought," said A&T head coach Monté Ross. "If you look at the numbers, and I am not always a big numbers guy, but we held them to 39 percent shooting, 32 percent from three, and we held them to 62 points. "I'm not going to be a hypocrite and tell my guys I'm upset that they only scored 47 points when every single night I tell them we have to rest our hat on the defensive end. We rested our hat on the defensive end, so I'm proud of them for their defensive effort."
A&T could not complement its defensive effort with a strong enough offensive output. The Aggies had one field goal over the first eight minutes of the contest. Despite that, the Aggies only trailed 16-9 after Nikolaos Chitikoudis took a pass from Duke and scored with 7:42 remaining in the first half.
Drexel scored the next seven points to take a 14-point lead. A&T worked Drexel's lead down to 11, 30-19, on a Camian Shell floater with 90 seconds to play. But Shane Blakeney hit a three for the Dragons, and Garfield Turner used an Aggies turnover to score on a layup to send the Dragons into the halftime intermission with a 35-19 lead.
The Dragons led by as many as 24 in the second half as they improved to 15-7 overall and 8-1 in CAA play. Shane Blakeney led the Dragons with 12 points.
A&T dropped to 6-15 overall and 4-4 in league play, as Chitikoudis contributed 10 points and seven rebounds. The Aggies came into the week in a four-way tie for second; they are now in a five-way tie for fifth, with home games against Hampton and Elon approaching.
"We'll make shots. Shots come and go," said Ross. "But obviously, not having one of the top-10 scorers in the country in the lineup was a big factor for us. They didn't allow our offense to affect our defense, which shows great growth with this team."
