GREENSBORO – The North Carolina A&T men's basketball team experienced its own cold spell Saturday afternoon. It came at the absolute worst time against city rival UNC Greensboro.
As the Aggies experienced a rough patch on offense, the visiting Spartans took off during a key second-half stretch, handing the A&T a 67-55 non-conference loss at Corbett Sports Center.
"I didn't anticipate someone could come in here and play a zone and get away with it," Aggies head coach Monté Ross said.
But A&T's 3-for-23 shooting on 3-pointers was too devastating to ignore. The Aggies were 1-for-16 on second-half threes as they fell to 3-6 overall. Ross said the Aggies have the shooters to avoid such shooting droughts.
Yet, the Spartans took a chance.
"It's a gutsy move by them, but it paid off," Ross said. "I thought we got a good class of shot. The basketball just didn't go in for us today."
A&T shot 25.8 percent from the field in the second half, making eight of 31 attempts. That led to a game-long mark of 37.5 from the floor. Ryan Forrest's 18 points, Camian Shell's 15 points and Jahnathan Lamothe's 13 points were tops for the Aggies.
Normally, the Aggies would be delighted to see opponents set up in a zone.
"We weren't able to capitalize," Ross said. "I would say capitalize because when somebody plays zone, we look at it as 'Oh, good.' We've got so many good shooters."
It might have been a matter of just getting a few long-range shots to fall. Instead, it was the lowest-scoring game of the season for the Aggies.
"It becomes contagious both ways," Ross said. "If you make one, your teammate sees you make one. He comes down; he's able to make one. It just becomes contagious. It wouldn't have allowed them to stay in (the zone)."
UNCG scored 12 straight points on the way to a 62-50 lead. That spurt corresponded with the Aggies going 0-for-7 with three turnovers during a drought that lasted nearly six minutes. By then, A&T had only about 5½ minutes to climb back.
"Shots didn't fall, and we weren't getting stops. "We got too static," said Shell, who also supplied a team-high three assists.
Perhaps the dagger was Donovan Atwell's 3-pointer off an inbounds pass that made it 67-52. UNCG's Kenyon Giles racked up 25 points, and Atwell finished with 15 points. The Spartans (5-4), who made 12 attempts from 3-point range, shot 36.4 percent from the field. That was a defensive effort from the Aggies that often might have been good enough.
"Defensively, I thought we did a decent job in terms of overall field-goal percentage, holding them to 36 percent," Ross said. "So there were some positives we pulled out of it."
The Aggies trailed by as many as 11 points in the first half. A&T led 36-35 at the half courtesy of Nikolaos Chitikoudis' basket in the lane and two defensive stops. Lamothe scored seven points across the last nine minutes of the half. The Aggies made 52 percent of their attempts in the opening half.
"That's why they went zone, to prevent us from getting close to the basket," Ross said.
A&T used only seven players. In contrast, UNCG had 10 players participate, with three reserves racking up at least 14 minutes. The Aggies played without key contributors in center Will Felton, wing Bryson Ogletree, and guard Landon Glasper.
Ross said Glasper should be back for the Virginia Tech game after sitting out Saturday for disciplinary reasons. As for Ogletree, after being unsure about his return, Ross said, "He's a body that we miss."
The Aggies play their next two games in the state of Virginia. They visit Virginia Tech on Thursday night and play next Saturday night at Liberty.
