WILMINGTON, NC – The North Carolina A&T men's basketball team has some injuries and is undermanned.
The Aggies essentially played without three starters in their 73-54 loss Thursday night to UNC Wilmington at Trask Coliseum. Graduate forward Jeremy Robinson, freshman forward Nikolaos Chitikoudis and sophomore guard Landon Glasper sat out the game. All three men have started at least 15 games during the 2023-24 season.
Glasper is the Aggie's leading scorer. Robinson is the Aggies most experienced player, and Chitikoudis was averaging 9.2 rebounds in A&T's previous five games before missing Thursday's action. Yet, the Aggies competed mightily with the UNCW, a team tied for the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) lead in the standings, until the lack of depth became too much to overcome.
A&T trailed 33-24 with three minutes to play in the first half. A minute later, A&T center Jason Murphy followed an Ahmad Hamilton miss with a putback before Jalal McKie hit a 3-pointer to cut the Seahawks lead to four, 33-29, with 90 seconds to play. A free throw by Shykeim Phillips pushed the lead to five, but Camian Shell drove to the basket to get the Aggies to within three.
After a UNCW turnover, Shell, who finished the night with 21 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals, ended the half with a layup to send the Aggies into the locker room trailing 34-33 at halftime.
"He's a gamer," said A&T head coach Monté Ross. "He is the ultimate rumble guy. When you have a guy like that, he will always give you a chance to win the basketball game. He doesn't look at it as undermanned. He looks at it as an opportunity to play basketball. He really takes that to heart."
A&T remained closed to start the second half. After the Seahawks took a seven-point lead over the first two minutes of the second half, a Shell and-1 cut UNCW's lead to 40-38. UNCW scored the next four points, but Shell kept A&T within striking distance most of the night as he hit a jump shot to cut the Seahawks lead to four.
"I can't say enough about what our guys did for 40 minutes," said Ross. "What we asked them to do was rumble for 40 minutes. They did it. We obviously came up short. It wasn't good enough tonight, but again, our effort, the way we stood toe-to-toe with them for the first 20 minutes and even into the second half, was tremendous. They just wore us down toward the end there."
The Seahawks would start to pull away. After Shell connected on a jump shot to get the Aggies to within 50-45 with 13 minutes to play, the Aggies made only one additional field goal for the remainder of the game. Between those A&T field goals, the Seahawks outscored the Aggies 23-7. Phillips led the Seahawks with 24 points, six assists, four rebounds and two steals.
"It's important for us to get healthy, but our guys are gaining some confidence even though we are short-handed," said Ross. "They're thinking when we get to full strength, look at what we may be able to do. But these guys don't make excuses. They just come out and rumble."
McKie added 11 points and six rebounds for the Aggies, and Murphy had 10 points and six rebounds. The Aggies return to Corbett Sports Center on Saturday to face the Delaware Blue Hens at 2 p.m.
