WASHINGTON, D.C. – The first year of building any college athletics program can be daunting for any coaching staff. But rebuilding becomes substantially harder and somewhat frustrating when various players miss a combined 39 games due to injuries and other reasons.
The North Carolina A&T men's basketball team, the No. 12 seed at the 2024 Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) Men's Basketball Championship Tournament, saw its season come to an end on Friday with a 79-62 loss to 13th-seeded William & Mary Tribe at the Entertainment & Sports Arena. The Tribe advances to face fifth-seeded Towson on Saturday afternoon at 2.
Meanwhile, the Aggies finish the season at 7-25 overall. They entered the tournament with a 5-13 mark in conference play, but at one time, that record stood at 4-2. Excitement surrounded the program because of a second-place position in the CAA standings. They had one of the most dynamic scorers in the country, Landon Glasper, a point guard who took care of the basketball and could score in Camian Shell, bigs who could rebound and block shots, and depth.
All that started dissipating around late January when Glasper, a third-team All-CAA selection, missed seven straight games. Upon his return, Shell went down with an injury. Big men Jason Murphy and Nikolaos Chitikoudis missed games throughout the season. A&T's most experienced player, Jeremy Robinson, missed the team's last 10 games, including Friday's contest against William & Mary. Murphy missed the final three games of the season.
"We will have an opportunity to recruit now and bring some guys in," said first-year A&T head coach Monté Ross, who won a CAA title in 2013-2014 as the head coach at Delaware. "Reflecting on the season in the immediacy of a loss, not making excuses, but on Jan. 21, we were 4-2 in the conference, right where we didn't mind being, and then the injury bug hit us. Our program is not at the point where in Year 1, we can overcome losing our leading scorer."
The Aggies did have Glasper on Friday, but in almost a strange defining of their season before its conclusion, for a time during the game, the Aggies had to sit Shell for a spell before he returned to the game. Shell left the game with seven minutes remaining in the first half, with the game tied at 20-20. After a Tribe free throw, Chitikoudis gave the Aggies the lead with a driving layup to the basket. Chitikoudis followed with a strong move in the paint to put A&T ahead 24-21.
But the Tribe performed well from 3-point range, knocking down 11 threes, including Matteus Case's triple that tied the game at 24-24. The two teams went through three ties from there before Chase Lowe scored on a layup, and Trey Moss hit a three to give the Tribe a 35-30 halftime lead.
Shell did return for the second half, but the Tribe never lost its lead. Midway through the second half, Glasper hit two free throws to cut the Tribe's lead to 53-50. William & Mary outscored the Aggies 16-5 over the next six minutes to take a 69-55 lead with four minutes to play. Gabe Dorsey, Lowe, and Moss had 18 points each. Dorsey knocked down five 3-pointers, and Moss connected on three of them.
"We were not as sharp as we needed to be, defensively," said Moss. "That was one of my concerns coming into the game. I knew we had to be really sharp because 47 percent of their shots come on threes. A couple of times when they missed, they got the offensive rebound, and then there were kickout threes, which really hurt us."
Glasper led the Aggies with 21 points. Chitikoudis added 16 points and 10 rebounds to record his second double-double. Freshman Jalal McKie had 13 points and a career-high nine rebounds on 6-for-13 shooting. Sophomore Evan Joyner ended the afternoon with 10 points and seven boards.
"Obviously, there is a lot of room for growth," said Ross. But there are some opportunities for that growth right within our program. That's a pleasant thought for me."
