GREENSBORO – North Carolina A&T won.
There are a lot of things A&T head men's basketball coach Monté Ross can complain about and try to fix after the Aggies' 89-83 win over NAIA school Washington Adventist University Thursday night at Corbett Sports Center. But the one positive thing he can take away from the contest is that the Aggies won.
"The most disappointing thing was our defense," said Ross, who saw his team improve to 2-1 on the young season. "We hang our hat on the defensive end of the floor, and we just didn't play nearly well enough, defensively tonight, and that's on me. I have to put these guys in a better position to be good on defense."
A&T was not at full strength Thursday night. The Aggies played without starting point guard Trent Middleton, Jr. They also played without another starter, 6-foot-5 sophomore guard Dwayne Pierce. Reserves such as 6-9 sophomore center Will Felton and 6-11 sophomore center Efstratios Kalliontzis also did not play. In addition, referees ejected 6-9 forward KJ Debrick from the game in the first half for a flagrant 2 foul.
The Aggies did have Walker & Walker, who have established themselves as the Aggies' top two scorers over the season's first three games. Junior guard Lureon Walker departed the game early after cramping. Before he left the game, Lureon Walker posted a season-high 25 on 8-for-15 shooting from the floor and 2-for-3 shooting from 3-point range in 32 minutes played.
Meanwhile, redshirt freshman Lewis Walker came off the bench and played the role of a Swiss army knife, scoring a season-best 25 points to go along with eight rebounds, four assists, and three steals on 8-for-13 shooting from the floor and 9-for-11 shooting from the free throw line. Lewis Walker is shooting 92.6 percent from the free throw line thus far.
Unfortunately, A&T as a team did not fare as well from the line. The Aggies were just 30-for-54 (.556) from the free throw line.
A&T's struggles from the line helped the Shock keep the game close. WAU tied the game twice in the second half. The last time occurred on a Derrick Jones drive to the basket for the Shock, which tied the game at 57-57 with 14:45 to play. The Aggies took control of the game on a 10-1 run that culminated with a Lewis Walker steal and layup to give the Aggies a 79-68 lead with six minutes remaining in the game.
However, the Shock did not let the lead get any bigger. A 3-point play by WAU's Joey Brown IV got the Shock to within five at 80-75 with 3:40 to play. But the Aggies responded with a turnaround jumper from sophomore Zamoku Weluche-Ume and two free throws from Lewis Walker. WAU never got any closer than five the rest of the way.
"The thing that I enjoyed, and you might think I'm crazy. I probably think I'm crazy, too, to say this. I enjoyed that there were plays that we had to make at the end," said Ross. "We had a tight ballgame, basically a two-possession game, and we had to fight our way out of it.
There are obviously going to be a number of games like this, so to get one under our belt early and have success with it will bode well for us because now we can draw on the fact that we were in a situation like this against Washington Adventist, and this is what we did well, and this is what we did poorly. All right, how do we get better in these types of situations?"
Chase Cook led the Shock with 23 points. The Aggies dominated in the paint, outscoring the Shock 50-30. The Aggies will go on the road to face fellow HBCU Morgan State in Baltimore, Md., on Tuesday, November 18, at 7 p.m.
"We found a way to pull out a game where obviously we didn't play to the standard that we are expecting to play to," said Ross. "We didn't coach well enough, we didn't play well enough, and fortunately, we're able to learn from a win rather than learn from a loss. Give Washington Adventist a lot of credit, they came in here and they played fearlessly."
