Wow! The Lady Aggies has been on the road a long time. They played at home against UNC-Charlotte and Norfolk State back before the holidays ... and that’s it!
They have taken their lumps on the road and tested the young players. Veterans Jaleesa Sams (16.2ppg., 5.2 rpg) and Jaquayla Berry (10.7 ppg, & 7.1rpg ) have held it together while the team grows and learn. Nikia Gorham always has her hands full playing center. She does the dirty work and sometimes picks up too many fouls. One thing for sure, she will help win at least one game for the Aggies like she did during the post-season run last year.
The young players can ball. They still have this nervous vibe sometimes, but they will take the shot if needed. The home court advantage in Corbett will be good for this team.
It will not be an easy conference road ahead, but the Aggies have the makings of a good team. They lost 77-71 at Clemson and will come home to Corbett this weekend.
This is not an eighth place team. Some preseason polls said that the Aggie Men would finish in eighth place because of the loss of last year’s top scorers but based on how they have played thus far in 2010-11, I think we can finish near the top of the MEAC.
One thing I can say about last year is that if you got in the game, you had a chance to shoot. The 3-point shot was king and it scared a lot of conference teams we played. The Aggies were in most games they played, however, it was the finishing of the games that ultimately hurt them. Now Thomas Coleman (13.8ppg, 11.1 Reb, 3.3 blocks) has emerged as the league’s best big man in my opinion. He always possessed defensive skills, but now he has added rebounding and scoring to his resume. More importantly, the Aggies can now command a double team inside which opens up the offense.
FAMU and Bethune-Cookman come into Corbett Sports Center for the Saturday/Monday games not knowing what to expect. Will the fans inside the Dawg Pound be hyped? Will the Aggies be ready to play? Will the Aggies’ 3-point shot fall? Well, I don’t know, but it has the makings of a potential double sweep, with the A&T men and women winning both games.
Nic Simpson (13.7ppg) and Marc Hill (11.4 ppg, 3.5 apg) have provided the stability in the backcourt that the young team needed. The few turnovers that they have made this year have occurred while trying to make a play, instead of throwing the ball away facing a new defensive look. The team is playing better. The team looks better. It averages 70.1 points per game and 42 rebounds per game. First and second place in the conference respectively, as of Jan 5. And while Simpson went for 20 points at Stanford and 17 points at Arizona St., it seems like he has still been cool and will soon catch fire.
Eighth Place is reserved for someone else. This is a good time for Aggie Basketball.
This Aggie basketball season is over and it put me in the mind of a song by jazz great John Coltrane: “The Promise”.
In that piece ‘Trane and his band mates play the "head" (or theme), and then ‘Trane lays back and lets the piano player (McCoy Tyner) take over for the first five plus minutes of the song. Eventually, he comes back in with power, heart and soul. He is playing the soprano sax now instead of his normal tenor sax.
The Aggie men started off the season with a big win at Norfolk State and the Aggie faithful were excited. But it seemed as the season wore on their shooting percentage suffered and the other teams were able to exploit A&T’s pressure defense and score.
The league appeared to like playing at a faster pace against A&T. Quicker shots, open looks, contested looks - it was all there for anyone who wanted some.
And at times it was an “outside in” approach instead of an “inside out” approach. High percentage shots rule down the stretch. It’s funny, but this Aggie team had talent and concerned every league foe that they faced.
They just could not complete or close out many of the games.
The good news is that they did show flashes of playing a complete game and some of the freshmen started or played all year. The bad news is that this should have been the year to make a deep run for a title. The balance was there … on paper. “The Promise”.
The Aggie women, like ‘Trane, laid back and exploded on teams in the post season.
Laid back is unfair because they got after it every night during league play. The faithful got spoiled after the women knocked down each challenge. Besides, they had Auburn in Corbett and played them tough. I don’t know if or when Tweet Cook and Lamona Smalley will make the Hall of Fame, but I do know that they gave us their all.
Now back to the spoiled vibe and explosion.
Everyone felt that the Lady Aggies would win the MEAC tournament title. They lost. The Aggie nation was hurt. Everybody wanted one more chance.
It showed everyone that they could be gotten!
Everybody else it seemed, was having fun while his or her teams still played in the tourney. Blue Death Valley regrouped, the Aggie Nation regrouped. The team regrouped, and went on a run that reminded me of that solo by ‘Trane in “The Promise”.
They all came back against Wake Forest and UNC- Charlotte, with power, heart, soul, and focus.
The Aggie Nation took over the gym. They did not come to watch, they came to push the team. I saw fans that normally just checked out the action, open up and get loud. And it became infectious.
The players that hit their first shots and the show was rolling. And just as the ‘Trane solo finally stops, the Lady Aggies could not beat the eventual WNIT finalist Miami. “The Promise.”
So, where are we?
We have an Aggie nation that has turned heads in North Carolina. This is old news to us, but it allows others to market to us or schedule to us and hence, we can wedge our influence.
We have to promise that we will turn it on again, and support it from the hip.
The A&T administration has to support the teams with needed staff and equipment. It must keep the promise with the fans. The work of Ten Web TV and the broadcasting of the men’s and women’s games has been great. Cast down your buckets again and make Corbett an truly unique experience. The Maniacs need to come back. Keep creating. The graduation of the players is a given and is going at a good clip.
The coaches and players must continue to get better. The league has a lot of young talent and is growing. The women are being gained upon and the men have to gain on Morgan. We have good recruiting classes coming in.
So here we are. What a great year to be an Aggie. And with “the promise” of next year looming, I can rest my pen for now.
In my freshman English class at A&T, I read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” In it, Malcolm said that his wife Betty kept a packed suitcase for him because he was on the road so much.
Well, the A&T women’s basketball team is wearing me out trying to follow them!
They are still winning in their postseason play and the faithful will either need a lot of vacation days, frequent flyer miles or just “have it like that” in order to keep up with them. Miami is next!
But wait, I’ve got to back up.
I want to ask you like George Clinton (Parliament/Funkadelic) used to ask the crowd after he realized that he was getting ahead of himself. So he backed up to the beginning and said, “Do you believe in the Mothership, first off?!”
The crowd, caught off guard, mumbled back “Yeah!”
George, louder this time, said “do you believe in the Mothership?!!!” And the crowd yelled “Yeah!”
And then George went to work knowing that the foundation was there.
This Lady Aggie team reminded me of the A&T/NCCU football game the past year when, during the end of regulation, NCCU was on the A&T 10 yard line and was set to kick a field goal to win the game.
The Aggie Nation started to yell “Defense”… boom, boom …”Defense”, and it swelled and built up around Aggie Stadium. And then, in miraculous fashion, Jarrell Herring broke through the line and blocked it!!! The Aggies would eventually go on to win that game in overtime.
Now in Charlotte last Sunday, the 49ers mounted a comeback on the Aggies and it was crunch time. Our legs were tired, and the ball was getting heavy.
Coach Bibbs said something during the time out, and the Aggies took their time and were facing the greatest defensive pressure that UNC-C could muster.
Meanwhile, their home crowd was chanting, the shot clock was running down, it was in their house. The Aggies worked their reads and Freshman Amber Calvin hit a big shot.
BAM! I think that she bounced up and down like a boxer who just entered the ring on new legs!!
I looked around and the Aggies were bouncing. The pep band, the bench! Wow!
At that very moment, it said that WE BELIEVE!
We believe in the young players. We believe in the team. We believe in the coach and staff. We believe in the school, and we believe in ourselves!
God is a given, in the mixture. This team is still playing. It does not want to go home. It climbs the rough side of the mountain by having to go on the road to win. The Aggies are leading again.
Now, back to the suitcase. I can’t make the Thursday Miami trip with a turnaround to Providence or Maryland for Sunday. I can still believe though. I want those who have a chance to grab an ear of a player or Coach, to say “we are with you”, and put a shoebox layered with wax paper and laden with chicken, in their hands.
I have to pick up my pen to write about this team. I am running on fumes after a wild night of not being able to sleep thinking about this team making history.
They won 73-49, beating Wake Forest in the first round of the Women's National Invitational Tournament (WNIT). It was the first postseason win in a national tournament for the program, I've been told. The larger schools have their pick of the best players, and can offer those players TV, radio, web support, etc. But its funny how it pans out.
A&T offers a great education and tradition. Now if you are a star do you want to go to a big school and sit the bench, along with a possibility of your replacement being recruited the next year? Some are changing the model. They want to play now! A&T is making a name for itself; it is getting players.
Now, about last night. The game was in a small gym on the campus of Wake Forest. The Wake men were playing on TV later that night in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Hence, most of the interest and attendance would have been in the dorm rooms and bars around the Triad. The majority of the Wake Forest pep band may have been on the road with the men. In any case, they only had a few members in Reynolds Gymnasium that night.
Their crowd was 1/3 of the gym. A&T packed the house. The game was sold out. The Pep band was at full strength and it blew the roof off of the gym. The Wake Forest crowd looked at one another once A&T finished its first song, with that "what's this?" type of expression. The Aggie crowd was loud and cheered the players who made plays and went to the bench for a rest.
It was electric!
It was like yesterday meeting today. A throwback gym, the secret game between Duke & NCCU (NCC at the time, during segregation), the Woolworth store vs. the four A&T freshmen, the status quo vs. the promise of the new thing.
It was not as Smokey Robinson says in the song 'quiet storm': "butterfly caught up in a hurricane", it was the flower coming up through concrete.
The A&T women's basketball team showed the faithful that we must continue to believe. We must continue to provide for those coming after us.
The Aggie men return to the road, looking for some wins on Saturday. But Coppin State (2-11 in the MEAC) is never an easy team to beat.
The Eagles may not have the ballers from yesteryear, but they seem to hang around in most games. The Aggies better not take them lightly. A&T should jump right on them in the first half and make it a stress free night. In the last meeting between these two teams - a 67-62 A&T victory in Greensboro - the Aggies found themselves trailing at the half 24-32. However, I expect A&T to win this one again.
Morgan State (12-1 in the MEAC) will be waiting on Monday. ESPNU (9 PM) wants to see this. As a matter of fact, I do too! I want A&T to stop Kevin Thompson. He is not Moses Malone, but when he came to Greensboro he acted like it by getting 20 rebounds. Morgan beat us 74-65, and they walked out of the Corbett Center with 51 rebounds! To be fair, we had 33.
That was then, this is now.
I believe that we can beat Morgan if we go inside. Besides, it will be the last week of the regular season and the Aggies need to make a statement to the A&T faithful. The loss to Winston Salem had many fans wondering what’s next.
The Lady Aggies are 12-1 in the conference. They will face Coppin State (4-9 in the MEAC) on Saturday at 2pm. This should not be a tough task for the Aggies. A&T has displayed that consistency of a champion, and seems to be able to turn on the power when needed.
Now Morgan State (9-4 in the MEAC) will provide a bigger test for the Lady Aggies. A&T beat them 67-56 in snow-laden Greensboro, but now it should be a closer game.
The Lady Aggies have been looking good. I expect to see them on TV during the MEAC Championship.
The Lady Aggies have the gym by themselves today. Normally they are a part of a doubleheader with the men. I remember the Auburn game in the Corbett Center where the Aggies lost 76-63. That next game against Norfolk State the Aggies strapped a 81-51 spanking on the Spartans.
Well now the Aggies are coming off a 90-80 road loss to Hampton, and South Carolina State is in town at 4pm. They are 3-9 in the conference, and seem like an easy foe, but SCSU lost to A&T 67-60 on January 23.
Everyone is stingy with the Aggies. But now the script has flipped. The Aggies are looking to payback whoever walks into the gym.
To be honest, the team has played well. The bench, the starters, the desire and the fun of the season have been there.
I remember thinking to myself during the Winston Salem State game during a span that Winston was hustling and guarding everyone, that the Rams were all on our freshmen and running around playing defense, and then here is ‘Tweet’ Cook with a three point shot. Bam! They did it again, and here is Tweet again, Bam! It was like they had forgotten about her and it seemed like Tweet knew when to turn it on during the crunch. To make it so bad, Tweet made it look so easy with a Michael Jordan shrug after knocking them down.
We have a lot of weapons. The Aggie Fans should give the props to the seniors. The season is winding down.
The Aggie Men have their sights set on playing Winston Salem State Monday night at the Greensboro Coliseum. They have been up and down all year. One thing for sure, if you are in second place the Aggies will beat you. They beat Delaware St, 65-54, and South Carolina State, 87-69, this past Wednesday. They will rest Saturday and let the conference feed off of each other.
On the other hand, the WSSU trap has probably kept the team from resting. I forgot the numbers, but in the first matchup between these teams this season A&T could not get the ball up court time after time, and WSSU gained momentum. The Aggies finally solved it but lost 59-57.
Payback. This will be the biggest Aggie game in Greensboro this year. Also, it will be interesting to see how the standings are on Monday night once the dust has settled. This could not have come at a better time as the team has won two in a row. They beat Hampton, 69-65, on the road Monday night, before the SCSU win on Wednesday.
What will we see? I believe that we will see James Porter and Thomas Coleman waking up for the last run of the season. This has been the best we have looked in a long time. This is the best time for the payback.
Preston "PJ" Barnes is one of the most knowledgeable A&T basketball fans around. As a new feature on the ncatdawgpound.com fan site, he is now able to share his unique perspective with the rest of the world.
