Feb. 22, 2010
Final Stats
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Thirty years was well worth the wait. The WSSU faithful waited since the 1979-80 season for the Rams to sweep the season series from the Aggies of North Carolina A&T and on Monday evening at the Greensboro Coliseum a WSSU men's basketball team comprised entirely of players who hadn't yet been born the last time WSSU swept N.C. A&T made the wait worthwhile as they erased a double-digit Aggie lead and earned a 79-74 victory.
The Rams and Aggies, meeting for the 89th time in history, combined to give the nearly 7,000 fans in attendance an event to remember as the two most fierce of rivals battled for 40 minutes in an intense competition that showcased the true spirit of the I-40 rivalry.
Much like the season's first meeting between the two teams the Aggies would jump out to an early lead as North Carolina A&T blistered the nets during the first 10 minutes of the game as N.C. A&T hit eight of their first 11 field goal attempts.
The hot shooting helped the Aggies to an early 11-point advantage as the Rams, playing for the first time in the Greensboro Coliseum, found shooting difficult en route to missing seven of their first nine field goals attempts.
Despite playing away from the friendly confines of the C.E. Gaines Center the Rams would not fold as WSSU refused to allow N.C. A&T to pull away as Shelton Carter and Paul Davis combined to score 17 first-half points.
Davis scored eight points and Carter added nine as the Rams kept the Aggies at bay. WSSU's two big men hit six of their nine field goals in the half as they helped WSSU trim the Aggies' advantage to a manageable 10 points at the halftime intermission as WSSU trailed 43-33.
The play of Davis and Carter would spark the Rams to a second-half comeback for the ages as WSSU erased the Aggies 10-point lead and took a lead of their own, their first lead of the contest, just over midway through the final period of play.
A pair of free throws from senior guard Brian Fisher, a player with 110 games of college basketball experience, would tie the game at 61-61 with 7:34 to play as WSSU would battle back to knot the score for the first time since the opening tip.
A pair of Andrew Jackson three-pointers less than one minute apart would turn a tie contest into a WSSU six-point lead as the junior guard put the finishing touches on WSSU's comeback as the Rams earned a season sweep over their Piedmont Triad rival for the first time since the 1979-80 season.
The comeback, the Rams' largest deficit overcome for a victory during the 2009-10 season, would earn the Rams their 11th victory of the season and their third road victory of the year.
“This feels like a MEAC title game and it took a total team effort in every sense of the word to get it done” WSSU head coach Bobby Collins said in postgame interviews.
“Our guys deserve this. They could have laid down when we were down 15 or 17, whatever it was. They didn't and that speaks volumes of the character of the guys in our locker room. Marcus carried us in the first half. Fisher and Drew [Andrew Jackson] carried us in the second half. Paul played great inside. It was a total team effort and our young men and the entire WSSU community deserves this win” Collins added.
The victory improves WSSU to 11-15 overall on the season while North Carolina A&T falls to 10-18 with the loss.
The Rams return to action on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 4:00 p.m. as they play host to the Rattlers of Florida A&M University at the C.E. Gaines Center.
For additional information on WSSU men's basketball, contact the WSSU Office of Athletic Media Relations at (336) 750-2143 or log on to the Official Website of WSSU Athletics at WSSURams.com.
