HBCU basketball took over the Saturday afternoon spotlight for the historic HBCU Showcase doubleheader featuring two of HBCU hoops’ biggest rivalries. North Carolina A&T vs North Carolina Central and Hampton vs Howard were televised back to back on the CBS Sports Network on Saturday afternoon as HBCU basketball was broadcast to millions of homes across the country on the CBS Sports HBCU Showcase.
North Carolina A&T’s men’s basketball team played its best game of the season against longtime rival North Carolina Central University (NCCU), taking down the visitors from Durham with an 85-72 victory.
“You have to be careful as a coach the way you approach a game like this,” Aggies coach Monté Ross said about the historic HBCU rivalry. “Every game is important, but there is significance to rivalry games like this game. I didn’t want them to be out there and getting emotionally drunk, where they’re just flying on emotion. And then when that emotion subsides, it’s a basketball game to play.”
The win ended an eight-game losing streak for North Carolina A&T. The Aggies (4-10) head into the New Year ready for conference play in the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA).
Ryan Forrest racked up 30 points, Landon Glasper poured in 25 points, and Nikolaos Chitikoudis hauled in a career-high 22 rebounds, becoming the first Aggie to snatch 20-plus boards in a single game since Bruce Jenkins did it on January 12, 2002, against Norfolk State.
Read the full game recap from NC A&T Athletics here.
Hampton (8-5) overcame a slow start on the CBS showcase before overpowering archrival Howard (5-8), 83-67, in the annual Battle of the Real HU before 4,213 fans at the Hampton Convocation Center. The victory stretched Hampton’s winning streak to five, its longest in five years.
Howard jumped to an 8-2 lead at the 12:35 mark as Hampton missed its first 11 shots from the field. The two teams combined to make just two of their first 20 shots from the field.
After misfiring on its first 11 shots, Hampton shot 11-for-19 (57.9 percent) from the field the rest of the half to lead 31-23 at intermission. Daniel Johnson came off the bench to score eight points to pace the Pirates. George Beale Jr. finished the half with six points on a pair of three-pointers. Howard’s Blake Harper led all scorers in the first half with 12 points.
Hampton outscored Howard 20-10 to start the second half to build a 51-33 lead. The lead grew to 22 with 6:01 left in the contest on a Wayne Bristol Jr three-pointer making the score 67-45. The Bison trimmed the lead to 77-65 in the game’s final minutes. But the Pirates were a perfect 10-10 from the free throw line in the final 2:08 to erase any hope of a comeback by Howard.
Hampton shot a sizzling 60.9 percent from the field in the second half while converting 17-of-20 free throws. Hampton canned 13 treys with seven players making a three-pointer in the contest. The Pirate bench chipped in 38 points in the win.
Four players scored in double figures for the Pirates on the CBS showcase including Bristol (18), Noah Farakhan (17), Beale (13), and Kyrese Mullen (11). Howard’s Harper led all scorers with 30 points. Cameron Shockley-Okeke came off the bench to score 10 points for the Bison. Mullen also grabbed nine rebounds in the win.
