It was a game ten years it the making, but it only took five minutes to decide.
North Carolina A&T guard Steven Rush scored 23 points, including nine in the first five minutes, as A&T jumped out to a 17-4 lead and coasted to a 75-56 win over rival Winston-Salem State in the Corbett Arena in Greensboro on Jan. 26. It was the first time the two former CIAA rivals squared off since the 1997-98 season.
Leading the way for the Rams was Jamal Durham with 17 points, 10 rebounds, two steals and two blocks. Durham was the only Ram to score in double figures. Darrell Wonge finished with nine points and four rebounds.
After the game, Rams head coach Bobby Collins admitted that Rush’s quick start critically wounded the Rams early in the game.
“He was just on fire,” said Collins. “He was shooting them from like 25-feet. I was just glad Coach Eaves took him out of the game. That was the only way we could stop him.”
After trailing 41-23 at halftime, the Rams managed to cut the lead to 12 when Isaiah Tucker’s 12-foot jumper made the score 47-35 with less than 13 minutes remaining.
The Aggies came back to answer with a 11-2 run in the next three minutes that put the game away for good.
The Aggies outshot (40 percent to 33 percent) and out rebounded (48 to 43) the Rams. They also got to the free-throw line with more frequency, hitting on 20 of 29 attempts, while the Rams made just 11 of 22 attempts.
“If they hit hit a few shots, it would have been a much closer game,” said A&T head coach Jerry Eaves, who picked up a win in his first game against WSSU.
“Steve (Rush)?was tremendous for us in the first eight or nine minutes of the first-half. “
Nearly 6,000 people packed into the gym to see the two rivals play for the first time this decade. The Corbett Arena is known as a tough place to play and it lived up to it’s reputation against the rival Rams. “
“You come into a place like this, into a hostile environment, you have to be mentally tough and mentally focused,” Collins said.”That’s something that we weren’t tonight.”