Box Score GREENSBORO, N.C. – A notorious second half squad, the Norfolk State men's basketball team proved just how much on Monday afternoon at the Corbett Sports Center. Down by 10 at the break and with North Carolina A&T's Sam Hunt lighting things up, the Spartans outscored the Aggies by 17 after the break and held Hunt in check the rest of the way in a 75-68 victory.
 
It certainly was a tale of two halves, as Hunt scored 24 points in the first stanza, shooting 7-of-10 overall and 5-of-7 from 3-point range. He finished with 34 points, but NSU's box-and-1 defense in the second half kept him at bay. Hunt did not have a field goal attempt until a minute left in the contest, but an 11-of-12 effort from the free throw line, including 6-of-7 in the second half, bumped his end-of-game numbers.
 
The Spartans, meanwhile, had five players in double figures for the second straight game, led by a 20-point effort from senior Charles Oliver. He made 7-of-16 overall to make up for the loss of the Spartans' leading scorer, Jeff Short, who sat out the game due to injury.
 
NSU maintained its third-place standing in the MEAC, with the rest of Monday's games taking place later in the evening. The Spartans improved their record to 8-12 overall and 4-1 in conference play.
 
The Aggies (5-15 overall, 2-4 MEAC) could not take advantage of a 44-33 edge on the glass, including a 22-9 difference in offensive rebounds. North Carolina A&T only outscored NSU 16-11 in second-chance points, while the Spartans committed just three less turnovers than A&T (15-12) but outscored the Aggies 18-5 in points off turnovers.
 
Down 39-29 at the half, NSU scored the first seven points of the second stanza to slice the margin to three. The run reached 13-1 by the end to put the Spartans up by two, 42-40, after two free throws by sophomore Zaynah Robinson at 15:18.
 
The lead reached three after a trey from Robinson from the right wing at 12:54. After the Aggies went ahead momentarily, the Spartans pushed the advantage to five, 54-49, after Oliver got the positive roll on his layup with six and a half minutes left. Two free throws by Hunt and a layup by Steven Burrough got the Aggies to within one, but the Spartans scored 10 of the next 12 points in the game to surge ahead by nine with two and a half minutes left.
 
Up 64-55 at that point, the Spartans hit 7-of-8 from the free throw line and got a pair of fastbreak layups from Oliver at the end. A&T twice cut the deficit to three with less than a minute left but missed two 3-pointers and turned the ball over in between Oliver's two buckets.
 
Robinson was one of those five players in double figures with 10, while junior Jonathan Wade also tallied 10 points on the afternoon. Senior D'Shon Taylor and junior Preston Bungei each added 13. And for the second straight game, NSU's bench far outscored the opposition, this time by a 35-4 margin.
 
For the game, the Spartans shot 24-of-52 from the floor (46.2 percent), including better than 53 percent in the second half when NSU outscored A&T 46-29.
 
The Aggies were held to less than 30 percent in the second half and 31.7 percent overall on 19-of-60 shooting. Hunt had five of his team's six treys, all in the first half. He hit 9-of-13 from the floor for the game, while the rest of the team sank just 10-of-47.
 
Hunt made four straight 3-pointers for the Aggies to put A&T in the lead in the early going, and while Oliver countered with eight points, the trio of Bungei, sophomore Butler and freshman Alex Long each got saddled with two fouls by the midway point of the first half.
 
Oliver's 3-pointer at 11:04 cut the deficit to 20-18, but the Aggies countered with an 8-2 run to push the lead to eight.
 
Wade scored the last five points of the half for NSU. Hunt, though, sank 4-of-4 from the free throw line and a deep trey from the left wing, accounting for the last seven points of the stanza for A&T, to give the Aggies a 39-29 lead at the break.
 
Burrough added 12 points and seven rebounds to join Hunt in double figures in scoring. Denzel Keyes and Ahmad Abdullah combined to shoot 2-of-23, although Keyes did add a game-high 13 rebounds.
 
NSU finished the day 20-of-26 from the free throw line and hit 7-of-20 from 3-point range.
 
NSU will host South Carolina State, currently second in the MEAC, next Saturday at 6 p.m. at Joseph Echols Hall.