Postgame Interview: Robert Jones

NORFOLK, Va. – Hampton scored the last eight points of the game to erase Norfolk State's one and only lead, as the Pirates rallied for a 74-71 win on Thursday night in the regular season finale at Joseph Echols Hall.
 
The Battle of the Bay lived up to its billing in the second half. The Pirates led for almost 34 minutes until NSU grabbed its first lead of the game with 6:06 left. The Spartans completed a 16-6 run to go up by five with three and a half minutes left, much to the approval of the crowd.
 
But just when the Spartans were primed to capture a share of the MEAC regular season title, Hampton pulled the rug out from under their feet. The Spartans missed their last five shots and turned the ball over three other times during HU's closing run.
 
As a result, NSU fell to 11-5 in the league and 13-18 overall, tied for fourth with North Carolina A&T. The Spartans will enter next week's MEAC tournament as the No. 5 seed and play No. 12 seed Maryland Eastern Shore at 9 p.m. on Monday.
 
Hampton improved to 17-14 overall and 12-4 in the league, sharing the regular season title with Bethune-Cookman and Savannah State. All three will get first-round byes in the tournament.
 
NSU fell despite the best game ever from sophomore Steven Whitley. He scored a career-best 27 points on 12-of-16 shooting with five rebounds, four assists and two steals. He was one of two players in double figures for the Spartans along with freshman Mastadi Pitt (10 points).
 
The Pirates led by as much as 12 in the first half. The second half proved to be heartache inducing for the 4,500 fans in attendance.
 
With NSU down by five at the break, Whitley had the first two baskets of the second half to get the Spartans to within one. A trey by HU's Greg Heckstall a little later pushed Hampton's lead back to eight, 45-37. The Spartans then tied it up thanks to a 10-2 run, which included treys from Whitley and senior Preston Bungei.
 
Hampton's leading scorer for the night, Kalin Fisher, went past the 20-point mark to keep the Pirates in the lead. Senior Stavian Allen then matched HU's Malique Trent-Street score for score over a couple minute span to keep the Pirate lead from going beyond five. Whitley had two straight buckets right before the under-8 media timeout to get the crowd on its feet and cut the Hampton lead to one.
 
Those scores started a 16-6 run, which put the Spartans ahead 71-66 with 3:37 to go. The Spartans, though, went cold during the final 8-0 HU run.
 
Fisher finished with 23 points on 10-of-17 shooting with eight rebounds and three assists. Trent-Street tallied 19 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and four steals. The Pirates shot 29-of-62 overall (46.8 percent).
 
They had raced out to an 11-3 lead to start the game. Hampton extended it to 12 at 22-10 after Akim Mitchell hit a trey from the right corner at the 13:23 mark. The Spartans countered by scoring eight of the next 10 points. Another 8-2 run, capped by a fastbreak dunk by Whitley, cut the Hampton lead to 31-26 with five minutes left in the first half.
 
Whitley's 3-pointer with less than a minute to go kept it a five-point game at the half, 36-31. Both teams went on to shoot exactly 50 percent in the second half.
 
Norfolk State made 30-of-72 (41.7 percent) for the night, including just 6-of-22 from deep.
 
NSU held slight edges on the glass (41-37) as well as in all specialty stat areas. It included a 16-9 advantage in points off turnovers. Hampton also got just five points from its bench.
 
Trevond Barnes made 5-of-7 from the field for a 10-point night, and Mitchell also added nine points for the Pirates.
 
Senior Bryan Gellineau totaled eight points for NSU on the program's Senior Night.