ROUSE HELPS PIRATES DEFEAT AGGIES

Four Aggies finish in double figures

GREENVILLE, N.C., November 18, 2005 -- There were some very positive aspects that

emerged from N.C. A&T’s 86-75 loss to East Carolina in men’s basketball on Saturday.

Sophomore forward Trahern Chaplin looks like he’s going to be a major contributor this season. Junior guard Austin Ewing looks like he is going to be a major threat from 3-point range this season and the Aggies appear to be a much better free throw shooting team this year, which will help them tremendously in close ball games.

Head coach Jerry Eaves knows, however, there is still much work to do in his rebuilding program. East Carolina forward Corey Rouse had a field day on the Aggies defense, scoring 35 points on 14-for-18 shooting as the Pirates shot 54 percent for the game as compared to the Aggies 39.3 percent. Rouse also added 17 rebounds to his totals.

"It’s apparent to anyone that was here tonight that we have to get better on our interior defense,” Eaves said. “But it’s not only that. Their guard did a good job of dribble penetration and kicking out to open people on the perimeter or getting down low, so we have to keeping working on that as well. We’re getting there. We have to keep working and developing, but we’re getting there.”

Ewing and sophomore Demetrius Guions led the Aggies with 16 points apiece. Chaplin chipped in with a career-high 10 and Jason Wills had 12 on 5-for-6 shooting.

The Aggies never took the lead again after Rouse layup made the score 11-10 with 15:16 remaining in the first half, but the Aggies remained close throughout the ball game. They pulled to within five, 51-46 thanks to a 3-pointer from Walter Booth with 12:32 remaining in the game. Rouse would own the rest of the night unfortunately.

He scored 16 points over the final 10 minutes of the ball game. Eight of those points came during an 11-4 run that was capped off by Rouse catching an alley-oop from Japhet McNeil to give East Carolina a 75-60 lead with 4:28 remaining in the game.

McNeil finished the night with 10 assists, three of those assists went to Sam Hinnant who finished the night with 19 points on 3-for-7 shooting from 3-point range.

“We played a whole lot of people tonight,’’ Eaves said. “We’re going to find out what we have and we’re eventually going to come around.” The Aggies play again at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 22 against the Miami Hurricanes on the road.