Aggies record 26 steals

Box Score
GREENSBORO, February 23, 2008 – The North Carolina A&T women’s basketball team played without its floor leader on Saturday night and still won decisively. For the eighth straight game the Aggies margin of victory exceeded 15 points as they defeated arch-rival Winston-Salem State 80-41 at the Lawrence Joel Coliseum Annex.

Amber Bland led the Aggies (20-5) with 20 points, six rebounds and four assists. Lamona Smalley added 14 points and nine rebounds as the Aggies reached the 20-win plateau for just the third time in school history and the first time since the 1990-91 season. The Aggies other 20-win season came during 1987-88.

“I think it’s meaningful because it shows how far this program has come,’’ said Patricia Cage-Bibbs, who earned her 11th career 20-win season in 23 years of coaching. “Then when you think about the fact that we have a quality group of kids who get to be a part of an exclusive club here at A&T, it makes it even more special. They truly deserve it.”

There are more feats still available for the Aggies. Saturday’s game was a non-conference contest for the Aggies. With Coppin State’s win over Hampton on Saturday, an Aggies win on Monday and they will clinch the No. 1 overall seed in the MEAC Tournament scheduled for March 10-15. The Aggies hold the tiebreaker over Coppin State because of a 61-50 win over the Eagles earlier in the season.

The Eagles are 10-3 in the MEAC, the Aggies are 12-0 in the league. A Monday win will also clinch at least a share of the MEAC regular-season crown. If Coppin State loses to Howard on Monday, the regular-season title will be the Aggies outright.

“We can’t go in thinking about regular-season championships,’’ said Bibbs. “We have to go in and concentrate on beating South Carolina State The regular-season title will take care of itself if we go down there and play well. South Carolina State is a team that is playing very good basketball.”

The Aggies played without star point guard Ta’Wuana Cook who sat out to rest an injury. Other than a moment in the first half when backup Taryn Russ went down with an injury was there a thought or even a need for Cook to play on Saturday.

The Rams’ Jalesa Byrd hit a jumper at the 9:42 mark to cut the Aggies lead to 20-13. Lamona Smalley responded with a baseline jumper and Bland followed with a 3-pointer to put the Aggies up 12, 25-13 with 7:57 remaining in the first half. Talneshia Kee answered Bland’s basket with a three from the top of the key.

But the Rams had no more answers after Bland netted a three from the corner to put the Aggies up by 12 again. The Rams never got the lead under 10 the rest of the way as they fail to 2-22.

“We got an opportunity to play a lot of our kids and look at some different things we wanted to look at, so it was a good night for us,’’ said Bibbs. “I was hoping to get our backup point guards a chance to get some game experience because we need to know they can contribute if (Ta’Wuana Cook) is not on the floor.”