Northeastern men’s basketball (16-14, 8-9 CAA) beat the North Carolina A&T Aggies (7-23, 3-14 CAA) 69-55 during the Huskies’ Senior Night game Feb. 27. 

“I’m just really pleased with the outcome,” said head coach Bill Coen. “I thought we played a really super solid game. They’re a very difficult team to play against. They play at a very slow pace, so they kind of lull you to sleep a little bit. We had a couple of those moments where defensively, I kept urging our guys not to let their lack of pace steal our urgency on defense.”

The Huskies started off hot as junior center Collin Metcalf won the tipoff. Junior guard LA Pratt made the first basket of the game and a Metcalf alleyoop dunk followed only 45 seconds into the game.  

The Aggies got on the board with a little over 18 minutes left in the half, courtesy of sophomore forward Nikolaos Chitikoudis. 

The Huskies continued to widen their lead with junior guard Rashad King hitting the first three-pointer of the game. But less than a minute later, the Aggies’ sophomore guard Bryson Ogletree made his own three-pointer, making the scoreboard 7-5 with under 17 minutes to go in the half. 

The Aggies were able to shut down the Huskies’ stretching lead as Ogletree and junior guard Camian Shell both nailed their three-pointers, 12-11 with 14 minutes remaining. 

Off a defensive rebound by Metcalf, King brought the ball down the court and passed to sophomore guard JB Frankel. Frankel swung the ball to the opposite side of the floor to sophomore guard William Kermoury, who took three points with 12 minutes to go. 

With five minutes left in the half, North Carolina took the lead for the first and only time in the game off a reverse layup from Ogletree, giving the Aggies 24 to the Huskies’ 23. 

After missed shots and a foul, Northeastern took back the lead at three minutes as King hit his three-pointer 26-24. 

King was the leader in game points, collecting 25 points in the game. He also leads the team in season points with an almost 200-point gap between the next top scorer for the Huskies, junior guard Harold Woods. 

“He’s grown so much as a player, as a man, as a leader,” Coen said. “He’s got a great voice in the locker room. He’s earned everybody’s respect, from the coaching staff right down to the managers and teammates. It’s because of his consistency every day. He approaches every day with a mindset that he’s trying to get better, and he’s trying to drag people with him to get better.”

North Carolina made a layup, which King answered by sniping another three-pointer. The half ended on a Pratt layup, with the score as 34-30. 

The second half began with Pratt fouling North Carolina, sending sophomore guard Jahnathan Lamothe to the line, where he made both of his free-throws. 

Twenty seconds later, graduate student forward Sam Thomson made a layup, putting Northeastern on the board for the first time in the half. 

For two minutes, there was a scoring drought for both teams. Lamothe broke the streak with a jumper with 17 minutes left in the game 36-34. King quickly answered with a three-pointer. 

With 14 minutes left in the game, Northeastern began to pull away as King and Kermoury each made three-pointers. Only 20 seconds later, Pratt stole the ball and lobbed it to Woods, who made the easy layup 47-37. 

Lamothe kept the Aggies in the game by completing his own driving layup 47-39. 

Another two-minute drought plagued the game, but this time it was Northeastern that broke it as Frankel sank his second-chance three-pointer 50-39. 

Within the eight-minute mark, Metcalf collected his second dunk of the night and made a layup off another steal by Pratt 54-41. 

North Carolina continued to fight as redshirt freshman center Efstratios Kalliontzis made a second-chance tip-in layup and Shell made a three-pointer. But the Huskies continued hitting shot after shot as Frankel nailed another three-pointer and King made both of his free-throws off a foul by Ogletree. 

With under four minutes left, Frankel stole the ball from North Carolina and passed it to Pratt, who dunked the ball on the fast break, widening the score 48-64. 

Thirty seconds later, Chitikoudis made an alleyoop dunk, bringing North Carolina to 50 points.

With just over a minute to go, Frankel nailed his final three-pointer and Aggies sophomore guard Jalal McKie got a pullup jumper, bringing the final score of the game 69-55. 

Northeastern will play its final regular season game against William & Mary Tribe (17-13, 11-6 CAA) on the road March 1 at 2 p.m.