2023-12-30 11:00:00
After two changes in conference affiliation for North Carolina A&T in as many years, the third time has not yet been the charm for Aggie athletics.
Following years of affiliation with the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, A&T moved from the MEAC to the Big South Conference in 2021. It ended 96 years of involvement with athletic conferences featuring historically Black colleges and universities.
Its residency in the Big South lasted one year before the school moved over to what was then the Colonial Athletic Association, a group that changed its name to the Coastal Athletic Association. The men’s and women’s basketball teams were among the programs that made the move with the start of the 2022-23 season. Football opened its portion of the membership with the 2023 season.
With the move came changes in the respective coaching staffs. The Aggies entered the men’s basketball season with an interim coach, Philip Shumpert. The team struggled to a 13-19 record, including an 8-10 finish in the CAA, good enough for seventh place in the 13-team league. But among the struggles was a 79-63 loss to Monmouth, which came to Greensboro with just one win in 21 games. The season, as well as Shumpert’s tenure, ended in the conference tournament with a 76-61 loss to Stony Brook.
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The search for a permanent head coach led A&T to choose Monté Ross, a Winston-Salem State graduate who played for legendary coach Clarence “Big House” Gaines. At his formal introduction in April, he promised to channel what he learned from Gaines into the A&T program.
So far, it’s not quite worked out, but there are signs that Ross may be turning the corner in his first year. He’s fielding a team which lost several starters from last season’s team.
The Aggies lost their first nine games, but broke the slide by beating Texas Southern at the Chris Paul HBCU Challenge in Las Vegas on Dec. 16. They lost to Jackson State the next night, but went on the road, rallied from 13 points down and beat Coastal Carolina. After a game at George Mason, the Aggies open conference play against Campbell at home on Jan. 4 and then go down the road to Elon on Jan. 6.
“I’m just happy for the guys,” Ross said, referring to the Texas Southern win. “They work so hard, and again, it’s going to be an overused term from me, but they were committed to the process of what we’re doing without being emotionally attached to the results, and it showed. I told them it showed heart to get back in the game; now let’s show the smarts to finish this thing off.”
Sam Washington took the football team to what amounted to a Big South championship game against Gardner-Webb. The Aggies lost that game, and they soon lost Washington. Before long, A&T was without leading rusher Bhayshul Tuten and linebackers Jacob Roberts and Tyquan King, thanks to the transfer portal. It would be the team that Vincent Brown would inherit.
Brown, a former All-Pro linebacker for the New England Patriots, replaced Washington after coming from William & Mary, where he led a top-flight defense. Like Ross, he would also struggle at the start, but unlike the basketball program to this point, the Aggies never got their footing on the field.
The Aggies finished 1-10 in Brown’s inaugural season. They suffered a 35-6 opening-night loss to UAB after starting quarterback Eli Brickhandler failed to move the offense, leaving true freshman Kevin White to try to jump-start the attack. After falling in the Aggie-Eagle Classic and to Elon, White guided the team to its first victory for Brown at Norfolk State, but the team didn’t turn the corner. A&T lost its last six games, establishing the school’s first 10-loss season since 2010, which at the time was the seventh of eight straight losing seasons.
The departures began almost immediately, but it wasn’t all players. Chris Young was dismissed as the team’s offensive coordinator. Three quarterbacks — Brickhandler, Alston Hooker and Zach Yeager — all entered the transfer portal. White is the sole returner with any experience.
Hooker’s departure could be the most disappointing. The son of A&T legend Alan Hooker, he had an eye-opening performance against Campbell in the season finale, yet he chose to leave. Brown has a plan for overcoming the disappointment and departures.
“There’s really two options: you can recruit high school players, or you can go through the transfer portal. I think we’ll be a combination of both,” Brown said. “We want some guys up front that have some experience and some size, so our focus early on is going to be trying to find some guys up front through the transfer portal. But, we also want to build the core of our team around young men that want to be here, see value in being at A&T and want to be a part of building something that will sustain success down the road.”
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