With 3:10 remaining Monday night, it appeared the largest crowd in two seasons at the Smith-Hammond-Middleton Memorial Center would be treated to another comeback victory.

Down as many as 18 points in the first half, the Bulldogs stormed back to hold a four-point over archrival North Carolina A&T and appeared poised to earn its first three-game winning streak under new head coach Tim Carter.

But after point guard Jessie Burton left the game with an ankle injury, so did SCSU's lead. And with 2.9 seconds remaining, so did the chance at victory. The Aggies' Jason Wills hit a high-arching baseline jumper to send the 2.978 fans in attendance home disappointed following the 77-75 loss. The basket capped a 6-0 run to end the game for North Carolina A&T (14-13, 8-5), which defeated SCSU (10-18, 6-8) twice in a season for the first time since 1997 and won for just the second time in the last 12 meetings. Austin Ewing led the Aggies with 13 points, followed by Ed Jones and Wills with 12 points.

The loss spoiled another strong second-half performance by the Bulldogs. Leading the charge was Burton, who ignited the comeback with five 3-pointers in the second half to finish with a game-high 21 points. SCSU also got 12 points each from Everett Spencer and Jason Flagler, and point guard Phillip Adams had nine points and five rebounds in playing a key role in the comeback. Yet for all their efforts, the Bulldogs did not adjust well after Burton's departure. SCSU missed four jumpers and committed one costly turnover on their final three possessions prior to Wills' game-winning basket.

"When Jessie hit that last running shot, that was the last time we scored and Jessie's the head of our ballclub," Carter said. "Now Jessie has played phenomenal basketball the past four to five games, and I attribute a lot of our success to the fact that he has really run the ball team and when we lost him, we kind of floundered. They were sagging so much out of us trying to stop our inside game, somebody had to step and knock down those wide open shots and Jessie's not afraid to shoot."

A 3-pointer to open the game by Steven Rush, who hit 10 earlier this season against Depaul, proved a harbinger of things to come in the first half. The Aggies came out shooting with confidence, hitting seven of 13 from behind the arc to jump out to an early advantage.

Meanwhile, the Bulldogs could hardly make anything fall from 3-point range. SCSU converted just 2 of 19 attempts from behind the arc in the first half in shooting 13 of 30 from the field overall. The only offensive category favoring the Bulldogs was free-throw shooting where they were 8 of 12 compared to 12 of 24 for the Aggies. A 3-pointer by Jones gave North Carolina A&T its biggest lead of 18 points. Before halftime, Burton sparked a 7-0 run to end the first half for the Bulldogs with a 3-pointer and steal and layup to cut the deficit to 42-32.

"The first half we played really soft," Carter said. "We're not good enough to not play hard and to get down and dirty, and we just dug ourselves too deep a hole and that was the ballgame for us."

SCSU's offense righted itself in the second half and closed the deficit to three points. With 12:46 remaining, Adams nailed a 3-pointer to give SCSU its first lead of the contest at 56-54.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by Burton gave the Bulldogs their biggest lead at 69-63 with 6:36 remaining. Each time the Aggies drew closer, SCSU responded with a key basket to maintain a four-point advantage. After Burton hit a layup with 3:13 remaining, he immediately went down favoring his right ankle. North Carolina A&T capitalized with two free throws by Ewing and a steal and putback by Jones to tie the game.

With 30 seconds remaining, Flagler's jumper fell short and North Carolina A&T called a timeout. On the final play, Wills dribbled into the paint down the baseline and hit a high-arching jumper with 2.9 seconds left.

Adams' desperation jumper richocheted off the backboard as time expired. Nevertheless, Carter was still pleased with the effort of a team he believes has turned the corner since the Hampton loss.

"We're not as deep as we'd like to be, we're not as big as we liked to be, we're not as physical as we liked to be, but I'm not faulting the effort in the second half," Carter said. "I think when Jessie went down, we couldn't recover. We were like a snake with its head cut off."

SCSU heads to Florida this weekend to finish conference play starting Saturday against Bethune-Cookman.

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

North Carolina A&T 86, South Carolina State 67

Winners of five of their last seven games, the Lady Bulldogs looked to clinch their first winning conference record under head coach Tonya Mackey and win four straight for the first time since the 2001-02 season.

Instead, turnovers and poor second-half shooting against the front-running Lady Aggies proved too difficult for SCSU to overcome. Despite 21 points from Marie Reid and 13 each from Jenell Moore and Sophilia Hipps, the Lady Bulldogs would trail for double digits through much of the game.

SCSU (11-14, 8-6) committed 31 turnovers, with North Carolina A&T finishing with 23 steals on the evening. Both teams shot just over 50 percent, but SCSU hit just 9-23 field goals in the second half.

The (21-5, 13-0) jumped out to a 29-15 advantage with 9:30 remaining in the first half when the Lady Bulldogs used a 13-2 run to get within three points before halftime.

SCSU fell behind 49-41 to start the second half, only to score 10 of the next 14 points to cut the margin to 53-51 with 14:48 remaining. Over the next five minutes, the Lady Bulldogs managed just four points and the Lady Aggies scored 13 unanswered baskets to increase its lead to 71-55 with 9:01 left.

Amber Bland was one of five players to score in double figures for North Carolina A&T with 23 points and eight steals. She was followed by Ta'Wunna Cook with 19, Britta Taylor-James with 17, Nancy Rembert with 13 and Lamona Smalley with 10.

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