Curtis Hunter nabbed the biggest win of his coaching career Monday night, and it sent his North Carolina A&T players into a euphoric celebration.

Bench-warmers frantically waved towels and starters hushed the already silent road crowd. They disappeared into the locker room with a parade of hugs. Once behind closed doors, players sprayed each other with water as if it were champagne.

‘It’s one of my best basketball memories,’ Hunter said. ‘I can’t remember a bigger win for this program. We played well and came through down the stretch. Obviously, it was our biggest win of the year.’

That’s because it’s the Aggies’ only win of the year. After Monday night’s 61-54 win at Norfolk State, the Aggies didn’t celebrate making history. They celebrated avoiding it.

Prior to Monday’s win, A&T (1-24, 1-16 MEAC) stood just a few games away from becoming the only Division I team to go winless since 2001.

‘It’s like a huge weight has been taken off our shoulders,’ assistant coach Bill Sutton said. ‘We’d been hearing about going winless for weeks. You try to blot it out and ignore it, but that’s impossible when you’re confronted with it every day.’

Recently, opposing coaches had used the Aggies’ winless streak as motivation. A few hours after games, Sutton would walk into the visiting locker room and be confronted with a chalk board reading: ‘DON’T BE THE FIRST TEAM TO LOSE TO NORTH CAROLINA A&T.’

For the most part, opposing teams easily avoided that dubious distinction. On average, the Aggies lose by 23 points. Before Monday, the Aggies’ best chance came Nov. 30 — an overtime loss to Radford — and Feb. 10, when they lost to Morgan State in double overtime.

On Monday, though, Norfolk State — an above-average conference team that beat A&T by 23 earlier in the year — finally caved. The Aggies jumped to a 32-24 halftime lead, their first halftime lead of the season, and kept the lead throughout the second half.

Sutton, who didn’t make the trip because he was recruiting, watched the scores come on ESPN for an update. With a minute left, he saw A&T led by eight.

‘I was like, ‘Come on now, there’s no way we can blow this one,’ ‘ Sutton said. ‘But man, I was sweating it out. When I finally found out we won, I started jumping up and down in my living room.’

‘Some of our guys just didn’t get up for the game,’ said Art Zeno, an assistant coach at Norfolk State. ‘That’s tough to do when you’re playing a team who hasn’t won and the game’s at home.

‘It was their first win, so you have some excitement for them. They really deserve it. I’m just sorry it had to be against us.’

The Aggies, though, didn’t much care which team they beat. They just wanted — no, (ITALICS) needed (ITALICS) — a win.

At A&T, coaches had turned into counselors. At recent practices, it seemed two or three players were always down, ready to give up, Sutton said. Coaches would take time to pull them aside and try to help them cope.

Worse yet, A&T lost its best player in early February, when freshman Tyrone Green broke his arm.

‘It’s been worse than you could even imagine,’ assistant coach Brian Paylor said. ‘There’s been a lot of criticism around here. You go out on campus, and people start calling you ‘0-23′ or whatever. It’s like you’re new nickname. Mentally, it was exhausting on everybody. Then all of a sudden, everybody’s congratulating us and sending us balloons.’

Dennis Thomas, the MEAC conference commissioner, made one such congratulatory call.

‘I couldn’t wait to talk to them,’ Thomas said, ‘because to say I was pleased that they won is putting it mildly. I was elated. I was ecstatic. Because we have great basketball in this conference, and I just didn’t want to be known for having the team that didn’t win a game.’

At North Carolina A&T, spirits are high. Coaches and players went from talking about winning one game Monday to qualifying for the NCAA Tournament on Tuesday.

The Aggies play conference-frontrunner South Carolina State at home Saturday. Then they’ll head for Richmond, Va., for the MEAC Tournament starting March 10. The winner of that tournament earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

A&T, believe it or not, has won the MEAC Tournament before. It held the league title for six consecutive years from 1982-88 and won it again in both 1994 and 1995.

‘Even though we had a bad year, we still can win the MEAC Tournament,’ Paylor said. ‘We’ve got a chance, a great chance. That’s like a second season. And now that we’ve got one win, the next will come a lot easier.

‘At least I sure hope so.’

Tons of trouble

Two teams opted out of remaining games this week — and both did so on their own accord.

On Monday, a mediocre St. Bonaventure team was forced to forfeit six Atlantic-10 games in which an ineligible player participated. It was also banned from the conference tournament. In protest, the Bonnies voted to boycott their last two regular-season games.

Odder yet, Fresno State President John D. Welty announced Monday that his school’s men’s basketball team would not be eligible for postseason play this year. The decision came after the school confirmed instances of academic fraud.

The conference also decided to ban the Bulldogs from the conference tournament. Fresno State would have been the No. 1 seed, and if it had won that tournament and earned the conference’s automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament, it would not have participated.

This and that

While North Carolina A&T procured its first conference win — and its first win — Monday, four Division I teams are still winless in conference play. Army (Patriot League), Tennessee State (Ohio Valley Conference), Chicago State (Mid-Continent Conference) and Columbia (Ivy League) have yet to win a conference game. … As if things couldn’t get any worse for UCLA (7-18, 4-12 Pac-10), starting point guard Cedric Bozeman will miss the rest of the season with a right shoulder injury. … Georgia coach Jim Harrick has come under fire in recent days after former player Tony Cole accused him of academic fraud. The school is investigating.

Published on March 4, 2003 at 12:00 pm