NORFOLK, Va. - Five players scored in double figures for the Norfolk State men's basketball team for the third game in a row, and the result was a 76-62 win over South Carolina State on Monday night at Joseph Echols Hall.
The Spartans maintained their hold on fifth place in the league at 9-4 despite the standings tightening up. With Savannah State losing on Monday night, the Tigers fell into a three-way tie for first place at 10-3 with Bethune-Cookman and North Carolina A&T. Hampton sits a half game ahead of NSU at 10-4.
NSU improved to 7-0 in the MEAC at home as well as 11-17 overall with its third straight win. The Bulldogs fell to 5-8 in the league and 9-19 overall.
Junior Derrik Jamerson Jr. led all players with 15 points, sinking 5-of-8 from 3-point range. The Spartans held the Bulldogs to 32 percent shooting in the second half while hitting 64 percent themselves, outscoring SCSU by 13 after the break.
Sophomores Nic Thomas and Steven Whitley each added 12 points, with Whitley also tallying 11 rebounds and seven assists for his second straight double-double. The Spartans held the rebounding edge, 39-27, which in part led to a 17-4 advantage in second-chance points.
The Spartans led for most of the game, 36 minutes to be exact. South Carolina State made its one and only run late in the first half, erasing a 12-point deficit and momentarily taking a one-point lead.
Norfolk State, however, led by one at the break and pulled away by as much as 19 late in the game.
Jamerson knocked down a pair of 3-pointers early on, and Whitley hit another one to make it a 12-4 lead for the Spartans. Thomas later sank a 3-pointer to give the Spartans a 22-11 edge exactly nine minutes into the game.
The Spartans led by as much as 12, but the Bulldogs used a 16-3 run over five and a half minutes to take a one-point lead with less than a minute left in the half. But Thomas knocked down another jumper with time ticking down to give the Spartans a 31-30 advantage at the break.
Donte Wright's 3-pointer for SCSU tied the score at 33-all early in the second half, but the Spartans later used a 10-2 run to push the lead to 48-39 a little more than six minutes into the period. The Spartans got the advantage back to double digits on a 3-point play by senior Preston Bungei at the 10:58 mark, and Jamerson knocked down two more from deep for a 12-point lead two and a half minutes later.
Up by 10 not long after that, the Spartans scored nine in a row in the latter stages of the game to pull away.
Wright finished with 12 points, and Damani Applewhite added 14 on 4-of-8 shooting. SCSU made 22-of-57 for the game (38.6 percent), hitting eight 3-pointers along the way.
Bungei totaled 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting, and junior Alex Long added 10 points, six rebounds, three assists and three blocks.
The Spartans connected on 48 percent for the game (28-of-58), including 11-of-25 from 3-point range.