NORFOLK — It was a battle you’d come to expect between two heavyweight teams sitting atop the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.
Following a back-and-forth first half, Brian Moore Jr. scored five consecutive points on his way to a 30-point, statement-making performance to power Norfolk State to a 92-75 win over visiting Howard at Echols Hall.
“Lately, I’ve been kind of passive in the (offensive) zone and the whole week (the team) was preaching that I’ve got to be aggressive — and I think I did that today and just had to take over,” Moore Jr. said. “Shoutout to Howard, they’ve got a great freshman, and I think (Blake Harper) and I are the two players that are up for (MEAC) Player of the Year right now. I took that really personal today and wanted to showcase why I should be the Player of the Year in this conference.”
The two teams traded punches in the opening 20 minutes. Moore Jr. and Kuluel Mading each chipped in nine points for NSU, which led by as many as five points. Howard held brief leads of two points in a half that saw 14 lead changes.
Both teams, which have combined to win the previous four conference tournaments (Norfolk State in 2021 and ’22), shot better than 40% from the field (NSU 13 for 30 for 43.3%, Howard 15 for 31 for 48.4%).
“At times, I feel like we didn’t play a lick of a defense when we give up 49% (shooting), but I think in spurts, we played some pretty good defense,” Spartans head coach Robert Jones said. “We got our turkeys, which is three stops in a row, and we got that two times in a row, so we were able to get six stops at a critical point of the game and create some separation.”
Moore’s five points after the break sparked a 10-2 run that was punctuated by Jalen Myers’ 3-pointer, which lifted the Spartans (14-8, 4-1) to a 45-37 lead less than three minutes into the second half. They continually fed off the energy from the raucous crowd of 3,715 to build their advantage.
Moments after Myers’ trey, Mading soared high in the lane for an emphatic block to preserve a 45-39 lead that drew oohs and ahs from the fans. They jumped from their seats when Jaylani Darden flung an assist to Christian Ings for an alley-oop dunk to push the lead to 73-59 with a little more than five minutes remaining.
In the final minute, Darden fired off a full-court pass to find Moore, who flipped in a layup as the crowd serenaded the Bison with chants of “warm up the bus.”
Moore, who leads the conference in scoring with 19 points per game and is among the leaders in assists and steals, finished by scoring 21 of his points in the second half. Ings added 19 points and Myers chipped in 15 more. The two players combined for 25 in the final 20 minutes.
Harper, who ranks second in the conference in scoring, totaled 15 points for Howard (8-12, 3-1). He has won all 11 MEAC Rookie of the Week awards this season.
“We did make it tough for Harper and you could see him get a little frustrated,” Jones said. “He’s a great player, but we wanted to make him be a freshman today. In moments, he was a freshman and, in moments, he probably was a senior, too.”
Norfolk State moved into first place in the conference standings and next host South Carolina State at 4:30 p.m. next Saturday. The Bulldogs had a chance to match the Spartans’ league record with a win over North Carolina Central later Saturday.
“Last time we played in conference, we lost a heartbreaker,” said Jones, whose team lost to Morgan State 78-74 on Jan. 13. “To be able to bounce back and get a big win against the first-place team was tremendous for us. Hopefully, we can continue to be in first place for the rest of the year.”
