Well rounded performance helps Norfolk State take care of William & Mary with ease

NORFOLK — Norfolk State took care of business Tuesday night, breezing by William & Mary in a 96-62 win.

The Spartans improved to 5-3 and have won the last three matchups with the Tribe (3-5).

“I feel like this game is a real important game,” graduate guard Christian Ings said. “Coach Jones was telling us those Virginia rivalry games, the games (against) inner-state schools like VCU, Hampton, William & Mary, ODU, are really important games. Not just for the players there and the city, but for future prospects. We just wanted to make sure that we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing, just having the business at home.”

Coach Robert Jones and his squad won the tip-off and never looked back. The Spartans opened the game on a 7-0 run and led by double-digits for the majority of the game. William & Mary never led in the game and didn’t reach double-digit points until there were just under eight minutes left in the first half.

Before the season, Jones said he wanted Norfolk State’s defense to create offense and it did just that Tuesday night. The Spartans forced William & Mary to turn the ball over 17 times and scored 26 points off those turnovers. Jones applauded his defense’s effort, but also an offense that gave up just nine turnovers of its own.

“We force a lot of turnovers with our defense when we’re playing the right way,” Jones said. “Today we forced 17 so that’s a good number. For us to only have nine turnovers, that’s good. The last two games, we’ve had single-digit turnovers. We had six against Wichita and nine against these guys, so that hopefully bodes well for our future.”

The Tribe played without starters Noah Collier and Sean Houpt and sophomore Chase Lowe played only three minutes after an early injury Tuesday. Without them, W&M shot 31% from the field in the first half and ended the game at 40.5%. William & Mary shot just 26.9% from beyond the arc.

“First half, I feel like we played pretty solid defense but second half the percentage went up,” junior guard Jamarii Thomas said. “We always try to hold teams to the 39%, 38% and anything that starts with a three or anything lower than that.”

While the Norfolk State defense was keeping the Tribe at bay, the Spartans offense had one of its best games of the young season. NSU shot a crisp 53.6% from the field, its second-best mark of the year, and shot a season-high 57.1% from 3-point range.

“We made some shots today,” Jones said. “I think that we were in a slump. We have guys that could shoot like this even though they might not make 57% of their threes. But I do think that we are better at shooting than we were at 31% coming into the game. I do believe in my heart that we have better shooters than that. I think there’s somewhere in between this 57 and that 31, hopefully around 35 or 38 which is a good number, but I do think that we’re a better team than the 30% that we were shooting coming to the game.”

Second-chance points made a big difference in the game, Norfolk State had 17 to William & Mary’s one. Jones said an emphasis on rebounds in practice led to that large margin. He added that the analytics system Norfolk State uses said if the Spartans get 11 or more offensive rebounds they have an 86% chance of winning.

Norfolk State out-rebounded William & Mary 33-21 and finished with 12 offensive rebounds.

“Coach Jones has really been talking about how we’ve been losing the rebounding battle in the games we’ve been playing,” Ings said. “So there was really a heavy emphasis today to make sure that we crashed the glass offensively and defensively so that we could change the narrative and as you see, crash the glass and you win games.”

Thomas’ stat line on Tuesday was indicative of the entire team’s well-rounded performance. Thomas finished with a team-leading 23 points and added nine assists, five rebounds and four steals. Ings was tied for second in scoring in the game with 15 points in 12 minutes of action.

The Tribe’s Trey Moss matched a career high with 20 points.

Norfolk State will hit the road Friday to take on VCU, while William & Mary travels to the University of Richmond on Saturday.

Michael Sauls, [email protected], (757) 803-5774