The Norfolk State Lady Spartans (19-5, 8-1) beat the North Carolina Central Lady Eagles (12-12, 6-3) 72-24. Diamond Johnson led the way with 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 1 assist.

“Well, you know it was a good win for us that night.” Head Coach Larry Vickers said. “I’d be lying if I said it was just another regular season game. I was aware of the implications that we would have lost the day you know that North Carolina Central team beat Howard twice we lost to Howard so I let them know this thing is a tie and we’re one and one going into the tournament. They will be the number one seed so we had to take care of business today. So we understood what that looks like for me. Obviously Diamond Johnson is a senior. So but this is my first time kind of coaching her in an atmosphere like this, you know in the same thing from my freshman to Da’Brya Clark Ajanae Richardson. Both of them I play about 45 minutes. I haven’t seen them in this atmosphere today. So you know as we prepare for the tournament, it’s about us recognizg who we can count on you know, Bree, play hard today I discovered because you can see like she was really working hard today. So you know, those are the good things that you want to see from a new team. Because we kind of went right back, you know, from the 27 wins. 26 wins, whatever the number was. You don’t realize you lose to first teamers. You know, I don’t think we talked about that enough. So it was good to see my new players really step up today and play really well. They played really well.”

The Lady Spartans started the game hot. Diamond Johnson scored all 7 of NSU’s points before the first timeout. NC Central struggled to maintain possession of the basketball with 6 turnovers in the first quarter. NC Central fought back with a big surge a 13-2 run (for 5:38) as the Spartans went cold from the field.

The Lady Spartans dominated the 2nd quarter outscoring the Lady eagles 16-8.

“You know, we were playing really really slow.” Vickers said. “It was like it was they were looking at me to call plays every time just play basketball you know we want to get in our prime at break every time. We ended up finishing with 72 points. It didn’t feel like that at one point. But we just wanted to play with more pace. You know, I trust we got a lot of decision makers you know, Richardson recruited as a point guard Fields recruited as point guard Clark recruited as a point guard Johnson recruited as a point guard so we played three point guards on the floor at a time. There’s times all four of them was on the floor today with me me so at that point, don’t look at me you know, I trust y’all to make decisions and play good basketball.”

The Lady Spartans excelled in the second half, entering on a 12-2 run (for 3:46) and dominating the Lady Eagles by forcing yet again a large number of turnovers in the quarter with 7.

“You know, we’ve had a really good basketball team for a lot of years.” Vickers said. “And a lot of teams have never beat us or beat us once or beat us twice. So you know that’s gonna come with it like that. That second half when central looked up and they saw 17 or 18 they realized they wasn’t going to come back. They almost it was deflating at that. Point. And that’s where the chipping has came from that realizing this might just think going to be the day. So we got to understand that but I like I said, I’ll be interested to go back to this question. I’ll be interested to see. You know what, I’m going to be team’s plans moving forward.”

The Lady Spartan outscored the Lady Eagles 45-23 to come out on top 72-44. The Lady Spartans will be back in action on Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 2pm in Baltimore MD, at Coppin State.