By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

DURHAM — North Carolina Central sophomore Kyla Bryant, who averaged 19.5 points and 9.0 rebounds, earned Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Player of the Week honors for the first week of January.

“That was a surprise, a total shock,” Bryant said. “We were watching film — we watch a lot of film — when they told me, ‘Hey, Kyla, you got Player of the Week.’  The best thing about that was we swept all the awards. Morgan Callahan was Defensive Player of the Week. Shakiria Foster was Rookie of the Week. We’re getting better as a team. This is such a young team, mostly freshman and sophomores, just seven healthy players right now, but we’re playing with a lot more confidence than we were earlier in the season.”

Bryant was raised to think in terms of “us and we” not “I and me.” At Salisbury High, playing for her mother, former Catawba College star Lakai Brice, she was the engine of excellent teams, a star even when she was a freshman, but she always played with lots of other good players. She was 98-8 in high school, with one season shortened by COVID. She led two teams to state championships. The other two Hornet teams she played on were among the best in 2A. One lost in the regional final. The other lost in the final seconds in the playoffs to the eventual state champs.

So that’s been the toughest transition for Bryant to college basketball. Handling the losses and finding ways to learn from the losses. North Carolina Central (3-14) tackled an impossible early schedule, for financial reasons, and lost eight straight games in November, the same number Bryant lost in four high school seasons.

North Carolina Central, coached by former Pfeiffer star and Catawba coach Terrence Baxter, played at Georgia, Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina in the month of November. On Dec. 1, the Eagles were the guest of LSU. They also got to visit Tennessee in December. Some of those scores were record-setting, wildly one-sided and confidence-draining, but once the Eagles started playing fellow mid-majors they’ve been competitive.

“That November schedule we had was a challenge on the court and academically,” said Bryant, who is a pre-nursing major. “I only had five days in the classroom in November, so I had to do a lot of work online and by email. You have to do a lot of planning ahead to keep up, but we’ve got a great academic advisor who helps us with all that. I had a 4.0 for the first semester and we had a 3.3 GPA as a team.”

North Carolina finally got its first win right before Christmas against Winthrop.

The toughest game for Bryant, personally, was the 67-63 loss to Presbyterian in Durham on Dec. 11. With North Carolina Central down by two, she had a pull-up to tie with a little over 10 seconds left, but missed it.

She got redemption for that miss when the Eagles returned to action after the Christmas break against Furman. North Carolina Central was down 76-72 when Bryant assisted on a 3-pointer by Foster to cut the deficit to one.

North Carolina Central got the ball back after a Furman miss and called timeout with nine seconds left.

“Coach drew up a play in the huddle, but the way they switched it defensively, it just wasn’t there,” Bryant said. “I had to go off the page and try to make something happen. Coach understood that and my teammates understood. The funny thing is with three seconds left, I had exactly the same pullup from the elbow that I had in the Presbyterian game. But this time I made it.”

That 77-76 victory was a big one for N.C. Central. Bryant scored 22 points.

In N.C. Central’s next game against Morgan State in Baltimore, Bryant had 22 points and 12 assists in an 84-79 loss.

“They want me to get more assists, and my assist totals have been going up,” Bryant said. “Besides the 12-assist game, I’ve had two games with nine assists. My teammates are making shots. You can’t get an assist unless someone makes the shot.”

Last Saturday’s game was the wildest one yet. North Carolina Central got a boost from an enthusiastic home crowd and beat Maryland-Eastern Shore 92-86 in two overtimes. Bryant scored a career-high 32 points.

With North Carolina Central down by three, Bryant was fouled on a 3-pointer with three seconds left in regulation.

“Oh, I was tired,” said Bryant, who rarely comes out of a a game. “It’s not easy to make three free throws in a row in a situation like that, but my teammates had a lot of confidence in me.”

She made all three to send the game to overtime. She was 20-for-21 on free throws for the game. North Central Central set program records with 44 made throws and 56 attempts.

“Of all the things we work on, free throws has been at the top of the list the last four or five weeks,” Bryant said. “This was the payoff.”

A short-handed North Carolina Central squad had eight players dressed and was running on fumes in the overtime, and then the game went to a second overtime period.

“Two overtimes, that took me back,” Bryant said. “All I could think about was our two-overtime game with Shelby in high school (in the regional final), and we found a way to win that one. I knew we could do it again.”

Bryant fouled out with 30 seconds left in the second overtime. She was the fourth N.C. Central to foul out, but they were able to finish the win with four players.  Aysia Hinton came through with a career game with 23 points and 12 rebounds.

In the MEAC stats, Bryant is doing remarkably well, considering the schedule that her team has played. She leads the conference in minutes played with 37 per game, edging her teammate, Callahan. She is third in the league with 3.9 assists per game. She’s fourth in free-throw shooting at 82.7 percent. She is sixth in scoring with 14.0 points per game. She’s even 14th in rebounding with 4.6 per game. That’s an impressive stat for a 5-foot-8 guard.

Bryant enjoyed a peaceful Sunday, but it will get exciting again on Monday when Delaware State visits North Carolina Central for a MEAC game.

On Jan. 23, Bryant will play close to home when the Eagles travel to Pfeiffer University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Those 250 miles of highway that separate Salisbury and Richmond, Va., home of Virginia Union University, were viewed by JyMikaah Wells

Player of the Week honors