HUNTINGTON -- For Marshall fans that had been itching for something to cheer about, the itch relief was found on Sunday.

Marshall men's basketball's season-opening 79-63 win over North Carolina A&T pleased fans of all varieties.

"I don't want to be a one-dimensional team," Marshall coach Donnie Jones said. "I think we have a lot of weapons."

Those weapons were on display at different times Sunday.

If a fan wanted to see scoring, Shaq Johnson was the big ticket, tying his career-high with 22 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the floor.

If solid rebounding gets a fan pumped up, Tyler Wilkerson more than provided a boost to the fan's weekend with 20.

And, if a fan just wanted an adrenaline rush, Hassan Whiteside had the perfect cure-all in his Marshall debut.

In just 14 minutes, Whiteside went 4-for-4 from the field with a pair of dunks and two layups while being fouled to account for 10 points, but provided the biggest spark on the defensive end where he amassed five blocks.

And these weren't the fingertip blocks that still count on the stat sheet. These were the ball-starts-one-way, ends-up-another type blocks.

"We call him the windshield wiper," Wilkerson said. "He's wiping everything out."

On one of the blocks, Whiteside tossed a drive by the Aggies' Tavarus Alston, raced down the court and finished a layup off an offensive rebound while being fouled.

The play drew the biggest ovation of the night from the 4,319 fans while also earning praise from Jones and Wilkerson. Jones compared the electricity Whiteside creates to that of LeBron James while Wilkerson compared him to Tulsa's Jerome Jordan -- another 7-footer in Conference USA who is catching the eye of NBA scouts.

That's not some bad company for a kid that just played his first collegiate basketball game.

"He does a lot of good things," Jones said. "He just needs minutes and experience."

Make no mistake, the players and coaching staff had a laundry list of items that they needed to work on following the contest, including but not limited to 3-point defense, staying out of foul trouble and not giving up offensive rebounds.

At the same time, they played well on both ends of the court and showed improvement throughout the game, such as limiting North Carolina A&T to just 1-of-11 from beyond the arc after giving up six 3-pointers in the first half.

They learned lessons on the court while winning -- something Jones has done in all three season-openers with the Herd.

And they did so in entertaining fashion.

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