By Will Brown
North Carolina Central won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference for the
first time in school history Saturday evening in Norfolk, Va.
The school’s 71-62 win over Morgan State was its 20th straight and the
most wins of any team in the MEAC. Considering the streak, and the way the
Eagles breezed through the conference this year, it’s worth asking whether this
team is the best in the 43-year history of the MEAC.
North Carolina Central (28-5) went 15-1 in conference play. This was the
19th season that a team has lost one or fewer games in MEAC play — including
the 2013 Eagles. Of those 19 teams, only 10 won the conference’s regular season
and tournament title. (Only two of those occurrences have happened in the last
20 years.)
Florida, Wichita
State, Harvard and Stephen F. Austin of the Southland Conference are the only
schools that went through conference regular season and tournament play with
one or fewer losses.
Saturday, the Eagles were tied with Morgan State at halftime, but used
its patented defense to asphyxiate the Bears tournament hopes.
Morgan State made three field goals over a seven minute stretch in the
second half and the Eagles took advantage of that spell to take a lead they
would never relinquish. Morgan State made just 37.9 percent of its shots.
Outside of the 26 points 7-foot-2-inch center Ian Chiles provided, the Bears
shot 31.1 percent (14-for-45) from the field.
Central’s defense may what separates it from some of the other elite
teams — the ’93 and ’94 Coppin State teams, the 2001 Hampton team that won a
tournament game, the 2002 Hampton team that was even better and the 1988 North
Carolina A&T team — that ran through regular season and tournament without worry.
The Eagles have the No. 8 scoring defense… in America (58.8 points) and
the No. 2 field goal percentage defense (37.2 percent). Virginia, Arizona and
San Diego State are the only other teams in the country that are in the Top 10
in both categories—and all three teams have been ranked in the Top 10 in the
major polls.
The last great MEAC school that was among the national leaders in one of
the major categories was the 1974 Maryland Eastern-Shore Hawks.
That Hawks team, which finished 27-2, led the nation in scoring at 97.6
points per game and ranked No. 20 in the Associated Poll at one point.
Maryland Eastern Shore was the first Historically Black College to
accept a bid to the National Invitational Tournament, where they won a game and
lost to Jacksonville in the quarterfinals.
The Hawks put three players, Talvin Skinner, Rubin Collins and Joe Pace
on the All-MEAC team. Collins was the No. 18 selection in the 1974 NBA draft
and Skinner was a third round draft pick of the Seattle Supersonics. (By comparison, only one Central player, Jeremy Ingram, made the First Team All-MEAC team this
year.)
Ingram and the Eagles will not be playing in the NIT this year.
No, Central is on
its way to San Antonio to play in the Division I tournament for the first time.
Their opponent will bring a style that is the antithesis of the Eagles elixir
for success. Iowa State led the
deepest conference in America in scoring and assists en route to winning the Big
XII conference tournament. The Cyclones (26-7) have the second best assist to
turnover ratio in the country (1.76) and have been held to fewer than 70 points
just once this season.
LeVelle Moton’s team will be heavy underdogs, partially because MEAC
schools have won just five games in a combined 32 appearances. Then again, one of those wins was against — Iowa State.
If North Carolina Central can beat the Cyclones, it would be their 29th
of the season, which would set a school record. A win would definitively make
this the best season of any in MEAC basketball history.
