While most Winston-Salem State students were at home during spring break, the city hosted the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament for the first time. The tournament ran March 9-14 at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, part-time home for the Rams.
North Carolina A&T’s women and Morgan State’s men emerged victorious in their respective brackets, earning the conferences’ bids to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments.
For both teams, the entrance to March Madness came a year after suffering upsets in the 2008 tournament.
NC A&T defeated Hampton 76-54 in the women’s championship game after falling to Coppin State the previous year.
The Aggies were rewarded with a 14th seed in the NCAA Tournament, the highest ever awarded a MEAC team. The Aggies’ Brittany Taylor-James won Most Outstanding Player honors.
On the men’s side, top-seeded Morgan State swept through their bracket, defeating the third-seeded Norfolk State Spartans 75-67. Morgan was awarded a 15th seed in the NCAA Tournament and will play in the south bracket.
The win was overwhelming for a school and a coach that were as far from the NCAA Tournament as anyone in Division I a few years ago.
When Morgan hired Todd Bozeman back in 2006, the team hadn’t had a winning season since 1988 and hadn’t won a MEAC championship since 1974.
Bozeman had been banned from coaching by the NCAA for paying the father of a recruit while coaching at California in the mid-1990s.
After the game, Bozeman wore the remnants of the LJVM nets around his neck as he tried to put into words how it felt to return to the NCAA Tournament.
“We’re dancing, everybody’s not dancing,” he said. “We get a song, and we’re going to try to make the dance as long as we can.”
Morgan’s Reggie Holmes was voted the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.
Despite the tournament being held in town, Winston-Salem State’s participation was limited because the school and its athletic teams are not yet full-time members of the conference.
The cheerleading team placed in the all-girls competition on March 14th. Miss WSSU, Latoya Perry, finished third in the Miss MEAC competition.
The men’s basketball team placed second out of two teams in the MEAC bonus game, losing 63-52 to North Carolina Central. The two teams combined for 43 turnovers, with the Rams committing 24 of them.
“Turnovers definitely hurt us in the second half,” said Rams’ head coach Bobby Collins.
After the bonus game, MEAC Commissioner Dennis Thomas spoke about issues concerning the conference, including WSSU’s acceptance as a full-time member of Division I and the MEAC.
“Chancellor Reeves has alerted our office that they are moving forward with the process [of becoming Division I],” Thomas said. “All indications point to Winston-Salem State completing their provisional status as Division I members and becoming full-time members of Division I.”