MEAC TOURNAMENT: N.C. Central opens with win over UMES

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina — A tough-minded N.C. Central team beat a bigger Maryland Eastern Shore squad 60-43 on Tuesday in Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum to grab its first postseason Division I victory. “It’s our first MEAC Tournament win,” NCCU coach LeVelle Moton said.

NCCU rejoined the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference in September. The school was a founding member of the league in the early 1970s before leaving in 1979 to join the NCAA Division II Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association when the MEAC moved to Division I.  The Eagles hadn’t played an official postseason game since 2007 when they were in the CIAA. In years past, NCCU would play in a “bonus game” that took place during the MEAC Tournament as a form of postseason play.

“The previous years, my job has been quite difficult, because I had to get these men prepared to play an exhibition game, and you know how difficult that can be when the rest of their peers are on spring break,” Moton said. “Their mind was in Daytona, and their feet and their bodies were here.”

The win by fifth-seeded NCCU against 12th-seeded UMES was real and it mattered, sending the Eagles to the second round of the MEAC Tournament on Thursday against fourth-seeded Bethune-Cookman (8 p.m., nccueaglepride.com).

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