MEAC Basketball has gotten a lot of great media exposure over the spring and summer months with its high profile additions to the conference. But the road to the MEAC crown will still run through Durham.
North Carolina Central has been the standard-bearer for MEAC Basketball during LeVelle Moton’s tenure as head coach. The 2018-19 season saw the Eagles do something no other program in the conference has done before; three-peat as champs.
Last year was no different, as the Eagles ran their way to a regular-season MEAC title and looked the be odds-on favorites to repeat as MEAC Tourney Champions. A lot has happened since March, but the optimism behind the Eagles retaining that championship momentum into the 2020-2021 season is high.
Despite losing MEAC Player of the Year and BOXTOROW All-American Jibri Blount to graduation, Moton’s squad still has a good deal of returning talent left in the cupboard, led by fellow All-MEAC selection CJ Keyser. He leads an extremely deep guard rotation still looks to be the class of the conference.
The NCCU attack will still be guard-heavy this coming season, with Nicolas Fennell, Ty Graves, Jordan Perkins, and Randy Miller Jr. rounding out that returning backcourt group. Each of them bringing a unique skill set to the table for Eagle opponents to worry about. Central also got some quality recruiting of their own in, adding a JUCO big man and an OVC guard transfer to the mix of an already talented roster in College Of Southern Idaho center Nehime Kabeya and former S.E. Missouri State guard Alex Caldwell.
One player that may have a huge impact on the Eagle roster this year was already in the program last year as a redshirt. Former DMV high school standout and LaSalle transfer guard Jamir Moultrie has the chance to come in and pick up the scoring void that left with Jibiri Blount’s departure. Moultrie was a former 4-star guard and top 25 point guard prospect coming out of Bishop McNamara in Suitland, Md.
If he can return to the prolific scoring form he’s exhibited in flashes during his high school and early college career at LaSalle, the Eagles will again have the most potent offensive guard rotation in the MEAC. In particular, seeing backcourt combinations of Keyser, Moultrie, Perkins, and Randy Miller Jr. play out during the season will be extremely fun to watch.
Even with all of the experience returning to Durham, blending them ant the newcomers into a cohesive unit is always a challenge. This is where head coach LeVelle Moton excels. His track record since taking over the NCCU hoops kinda speaks for itself. He’s going to have another MEAC championship to defend while melding new pieces together into a squad capable of repeating as MEAC champs.
Biggest threats to NC Central for MEAC Basketball supremacy
With Bethune Cookman and FAMU looking for greener pastures in the SWAC and North Carolina A&T playing their last season in the conference, one would think that the competition might lighten up a bit. As this hectic, surprising, and extremely productive offseason in the MEAC has shown us, this isn’t the case.
Practically every MEAC squad has upgraded their talent in a major way, with Howard, Morgan State, and Norfolk State grabbing headlines. On paper, this might just be the most challenging MEAC title defense yet for Moton and his crew. It’s hard to bet against the prospect of the Eagles pulling off the regular season or tournament repeat, though.
North Carolina Central is primed to enter the 2020-21 season prepared to defend their crown. In the process, we may very well see the emergence of a number of major players during the course of that defense.
One thing is for sure; The road to the MEAC title is going to be one of the more exciting races to witness play out among mid-majors in 2020-21. The MEAC will be among the more competitive mid-major conferences in the college hoops landscape this year and the Eagles will be right in the mix where they’ve always been.
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