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Basketball emerges from its doldrums
Lut Williams
BCSP Editor
The months leading up to the new year are usually the most depressing for black college basketball fans. That's particularly the case in Div. I basketball.
That's because during the months of November and December black college teams and their fans have little to cheer about. They withstand something on the scale of body blows huge losses against Div. I foes which all but suck the life out of their programs. Time after time and in game after game, black college teams have taken it on their collective chins.
I'll spare you the scores.
There's been a glimmer of hope here and there, like Morgan State defeating Depaul, a Big East program, 79-75 back on Dec. 10. Or Hampton getting a 50-44 Nov. 20th win over George Mason, a team that made it to the Final Four in 2006. But those successes have been few and far between.
Thru games of Sunday, Dec. 28, black college Div. I men's programs in the Mid Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference have posted combined records of 51 wins and 181 losses.
Someone please call the President Elect. These guys need a bailout!
The MEAC has been the more respectable of the two if you call a 38-85 record and .308 winning percentage respectable. The SWAC checks in at a woeful 13-96 (.119).
At 5-4, Hampton is the only men's team in the MEAC with a winning record so far. The most wins for a SWAC team is three with no team above .500.
It's actually not much better on the women's side where the MEAC (29-65, .304) and the SWAC (18-66, .214) are all but keeping up (or down) with their male counterparts. Two MEAC women's teams have winning records. None in the SWAC.
The teams, both men and women, will mercifully complete this brutal stretch of their seasons this week and begin what should be a very competitive (let's hope) intra-conference schedule.
Despite the fact that Dave Robbins, who kept Virginia Union and the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association in the national limelight for most of his 30 years, has retired, there's a bit of fresh air on the NCAA Div. II side.
The men of Claflin, a new member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, are in the top 25 in the nation in the Dec. 23rd National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Div. II poll. Head coach Ron "Bootsy" Woodard has the Panthers off to a 9-0 start and ranked 21st in the poll. They're coming off a 24-2 2007 campaign that heralded them as a power-to-be in the SIAC and perhaps nationally.
While Claflin is the only black college team currently ranked, both Elizabeth City State and defending CIAA champion Johnson C. Smith are off to 9-1 starts and showing signs of being the teams to beat in that conference. Their only losses so far were to each other, splitting two close games since the season began.
For us at the BCSP, it's good that football overshadows basketball thru December. That means we're mostly spared the infrequent ups and too common downs of the early basketball season.
As we turn our attention to the hoops scene, we do so knowing that the conference schedule will re-invigorate these teams, restore their confidence and give their fans plenty to cheer about. That's what we're looking forward to.
As for the national scene, that's at least another two months away. We'll enjoy this while it lasts.
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