JC at HBCUSportsBlog is the RTC correspondent for the SWAC and MEAC Conferences.

And now its time for America’s favorite Mid-Major soap opera, The MEAC and the Rest of Us. The MEAC is a major player in college basketball, yet its member schools consistently play dwarf to the Cinderella dreams of  conferences like the Atlantic 10 and the Big South.

So now its time for the little guys to find their dancing shoes.

THIS WEEK – Every team in the MEAC has at least one win, and there have been some big wins on the year for the conference. The most recent was the Morgan State Bears keeping a two-year MEAC winning streak against the DePaul Blue Demons. Last season, the North Carolina A&T Aggies shocked Chicago’s finest at home.

South Carolina State also pulled out a road victory against Idaho earlier this week, which you can’t really call a shock, because the Vandals haven’t really faced Division I basketball in quite some time.

WHAT’S HELPING

• Conference play has begun for the MEAC, which will mean a slight break in guaranteed games, and a chance to catch up on regional credibility among fans.
• More than half of the conference averages better than seven steals per game, which usually can translate into easy baskets in transition.

WHATS HURTING

• When it comes to RPI rankings, you don’t find a MEAC squad until 163, which belongs to the Hampton Pirates. Not a good look when it comes to tournament rankability.
• Speaking of RPI, the only two MEAC teams are above .500 against teams in the 201-300 range are Bethune-Cookman and North Carolina A&T.

WHATS NEXT?

Here are a few of the upcoming key match-ups for MEAC teams. After all, what’s Christmas without a gift-wrapped home win against your MEAC neighbor from down the road?

• North Carolina A&T @ Akron – Saturday, Dec. 13 – The Aggies know a thing or two about hot shooting on the road. (See the above swipe at DePaul)  They will be looking to extend their winning streak to four games against the Zips.
• Howard @ Oregon State – Saturday, Dec. 20- Oregon State will try to avenge its early road-loss to the Howard Bison. How many times do you think we’ll be able to say that in life?

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 1:17 pm by rtmsf and is filed under Checking In On. Tagged: bethune-cookman, conference check-ins, hampton, howard, meac, morgan st, north carolina a&t, south carolina st. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.