Ah, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Everyone’s favorite low-major collegiate athletic conference consisting of schools from North and South Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, that also isn’t the ACC.
It’s the one and only time a year that you, an average sports fan, have to think about the mighty MEAC, which can only mean one thing: it’s officially March Madness season. If you’re ready to fill out your bracket but don’t know what to do in your 16-seed play-in game matchups, fear not, because your good friend Adam, the nation’s foremost MEAC expert, is here to break down the nation’s most Mid-Eastern Athletic conference.
Before we go any further, I need to address the overhanging thread with which the premise of this article hangs on: this conference’s bearing on March Madness as a whole. Therefore, I present to you the following blanket statement about the MEAC: DO NOT, under any circumstances, pick any of these teams to win a game in the NCAA Mens’ Basketball Tournament. These teams are pretty bad. Don’t do it.
Now Adam, you may be asking, how could you possibly say not to pick a MEAC team without knowing which MEAC team is going to make the tournament in the first place? To this, I say: frankly, it doesn’t matter which team makes the tournament. All of these teams are, statistically speaking, not good. Look at Delaware State. According to NET rankings, they’re the second worst team in the country. (Sorry, IUPUI.) According to Ken Pomeroy, however, they’re considerably better: third worst in the country. Congrats, Delaware State Hornets! However, this is still a conference preview article, and I suppose I have to give real analysis in this article. Here goes nothing.
Mizzou fans, avert your eyes, because the team that, for my money, is going to win this conference and the only bid to the tournament won’t bring back the brightest memories. It is Norfolk State.
For the second year in a row, Norfolk State will probably win this conference tournament and it probably isn’t going to be close. The Spartans made just their second tournament ever last season, losing to eventual tournament runner-up Gonzaga in the first round. (Their first NCAA tournament appearance was in 2012. Mizzou fans will remember.) This year, the Spartans will, in all likelihood, go back to the tournament and face a similar fate. Norfolk State has a much better resume than any other MEAC squad. I’m talking the only team in the conference with 20+ wins and the only team without double digit losses. Norfolk State is 80 spots higher in NET rankings than the second best team, Howard. I caution you to take this as the Spartans being good, however, because, in all honesty, they aren’t. The KenPom and NET ranking consensus seems to be that Norfolk State is not a top 150 team in the nation. If they ultimately make the tournament, it will simply be the product of an incredibly weak conference with an automatic bid.
That’s the unfortunate reality of the NCAA tournament’s structure. Because every conference earns an automatic bid, the tournament has never featured the 64 best teams in college basketball. Quite frankly, it never will. Instead, it features 64 teams that are there more so because of opportunity rather than talent. Norfolk State will, in all likelihood, be a product of that this year. Norfolk State, or Howard, or maybe even North Carolina Central will make the tournament this year because someone from the MEAC has to. However, this doesn’t change the fact that nobody in the MEAC is a top 150 team in the nation right now, and nobody outside of Norfolk State is even in the top 200. Don’t pick them to win an NCAA tournament game. Don’t do it.