MEAC Announces All-Sports Award Winners

Coppin State finished seventh in the Layman Hill Award and 11th in the Mary McLeod Bethune Award as the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference announced its annual all-sports winners.
Hampton won its fifth consecutive women's title with 60.5 points, while the Norfolk State men won for the second straight year with 67.5 points.
The CSU men earned 36.5 points with its highest point totals coming from basketball (10 points) and baseball (9 points).
The Eagles' women's programs received 35.5 points highlighted by the 12 points from the conference champion basketball team. The CSU volleyball team earned six points.
Points are awarded on a descending basis beginning with 12 points for a championship or first place finish. The second place team receives 10 points, and tied teams split the point total.
The Mary McLeod Bethune Award, named after the founder of Bethune-Cookman College, awards the top overall women's athletic program during the course of one full academic year. The first Mary McLeod Bethune Award was given in 1987 to Delaware State University. Florida A&M leads all MEAC schools with nine women's awards from 1993-2000. The men's all-sports award is named after the late Talmadge Layman Hill, a former player and coach at Morgan State, and former Chairman of the MEAC Steering and Planning Committee, as well as the league's first President. Howard University was the recipient of the first award in 1972. South Carolina State holds the men's record with 11 awards from 1973-84.

NCAA sends out warning

The NCAA is trimming the gray area from eligibility rules for underclassmen entering the NBA draft.
However, player-agent Bill Neff said that's a futile exercise, with many in his profession cutting under-the-table deals with players.
The NCAA recently distributed a four-page memo, reminding schools what underclassmen can and cannot do to test their NBA marketability. The memo warns underclassmen not to accept travel expenses from NBA basketball teams, though that's been common practice in the past.
One of the authors of that memo said its purpose is heading off trouble and, potentially, holding rule-breakers accountable.
"It's fair to say we've had multiple student-athletes facing possible violations of NCAA rules," said Rachel Newman Baker, the NCAA's director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities. "We're trying to avoid (those problems), so we're not dealing with it next semester."
The NCAA now requires underclassmen in the draft to sign forms, stating they know the rules and understand the risk to their eligibility.
"We want it very clear up front," Newman Baker said, "if we do get into investigating a case, the `I-didn't-know' answer will not work."The NCAA dealt with messy situations the past few years, involving former Connecticut forward Charlie Villanueva and current Kentucky center Randolph Morris. Each turned pro and had contact with an agent, only to pull out of the draft and seek to play college basketball.

Ogunride, Byrne are NSU Athletes of the Year

Norfolk State University senior basketball player Karandick Ogunride (Baton Rouge, La.) was named the school’s Male Athlete of the Year and senior softball player Katie Byrne (Norfolk, Va.) was named the Female Athlete of the Year at the school’s spring sports banquet on Tuesday evening.

Ogunride, a 6-8 forward and co-captain, led the Spartans and ranked fifth in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference in rebounding, at 7.3 per game. It was the third straight season Ogunride has led NSU in rebounding. He also averaged 7.7 points and shot 45 percent from the floor to help the Spartans to the MEAC Tournament semifinals. A four-year letterwinner, he started the final 81 games of his career.

Ogunride has a 3.0 GPA and is majoring in hotel and restaurant management. He is also a member of the MEAC Commissioner’s All-Academic Team for 2005-06. Ogunride has been very active in community service projects, including on-campus relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita and reading at local elementary schools.

Byrne, a 5-4 outfielder, is in her fourth year playing for the NSU softball team. This season, she has helped lead a resurgence for the Spartans (19-22), who are on pace to more than double last year’s win total of 11 and has already qualified for the MEAC Tournament after failing to do so last year. Byrne is third on the team with a .313 batting average. She has also driven in a career-high 21 runs, three more than she had in her first three seasons combined. She has also made just one error as NSU’s everyday left fielder.

Byrne, who joined the Spartans’ softball team as a freshman walk-on in 2003, has a 3.41 GPA and is majoring in physical education. She is a Dean’s List student at NSU and, like Ogunride, is a member of the MEAC Commissioner’s All-Academic Team. Byrne is also active in community service projects, serving as a volunteer at local softball camps and Navy 5K races and joining her teammates in working at a local food bank this semester.

College basketball - 2006 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament Preview

Norfolk State, all of which finished with a mediocre 10-8 record, forced another tiebreaker scenario, with the Rattlers earning the fifth seed, Hampton picking up the sixth seed and Norfolk State coming in seventh. North Carolina A&T, Howard, Maryland-Eastern Shore and Morgan State round out the bottom portion of the tournament. The Aggies finished the year with a terrible 6-12 mark in the MEAC tournament championship, but the team was still able to capture the eighth seed, while Howard was awarded the ninth seed following its 5-13 mark in conference. The college basketball teams Hawks and Golden Bears both ended the year with 4-14 league ledgers and come into the postseason seeded 10th and 11th, respectively.

Bookers point guard Perry commits to Norfolk State

Antoine Perry, a starting guard for the state men's basketball champion Booker T. Washington High School basketball team, has committed to play for Norfolk State.

Perry, a 6-foot-1 senior player, score 10 points, six rebounds and four assists per game in helping the Bookers to the Group AAA State title.

Perry said he bet on the Spartans over Chowan, Radford and Liberty because Norfolk State allows him to play in front of family and friends.

NSU seeks 4th win in row when taking on Hampton

March Madness has come to Norfolk State, whose Spartans have reached the MEAC championship semifinals for only the second time of the game.
Seventh-seeded NSU plays sixth-seeded Hampton at 8 tonight in the RBC Center, a match-up the Spartans made possible with a stunning 79-67 victory over No. 2 seed Coppin State on Wednesday night. was an improbable win for Norfolk State college basketball team, which had lost five straight to the Eagles. Now, the Spartans are riding a three-game winning streak, their longest of the season.
"We're starting to do some things but we can't let up," NSU coach Dwight Freeman said. "It's a do-or-die situation, so the players are playing with a sense of urgency."
That wasn't the case two weeks ago. The Spartans had lost three of four , including a horrible setback to lowly Morgan State at Echols Hall. Freeman believed it's still have odds on turn things around.

See the complete Pilot, exactly as in print - View stories, photos and ads - E-mail clippings - "It's just not our time yet," he said then. "We just have to keep working at it, keep practicing and keep our heads up, and it will be our time."
That time is now for the Spartans, who are getting contributions from many players.
Guard Tony Murphy leads NSU in scoring with a 15.7-point average.

S.C. State Norfolk State

Brian Mason scored 19 points to lead four South Carolina State players in double figures, and the Bulldogs scored a comfortable 72-52 win over Norfolk State bet on Monday night at SHM Memorial Center.
SCSU (11-15, 9-7 MEAC) used a pair of 11-0 runs, one in each half, to pull away from the Spartans (10-17, 9-8) and hand them their worst MEAC championship loss of the season. SCSU led most of the first half of the game. A layup by NSU guard Corey Lyons (Bronx, N.Y.) brought NSU within 26-24. But the Bulldogs scored the final 11 points of the half to take a 37-24 halftime lead.
The Bulldogs led by 14 early in the second half of the game when they went on another 11-0 run, capped by a basket by Julius Carter, to take a 56-31 lead midway through the second half. SCSU led by at least 20 points the rest of the way. The basketball player Derrick Davis added 13 points and Robert Baker and Chris Miller-Williams had 10 apiece for SCSU, which shot 50 percent from the floor (27-of-54) and 87.5 percent (14-of-16) from the free-throw line.
Karandick Ogunride (Baton Rouge, La.) led the Spartans with 12 points. Lyons scored 10, his second consecutive game in double figures. Calvin Brown (Mitchellville, Md.) increase the odds with nine points and eight rebounds. Leading scorer Tony Murphy (Paterson, N.J.), who sat most of the first half with foul trouble, shot 3-of-9 and ended with just six points, matching his lowest output of the season.
The Spartans close their regular season with a 10 p.m. game against Bethune-Cookman on Wednesday at Echols Hall. The game will be televised live on ESPNU, and will be the final home game in the careers of Ogunride and Keith Young (Lanham, Md.).