Norfolk State finished the 2023-24 regular season with a 13-1 MEAC record and won the conference tournament to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
But despite returning All-MEAC guard Kierra Wheeler and conference player of the year Diamond Johnson to a team that won 27 games, the Spartans were not identified as the clear favorite to win the women’s basketball title again.
Instead, when the MEAC preseason poll was released on Tuesday, Norfolk State and Howard (the only team to beat the Spartans last season) were tied for first-place points at 117 apiece.
The conference’s head coaches and sports information directors voted on all preseason awards and the poll.
Coppin State was predicted to finish third with 79 points, one point from tying North Carolina Central in fourth place. Morgan State and Maryland Eastern Shore were picked to finish fifth and sixth, respectively, with Delaware State and South Carolina State rounding out the predicted order of finish.
Ties in polls or rankings—preseason or otherwise—often occur at the bottom, not at the very top, where the elites are clearly established. How voters couldn’t come to a consensus is puzzling, considering that one of the teams has won the MEAC each of the last two seasons and has gone 24-4 in conference play.
Simply put, this is not a case of splitting hairs between equals. Norfolk State has established that it should be the favorite until proven they are no longer the standard by which other programs in the conference are judged.
Voters could have elevated Howard to the No. 1 slot alone if they genuinely believed that much in them. After all, Howard did split the season series versus the Spartans and played them close in the MEAC Tournament championship game last March.
But they chose to be lukewarm, ride the fence, and cop out in the end.
That’s what you call, pun intended, dropping the ball.
