University of North Carolina Athletics
Know Your Opponent: North Carolina Central
November 13, 2014 | Men's Basketball
North Carolina Central Eagles (nccueaglepride.com)
Location: Durham, N.C.
2013-14 Record: 28-6, 15-1 Mid-Eastern Athletic
Carolina Series Record (Last meeting): 1-0 (UNC 89, NCCU 42, Nov. 11, 2009, Chapel Hill)
A lot has changed on Lawson Street since head coach LeVelle Moton's first game in charge at his alma mater. A 1996 graduate of North Carolina Central and a former CIAA Player of the Year during the Eagles' Division II days, Moton brought his inaugural team to Chapel Hill and left with a 47-point loss en route to a 7-22 season that featured just three wins over D-I opponents.
Jump ahead five years and NCCU is the class of the MEAC, picked to win the conference it dominated in 2014 to the tune of a 15-1 regular season record, a tournament title and a league-record No. 14 seed in the NCAA Championship. Starting with a win over Bethune-Cookman on Jan. 13, Central ran off 20 consecutive wins before meeting the same fate as UNC — a season-ending loss to Iowa State.
Gone from that squad are conference player of the year Jeremy Ingram and floor general Poobie Chapman, two of six seniors lost to graduation. Also missing from last year's team is forward Jay Copeland, one of the nation's top offensive rebounders who tore knee ligaments in the offseason and will miss 2014-15. As many as seven players have spent time on the injury list this preseason, but Moton mentioned that the excitement of game week tends to take care of those nagging injuries.
Despite the injuries and the roster turnover, the Eagles will be good, though perhaps a bit unfamiliar with one another in the early going. Nate Maxey, a 6-11 transfer from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi should team with uber-efficient senior Jordan Parks and Norwegian standout Kamaro Jawara to create a formidable front line. Parks played just 19.0 minutes per game as a junior but still averaged over 10 points per contest (second behind Ingram) thanks to shooting 65.9 percent from the field.
Moton said that his first goal early in his time at Central was to find a way to be competitive against high-major opponents like Carolina, noting that a blowout like the Eagles suffered in 2009 can linger for weeks. And his teams have done that with increasing frequency over the years, with losses of fewer than 15 points to Cincinnati, Wichita State and Maryland (in addition to an overtime win at NC State) helping set the tone for a dominant 2014 season in the MEAC.
Friday may be a bit early for NCCU to give Carolina its best shot considering the injury to Copeland on top of the losses of Ingram and Chapman, but the Eagles are excited to build on last year's success, even though the words “last year” have been banned from conversations inside the team. Hampton figures to be their biggest challenge in the MEAC, but the lone meeting with the Pirates isn't until Jan. 19. Central will face Creighton, Cincinnati, Maryland and Memphis prior to the bulk of conference play, so the Eagles figure to have plenty of chances to test themselves starting Friday.
Moton didn't spend much time watching UNC's two exhibition games — “It was like a horror movie and you knew how it was going to end” — and said that Roy Williams had confided that he liked his 2014-15 Tar Heels. “(Roy) can't keep a poker face, if he's got a great hand, he's gonna put in on the table and show you,” Moton said, adding that he counted nine potential NBA players on the Carolina roster.
He also made a point to elaborate on his relationship with the UNC head coach. “I don't have a lot of people in this business that I consider my friend, but this guy has been nothing but open and honest with me from the day we met,” Moton said. “He's a man of integrity, one of the most compassionate human beings, one of the kindest human beings and one of the most truthful human beings that I've ever met in my life, and I'll stand by that forever."
(by Bobby Hundley)
