2020 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Stock Watch

For years, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference was Bethune-Cookman’s conference to win. Between 1999 and 2012, the Wildcats were the MEAC’s representative in the NCAA Tournament every year except 2005. Along the way, they had several seasons going undefeated in conference play. 

There are still signs that Bethune-Cookman’s ceiling is as high as any program in the league, such as when it advanced to the final of the 2017 Gainesville Regional, but it’s undeniable that its grip on the MEAC has slipped. 

Florida A&M has been to regionals as often as Bethune-Cookman in the last five years, and both FAMU and Norfolk State have better MEAC winning percentages in that same time frame. 

There is a debate to be had about whether it’s better for a low-major conference to have one dominant team that gives the conference the best shot at competing on a national scale every year or parity that allows each team in the league a chance to get to the big stage. 

But right now, the MEAC is probably less worried about philosophical issues like that and more worried about surviving, as its membership numbers have really taken a hit in recent years. 

Last year, Savannah State dropped down to Division II. Earlier this year, North Carolina A&T announced its intention to move to the Big South after the 2021 season. Finally, this summer, Bethune-Cookman and Florida A&M both announced that they would be leaving for the SWAC after 2021 as well. 

That leaves the league with five baseball-playing members, which, by virtue of a two-year NCAA waiver to the rule mandating that a conference must have six members to receive an automatic bid, means it has until the end of the 2023 season to find at least one more baseball program. 

Right now, no other school in the conference has announced an intention to leave, but any more defections would obviously complicate matters further. 

Five-Year Standings
*2020 records not included
**For the 2020 season, the MEAC went away from a divisional format, but given that the last five full seasons were all played in a divisional format, the standings are presented that way. 

Team	MEAC Record	Winning Pct.	Overall Record	Winning Pct.
Northern Division
Norfolk State	84-34	71.19	125-115	52.08
Delaware State	59-59	50.00	80-150	34.78
Coppin State	51-66	43.59	73-154	32.16
Maryland-Eastern Shore	42-77	35.29	66-190	25.78
Southern Division
Florida A&M	77-43	64.17	133-136	49.44
Bethune-Cookman	70-49	58.82	125-164	43.25
North Carolina A&T	60-60	50.00	112-151	42.59
North Carolina Central	56-63	47.06	115-140	45.10

Recent history shows that the Southern Division is the superior division in the MEAC, and even with Bethune-Cookman taking a step back, that was still the case over the last five seasons. That will be shown time and again in this stock watch, but you can first see it with the way these standings shake out. All four teams came within at least a handful of wins of finishing .500 or better, and no one team in that division is leaps and bounds ahead of any other. However, it is notable that the one team in the conference to finish better than .500 in terms of overall record, Norfolk State, is in the Northern Division. There are a lot of things that play into the overall record, not least of which is the difficulty of the schedule played, but it’s notable nonetheless.

Team-by-Team Five-Year Trends

The following are summations of how each MEAC program performed over the last five full seasons. The arrow designation of up, down and to the side represent the results of the last five seasons, not a projection of the years to come.

Norfolk State—??

Far and away the best MEAC team to not make a postseason appearance in the last five seasons, Norfolk State has gone 13-10 or better in conference play in each of the last five years and has won the Northern Division four of the last five seasons. The Spartans have gotten to the final of the MEAC Tournament three different times in the last five seasons, and you have to assume if they continue to win games at a similar clip in the near future, they will break through to the postseason sooner rather than later. 

Florida A&M—??

Florida A&M enjoyed a breakthrough in this data sample, winning the MEAC Tournament in 2015 and 2019 and overtaking Bethune-Cookman as the most consistent team in the Southern Division. Even if the postseason appearances weren’t there, the regular-season success is a huge improvement over where FAMU was previously, when it won more than six conference games just once between 2010-2014. In losing Florida A&M, the conference loses one of the best teams it has to offer right now. 

Bethune-Cookman—??

The Wildcats continue to be a factor in the MEAC. They got to regionals in 2016 and 2017, and in the latter appearance, they got to the regional final in Gainesville. But Bethune-Cookman simply no longer dominates the conference the way it used to. The 2015 season was the first time since 2005 that it hadn’t won at least a share of an overall conference or division title. And in the last five years, it won the division just once, in 2017. The SWAC is getting a good program in Bethune-Cookman, but not a dominant one. 

North Carolina A&T—??

By winning the MEAC Tournament in 2018, North Carolina A&T made its first postseason appearance since 2005, but over the last five seasons, it has also become a much more consistent program in the regular season. The Aggies finished over .500 in conference play in each of the last three seasons, and by winning division titles in 2018 and 2019, they claimed their first title of any kind since winning the overall conference regular-season title in 2005. 

Delaware State – ??

Delaware State was a solid, competitive team within the MEAC more often than not over the last five seasons, but it just doesn’t quite stack up to what it did in the previous five seasons, when it was consistently the best team in the Northern Division. For instance, in 2012, the Hornets were 22-2 in conference play, and they followed that up with a 21-3 showing the very next year. Although they did finish above .500 in the MEAC four out of the last five years, it wasn’t the same level of quality as before. 

North Carolina Central—????

The Eagles have only been in the MEAC since the 2012 season, and since making the move, they have been consistently competitive, never putting up a record worse than 10-14 in conference play. Along the way, they’ve also had plenty of quality players, like two-time MEAC player of the year Corey Joyce. But they are still looking for their first breakthrough in the form of a regular-season title or a postseason appearance. 

Coppin State—??

Coppin State’s turnaround is nothing short of remarkable. If you go back to 2007, it suffered through an 0-44 season. Two years later, it went 0-29. Even as recently as 2012, it was 1-53. But now things have turned around. In 2018, the Eagles were 18-4 in MEAC play, which gave them the best record in the league and was the first time they had finished over .500 in conference play since 2005. Proving it wasn’t a one-off, they came back in 2019 and went 15-9 in conference play. Sure, Coppin State would have preferred to cap off one of those seasons with a postseason appearance, but that shouldn’t take anything away from the strides it has made. 

Maryland-Eastern Shore – ????

There have been small successes here and there in recent years for Maryland-Eastern Shore, such as a 14-10 record in conference play in 2015, but for the most part, it has struggled to keep up with the rest of the conference. The Hawks bottomed out in 2019, going 4-20 in the MEAC, their worst league record since also going 4-20 in 2013. UMES lost in the MEAC Tournament final in 2006, but hasn’t come equally close to the postseason at any point since then. 

Regional Recap by Year

Year	Team	Result
2019	Florida A&M	0-2 in Atlanta Regional
2018	North Carolina A&T	0-2 in Chapel Hill Regional
2017	Bethune-Cookman	3-2 in Gainesville Regional
2016	Bethune-Cookman	0-2 in Gainesville Regional
2015	Florida A&M	0-2 in Gainesville Regional

The Bethune-Cookman run in 2017 was a sight to behold, as few predicted that it would have been able to give mighty Florida much of a run after having come through the loser’s bracket. Then, not only did it force a deciding seventh game in Gainesville, it kept that final game relatively close. It was truly a breakthrough achievement for the Wildcats, because for all of the regional appearances they’ve made in the last two decades, it was the first time during that run that they had won more than one game in the postseason. Winning games on the big stage has always been a challenge for MEAC teams, even the best teams Bethune-Cookman put on the field, so doing so in a reconfigured conference that doesn’t include Bethune-Cookman, Florida A&M or North Carolina A&T will be an even bigger challenge.

Top Draft Picks

Player	Year	Pick
Michael Cruz, C, Bethune-Cookman	2016	224th overall
Anthony Maldonado, RHP, Bethune-Cookman	2019	321st overall
Corey Joyce, SS, North Carolina Central	2019	352nd overall
Demetrius Sims, SS, Bethune-Cookman	2017	419th overall
Cutter Dyals, RHP, North Carolina A&T	2017	500th overall

The last five years were hit and miss for the MEAC from a draft perspective. It didn’t have any players selected in 2015 or 2018, but in the three other years, it had an above-average number of draftees. In 2016, three were taken, including Cruz. In 2017 and 2019, it was five players. We’re still waiting for the breakout player from this group to emerge, as none have advanced to the upper levels of the minors. Cruz is the third-highest drafted player from the MEAC in the last 15 years and the highest-drafted from Bethune-Cookman since catcher Peter O’Brien went in the third round in 2011.

Coaching Changes

Year	Team	Out	In
2018	Bethune-Cookman	Jason Beverlin	Jonathan Hernandez
2017	Maryland-Eastern Shore	Charlie Goens	Brian Hollamon
2017	Norfolk State	Claudell Clark	Keith Shumate

It was a relatively quiet coaching carousel in the conference over the last five years, with just three changes made. Any coach who took over at Bethune-Cookman was going to face the pressure of trying to build the program back up to its previous level of excellence, and that challenge falls to Jonathan Hernandez, who has a solid background as a high school and junior college coach in the Miami area. Norfolk State’s hiring of Shumate, who previously spent time as the coach at North Carolina A&T, seems to have paid off for the Spartans, as they have continued to be among the best in the MEAC.