The college basketball offseason is here, and we decided to have some fun over the next few months, ranking ALL 364 teams in D1. Number 351 is Maryland-Eastern Shore basketball.
Before you say we’re crazy – or that all of this is up for debate, let’s go over the very intricate process of how we came to this conclusion. We took a very statistical approach – with the help of Chat GPT – taking into consideration everything from March Madness wins and finishes, to AP Poll appearances, to conference players of the year. And then, a good friend of ours, Scott Blanchard, took our approach to the MAX.
Click here to visit the FIRST article, which explains how the formula works!
Here’s the breakdown of Maryland-Eastern Shore basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 0
- Bids: 0
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 9
- Bids per season: 0
- AP Polls: 1
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 4
- Conference Players of the Year: 0
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 2
- Conference tournament titles: 1
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Maryland-Eastern Shore basketball
Since joining D1 in 1971, there haven’t been a lot of great moments for Maryland-Eastern Shore basketball, but there have still been some pieces of history here and there.
They actually started out on fire, going 73-14 in their first three seasons and even finding themselves ranked 20th in the country during the AP Poll on Feb. 4 (1974). To this date, they remain the only HBCU to ever be ranked in any AP Poll. Their season ended with a loss to Jacksonville in the second round of the NIT.
Since then, Maryland-Eastern Shore has finished a season with the following number of wins: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, and 18 (with a whole bunch of repeats). In other words, they’ve pretty much covered it all.
However, since their fantastic start in the 1970s, they haven’t been able to win a regular season or conference tournament title in the MEAC.
But they have had some solid players come through the program. Levi Fontaine, Jake Ford, Ken McBride, and Tal Skinner were all NBA Draft picks at one point in time or another. Fontaine played with the San Francisco Warriors in 1970-71. Ford appeared in a handful of games between 1970-72 with the Seattle SuperSonics. Skinner actually played two full seasons with Seattle, appearing in 145 games from 1974-75. And then way back, McBride had a 12-game stint with the Milwaukee Hawks, in 1954.
So the past 50 years or so haven’t been great, but there was a very respectable three-year stretch that the Hawks hope they one day can revisit.