Maryland Jap Shore head coach and HBCU basketball lifer by delivery, Cleo Hill Jr. has seen loads of faculty basketball. However till his crew confirmed as much as the Norfolk Scope on Wednesday night time to tackle Norfolk State, he didn’t have any expertise within the MEAC Match.
“After the Del State recreation, my consideration simply received locked in on the event as a result of I haven’t even been to the MEAC event — being within the CIAA — I don’t imagine,” Hill informed the media following his crew’s 77-70 loss to the top-seed within the quarterfinals.
The loss punctuated the tip of a 6-25 season for UMES in Hill’s first season on the Division I stage. These 25 losses had been equal to the quantity of video games he misplaced in his final three seasons at Winston-Salem State College the place he received 59 video games throughout that stretch.
The losses had been irregular to Hill however to not this system. The 2024-2025 season marked the third season within the final decade the crew has misplaced a minimum of 25 video games and the seventh for the reason that flip of the century. The tiny college in distant Princess Anne, MD has had simply 4 successful seasons since going Division I within the mid-Seventies. It has by no means been to the NCAA Division I Match. Thought-about one of many hardest jobs in faculty basketball as a consequence of funds, location and historical past, this job isn’t for the faint of coronary heart.
Cleo Hill Jr., son and namesake of an HBCU basketball legend and coach, knew this when he took the job. The previous North Carolina Central guard has spent the final quarter century teaching at HBCUs — first as an assistant at Shaw College — then with a 5 12 months stint at Cheyney College earlier than returning to Shaw as head coach and main that program to a CIAA championship in 2011. He led Shaw to a 116-67 general file, together with a number of NCAA Match appearances earlier than spending a number of years away from faculty basketball as a coach and entrepreneur.
He returned to the CIAA in 2018 teaching at his dad and mom alma mater, WSSU, and main this system to CIAA titles in 2020 and 2023 and making it some of the seen Division II applications. His 2023 crew included a slight however athletic freshman named Ketron “KC” Shaw on a crew filled with Division I stage expertise.
When Hill took the job in June, Shaw hit the switch portal and adopted him as much as Princess Anne, alongside together with his youthful brother Kyrell. Lower than a 12 months later, he went from being a third-option at WSSU to the go-to-player for UMES.
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