2017 MEAC men's basketball tournament explained

Year:	2017
Conference:	MEAC
Division:	I
Gender:	Men's
Teams:	12
Arena:	Norfolk Scope
City:	Norfolk, Virginia
Champions:	North Carolina Central
Titlecount:	2nd
Coach:	LeVelle Moton
Coachcount:	2nd
Mvp:	Patrick Cole
Mvpteam:	North Carolina Central
Television:	ESPN2

The 2017 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament took place March 6–11, 2017 at the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia. The champion, North Carolina Central, received the conference's automatic bid to the 2017 NCAA tournament with a 67–59 win over Norfolk State in the championship game.

Seeds

The top 12 teams were eligible for the tournament, Savannah State was ineligible for postseason play due to APR Sanctions.^[1]

Teams were seeded by record within the conference, with a tiebreaker system to seed teams with identical conference records.

Seed	School	Conference	Tiebreaker
1	North Carolina Central	13–3
2		12–4
3	Morgan State	11–5	1–0 vs Hampton
4	Hampton	11–5	0–1 vs Morgan State
5	Md. Eastern Shore	9–7
6	Coppin State	7–9	0–1 vs Norfolk State
7	South Carolina State	7–9	0–2 vs Norfolk State
8	Delaware State	7–9	0–2 vs South Carolina State/Coppin State
9	Bethune–Cookman	6–10
10	Florida A&M	5–11	2–0 vs Howard
11	Howard	5–11	0–2 vs Florida A&M
12	North Carolina A&T	1–15
† – MEAC regular season champions. Overall records are as of the end of the regular season.

Schedule

^[2]

Session	Game	Time*	Matchup^#	Score	Television
First round – Monday, March 6
1	1	5:00 pm	5 Md. Eastern Shore vs. #12 North Carolina A&T	75–65
2	7:00 pm	6 Coppin State vs. #11 Howard	73–79
First round – Tuesday, March 7
2	3	4:00 pm	8 Delaware State vs. #9 Bethune–Cookman	62–69
4	6:00 pm	7 South Carolina State vs. #10 Florida A&M	82–78
Quarterfinals – Wednesday, March 8
3	5	6:00 pm	9 Bethune–Cookman vs. #1 North Carolina Central	60–95
6	8:00 pm	7 South Carolina State vs. #2 Norfolk State	88–93^OT
Quarterfinals – Thursday, March 9
4	7	6:00 pm	11 Howard vs. #3 Morgan State	68–65
8	8:00 pm	#5 Md. Eastern Shore vs. #4 Hampton	68–66
Semifinals – Friday, March 10
5	9	6:00 pm	1 North Carolina Central vs. #5 Md. Eastern Shore	77–49
10	8:00 pm	2 Norfolk State vs. #11 Howard	68–53
Championship – Saturday, March 11
6	11	1:00pm	1 North Carolina Central vs. #2 Norfolk State	67–59	ESPN2
Game times in EST. #-Rankings denote tournament seeding.

Bracket

* denotes overtime period

Notes and References

1. Web site: Only 2 schools banned from NCAA tournament due to low APR scores. CBSSports. February 12, 2017.
2. Web site: 2017 MEAC men's basketball tournament. meachoops. MEAC. February 12, 2017.