Morgan State
- Mar 1, 2023
- 9 min read
Morgan State Lady Bears (16-8, 9-2) vs. Delaware State Hornets (5-17, 3-8)
Saturday, February 25, 2023 @ 2:00 PM
Baltimore, MD
Talmadge L. Field House
THE SCHOOL
Morgan State University is a public, historically Black, research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1867, Morgan currently enrolls a little over 9,000 students. Morgan State is the only public university in Maryland that is unaffiliated with the University System of Maryland.
The Lady Bears compete in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) in NCAA Division I. Morgan State started MEAC play 9-0 and they are tied for first place in the conference standings, but they’ve struggled recently. They’re on a two game losing streak; one a 74-37 shellacking against Norfolk State, the other a 64-56 home loss to rival Howard. A win here against a bottom-of-the-standings Delaware State team would help get their season back on track.
Delaware State University is a public, historically Black, research university in Dover, Delaware. The Hornets also play in the MEAC. The women’s basketball team is only 5-17 this year, but it’s a huge improvement over the 2021-22 season, when they finished 0-24.
THE TOWN
Morgan State is located in north Baltimore. This area of Baltimore is full of universities; Morgan, Johns Hopkins, Loyola, and Notre Dame (a D-III women’s college) are all within just a few blocks of each other, while Towson is just a short drive across city limits. From where I live, it took just over an hour to arrive. A rarity in Baltimore, I parked for free. I’m not sure I was technically allowed to park in this lot, but no one caught me.
Morgan State has a gorgeous campus for an urban university. There are several seemingly brand new buildings, including the student center and main library. However, it doesn’t feel too new. There are still plenty of old brick buildings with spires and clocks. Morgan has a really nice balance on their spacious campus, and I came away very impressed.
Morgan may have several new buildings on campus, but Hill Field House isn’t one of them. As the home of Bears basketball since the early-seventies, the Field House feels very lived-in. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it certainly has some character. It does have a somewhat strange layout, though. One baseline has no bleachers, and instead just has a wide open floor. The dance team stood over here for part of the game, but it mostly went unused.
THE GAME
After parking and walking to the arena, I arrived about ten minutes before the listed start time. This one tipped off on time, so we’re improving. Tickets were $15 and included admission to the men’s game later in the day. The picture above is a little misleading, as people continued to arrive throughout the game. By the final buzzer, the crowd was probably two or three times bigger.
Morgan State’s band takes up three entire rows of the upper deck. With this many instruments in this small space, it feels like a whole marching band is in Hill Field House. They were loud, precise, and fantastic. My one complaint: they didn’t actually play that much, just a few songs at a few game breaks. Regardless, Morgan State’s band added to the enjoyment of the game.
~~
The first quarter was close as neither team led by more than 3. Delaware State was clearly playing with a lot of effort, and it was paying off. With the Hornets leading 14-13 with 5 seconds before the quarter break, Morgan State’s #24, Sunshine McCrae, hit a jumper to give the Lady Bears a one-point lead. But Delaware State’s #3, Alexis Moragne, made a deep three as the buzzer sounded, and the Hornets led after one, 17-15.
In the second quarter, Morgan State went ice cold. They could not get their offense to gel, and they only scored 4 points in the first 7+ minutes of the quarter. With 2:51 left, DSU’s #22, Tyshonne Tollie, converted a layup and gave DSU a 30-19 advantage. Morgan State made a couple baskets just before the half, but they still trailed 32-24 at halftime.
Morgan made a few shots early in the third quarter, but DSU kicked it back into gear and got the lead back to 9 with 4:00 left. But, Morgan State’s Gabrielle Johnson (#2) and Charlene Shepherd (#21) converted back-to-back three-point plays to cut the Hornet lead to 3. DSU hit a three before the end of the half, and the Hornets led 44-38 after the third quarter, but momentum had shifted.
The Lady Bears were locked in to start the final period. Shepherd made a layup, Ja’Niah Henson (#3) made a three, and Shepherd made another layup, and suddenly Morgan State had their first lead since the first quarter, 47-46.
The rest of the quarter was a back-and-forth affair. With 2:04 remaining, DSU had retaken the lead, but Charlene Shepherd made a jumper to give the Bears a 54-53 advantage. Delaware State’s #10, Jessica Martino, made a layup with 1:40 left, and the Hornets led again, 55-54. Delaware State forced a stop but missed their ensuing shot, giving Morgan another chance. They couldn’t take advantage, however, and lost possession on a jump ball with only :26 on the clock. The Bears would be forced to foul.
Savannah Brooks, Delaware State’s #23, went to the free throw line with 13.8 seconds and an opportunity to take a 3 point lead with two foul shots. She missed both. After a timeout, Morgan set up a play for Gabrielle Johnson to take a three. She got a good look, but missed. Morgan got a hard-fought rebound, and passed to Ja’Niah Henson who was set up beyond the arc, but she missed too. By this time, there were just 2 seconds remaining, but another jump ball gave the Bears one final chance.
Off the inbound – down by 1 point with 2 seconds left – Henson got a wide-open look. And I mean wide-open; a Morgan player set a screen that wiped out the defender, and there was no one within eight feet of Ja’Niah.
The ball leaves her hand and the buzzer sounds while the ball is in the air.
From my vantage point, it looks perfect.
But it hits the back of the iron and bounces straight up.
Upon its second descent, the ball hits the left side of the rim.
It rolls around the cylinder, touching every part of the iron.
Well after the buzzer’s final call, the ball finally falls…
Off the right side of the rim.
It bounces on the floor, and the Bears stand stunned. Delaware State’s players euphorically rush to their sideline to celebrate. It’s the Hornets’ biggest win in years, and it’s the third consecutive loss for a spiraling Morgan State.
Final: Delaware State 55, Morgan State 54
If you’ll allow me, I’d like to tell one of my favorite stories about sports. It just happens to involve Morgan State basketball.
~~
In 1978, a basketball player graduates from Hardaway High School in Columbus, Georgia. He doesn’t get any Division I scholarship offers, but he’s 6’9” or so and he’s apparently a pretty good rebounder, so he gets an opportunity at Chipola Junior College in Florida.
His name is Larry Hubbard. And Larry is the hero of our story.
Larry plays at Chipola for one year, and he plays well. Larry plays so well that he gets a scholarship offer to the University of New Mexico for his sophomore year. Larry joins the UNM team and comes off the bench in New Mexico’s second game of the 1979-80 season, scoring 4 points and grabbing 5 rebounds in a rollicking 112-100 win over West Texas State. This is the start of Larry’s Division I basketball career. Or at least, it should be.
You see, New Mexico basketball is in trouble - with the University of New Mexico, the NCAA, and the United States of America. Over the last few years, the UNM coaching staff has falsified transcripts for junior college transfers who were short on credits. In each case, the coaches claimed the students had gotten the required credits at an out-of-state community college. But actually, none of the students had attended these classes at all. The student-athletes likely didn’t even know the coaches had meddled with their transcripts, but they were academically ineligible nonetheless.
Shortly before the season’s start, head coach Norm Ellenberger is fired and indicted for mail fraud. (He is later cleared). A few players on the team are suspended for the season. And not long after the West Texas State game, the hammer falls on Larry too. He is barred from NCAA competition for the 1979-80 season. He didn’t even know he’d done anything wrong, but he can’t play basketball.
After the season ends, Larry Hubbard transfers to Frank Philips Junior College in Texas. I can’t find any team statistics so I don’t know if he played much in the 1980-81 season, and I also don’t know if he continued playing there the next year, but regardless, Larry's college basketball career is over. Per NCAA rules, unless there are extenuating circumstances that have been approved by the NCAA, a student-athlete only has a five-year window to play college athletics. Larry started at Chipola in the Fall of 1978, so his eligibility expires after the Spring of 1983.
Larry’s college basketball career is over.
~
In 1984, a basketball player comes out of Hardway High School in Flint, Michigan. He doesn’t actually graduate but he gets his GED. Since he doesn’t have a high school degree, he doesn’t receive any Division I scholarship offers, but he’s 6’9” or so and he’s apparently a pretty good rebounder, so he gets an opportunity. He walks on to the Morgan State University basketball team.
His name is Larry Hubbard. Larry is now 25 years old. Larry has been out of NCAA eligibility for nearly two years. But Larry still wants to play basketball. And if there’s one thing he learned in New Mexico, it’s how to lie.
How did Morgan State let this happen? Let’s just say that Morgan State is a better-run institution now than it used to be. The 1984-85 season is Morgan’s first at the Division I level. The athletic director set to see Morgan’s transition is a man named Tom Dean. Before the 1984 season, Tom Dean fires the head basketball coach and hires himself, despite the fact that I don’t think he’d ever coached basketball before. Five games into the season, after consecutive losses by 33, 15, 52, 60, and 48 points, Tom Dean relieves himself of his duties. Based on all this, it doesn’t surprise me that Tom Dean isn’t a very good athletic director. In fact, he later admits as much; since Larry said he got his GED, Tom Dean never bothered to check Larry’s high school transcript. If he had, he might have found that Hardway High School in Flint, Michigan isn’t even real.
But Larry’s real, and he’s convinced everyone at Morgan State that his story is too. He enrolls at Morgan, walks on to the basketball team, and immediately impresses Tom Dean. Prior to the team’s first game, Larry is named a starter as a “true freshman.”
Larry’s con has worked. No one on the basketball team suspects him (even though he’s a 25 year old claiming to be 18), he’s on the other side of the country from everyone who knows about his prior academic scandal, and it’s 1984. There’s no Internet. Larry is so close to getting away with this. And I think he probably would have, had it not been for one weird quirk about Morgan State’s 1984-85 basketball schedule.
Morgan State is a regional college in Baltimore, Maryland. The basketball team plays almost all their games on the east coast, and most of them are played in the mid-Atlantic.
Then why - oh, why - is Morgan State’s first game of the season at the University of New Mexico?
The odds of this are incalculable. This seems to be the first time Morgan State and New Mexico ever played, and they’ve only met once since. It’s such spectacularly bad luck - the only place that could uncover Larry’s lie is the setting for his second act’s season opener.
Larry plays in the game and leads the team in rebounding, but all the New Mexico fans are like “hey, we know this guy, his name was in the papers.” After the game, Tom Dean asks Larry about this but Larry denies it and maintains that he is 18. Because Tom Dean is bad at his job, he allows Larry to play in the next game against Wisconsin, in which Larry once again leads the team in rebounds. But an Albuquerque-based journalist gets in contact with Tom Dean, and Larry is forced to come clean. He’s dismissed from the basketball program.
Larry Hubbard’s circuitous college basketball career has finally ended - for real this time - seven years after it began.
~
Sure, Larry was dishonest. He was in the wrong. He lied his way onto the team, and by doing so, stole a spot from someone else.
But man, I can’t help but root for the guy. He came so close to fooling the college basketball world, and he might have gotten away with it if not for some miraculously bad luck. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, he just wanted to do something he loved.
After Larry was forced to admit his lie, Tom Dean asked him why he’d done it. “Coach,” Larry said, “I just love to play basketball.”
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