College basketball doesn’t come with a rewind button, and North Carolina A&T is learning that the hard way. The proud men’s basketball program now sitting at the bottom of a new league’s perception while trying to rebuild in public.
As of Jan. 28, the Aggies are 9–10 overall and 2–6 in CAA play in Year 3 under Monté Ross. And last week, The Field of 68’s anonymous poll of CAA coaches ranked the league’s jobs 1-to-13 and placed NC A&T last. That was one spot behind fellow HBCU Hampton (46). It responded with back-to-back wins following the ranking. But it will take more than a pair of wins to turn the tide.
The ranking made noise because it felt like a verdict. But it’s really just the latest chapter in a much longer story — one that starts long before the CAA. It goes back to when the Aggies were building a winning identity that shaped multiple eras of Black college basketball.
Before Corbett, there was Cal Irvin — and a foundation that lasted decades
Long before North Carolina A&T became synonymous with the MEAC tournament, Cal Irvin turned the Aggies into a championship program in the CIAA era. Irvin coached at A&T from 1954–1972, compiled a 401–132 record, and won five CIAA titles (1958, 1959, 1962, 1964, 1967).
This was the era where top black talent was found at black colleges. The Irvin Era set expectations, recruiting habits, and a belief system that said A&T basketball should be in the conversation every year. Even A&T’s alumni coverage still frames that late-’50s stretch as a defining championship moment for the school’s athletic identity.
Irvin’s run matters here because it clarifies something people forget when they only talk about “the MEAC days.” North Carolina A&T didn’t stumble into being good. It built a culture of winning, then carried it into the next major shift in HBCU athletics.
The MEAC breakaway, Division I ambition — and why North Carolina A&T stood alone for a while
When the MEAC formed in 1970, it wasn’t just about geography. It was about the mission: HBCUs pushing for visibility and equity, including the move from the NCAA’s Division II world toward Division I opportunity.
That context is key to your point that often gets lost. North Carolina A&T was effectively North Carolina’s lone Division I HBCU for a long stretch. Here’s why that’s fair to say, even in plain English:
- North Carolina Central helped found the MEAC, but returned to the CIAA in 1980 when the MEAC moved toward Division I. It then stayed CIAA/Division II until starting its Division I reclassification in summer 2007.
- The MEAC’s own history notes that the conference’s Division I trajectory was the defining line of that period.
So for much of the 1980s through the mid-2000s, A&T was carrying the state’s Division I HBCU flag largely by itself. That mattered for recruiting, scheduling, and identity — and it fed directly into the program’s most famous era.
Don Corbett didn’t just win — he created a legend
When Don Corbett arrived, he built on what Irvin had already cemented. The result was one of the most dominant conference-tournament runs in Division I history: seven straight MEAC tournament titles from 1982–88, a streak still tied with Kentucky’s mark.
Corbett’s best teams weren’t just “MEAC good.” They were nationally relevant in the way one-bid-league powers have to be: mature, organized, and hard to rattle. The MEAC’s remembrance of Corbett points to the 26-win season in 1987–88. That group nearly pulled off an NCAA Tournament upset in Greensboro.
This is the part that makes today’s moment feel so jarring. North Carolina A&T’s basketball brand was built in an era when it expected to contend for championships as a matter of habit — first under Irvin, then under Corbett, and even into the mid-’90s with NCAA trips in 1994 and 1995.
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