North Carolina Central will be dancing again

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Coach LeVelle Moton and the North Carolina Central Eagles are headed for the Big Dance once again.

For the third time in five years, Moton’s team claimed the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference postseason championship to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Pablo Rivas came off the bench to score 22 as North Carolina Central downed Hampton, 71-63, in the MEAC title game on Saturday at Norfolk, Virginia.

In the America East championship game, Maryland-Baltimore County edged Vermont, 65-62.

The list of auto qualifiers into the NCAA field now stands at 15. Here they are:

Conference / automatic qualifier

Ohio Valley — Murray State (26-5)

Missouri Valley – Loyola-Chicago (28-5)

Big Ten — Michigan (28-7)

Big South — Radford (22-12)

Atlantic Sun — Lipscomb (23-9)

Southern — UNC Greensboro (27-7)

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference — Iona (20-13)

West Coast Conference — Gonzaga (30-4)

Horizon — Wright State (25-9)

Northeast — LIU Brooklyn (18-16)

Colonial Athletic Association — Charleston (26-7)

Summit — South Dakota State (28-6)

Patriot League — Bucknell (25-9)

America East — Maryland-Baltimore County (24-10)

MEAC — North Carolina Central (19-15)