The Howard basketball team holds the trophy after defeating Norfolk State in an NCAA college basketball game in the championship of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament, Saturday, March 11, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Mike Caudill)

Mike Caudill / AP Photo

For the first time since 1992, the Howard University men’s basketball team is dancing.

The Howard Bison clinched their berth in the NCAA tournament on Saturday afternoon with a win in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference championship against rivals Norfolk State by a score of 65 to 64.

It was the historically Black university’s biggest men’s basketball win since last week when the team also defeated Norfolk State. It marks the team’s first appearance in the national NCAA tournament in more than three decades. It’s their third appearance overall.

As a reward, the team will face one of the best programs in the nation – and defending national champion – Kansas Jayhawks on Thursday at 2 p.m. in the tournament’s first round.

And they earned the trip in dramatic and come-from-behind fashion. Howard was down by four points with only 23 seconds left. But a clutch three-pointer from sophomore Marcus Dockery, an inbound pass gone array by Norfolk State, a foul on a drive to the hoop, and graduate student Jelani Williams burying two free throws led to the Bison victory.

After the game, the team and Williams were emotional.

“I thought, ‘This is why I came to Howard,’ ” Williams told The Washington Post, holding onto the ball that he made his free throws with. “I’ve waited all my life for a moment like this. I’m never letting go of this ball. I knew this was my last chance to go to the NCAAs, and I was going to make it happen.”

The last time Howard had made the NCAA tournament, coach Kenny Blakeney was a freshman in college himself. He was a point guard playing for Duke University on what some consider the greatest college basketball team ever assembled.

The now-51-year-old coach was hired by Howard four years ago. He’s a big reason for the program’s turnaround that had lagged far behind other local universities in basketball for years, including the University of Maryland and Georgetown.

A focus on recruiting within the region and the recruitment of hugely hyped prospect Makur Maker in 2020 (even though he only ended up playing only in a handful of games) have both led to the team’s rise.

Now, on the heels of perhaps the biggest win in Howard men’s basketball history, the team is taking the city along for the ride.

“It’s a blessing to be able to win the MEAC and then go on and represent and play for something bigger than us,” star guard Elijah Hawkins said. “There’s a lot of Howard alums and fans that either haven’t seen or can’t remember what it was like to be a fan of a tournament team, and now they get that.”

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