Howard University junior Saadia Doyle was named the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) women's basketball Preseason Player of the Year the conference announced on Tuesday. For the second consecutive year, the Hampton Lady Pirates were predicted to win the regular season title as voted on by the conference's head women's basketball coaches and sports information directors.
Doyle, the 2010-11 MEAC Player of the Year and All-MEAC First Team selection, led the MEAC in scoring with 18.4 points and was second in the conference with 8.9 rebounds per game. The forward eclipsed the 1,000 point mark last year and guided her team to the MEAC Tournament championship finale.
Hampton totaled 667 points and received 23 out of 26 first place votes. The Lady Pirates, who earned a number 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament, finished with a 26-6 overall record and 15-1 record in MEAC play. Hampton welcomes back three starters from last year's championship team, all of whom earned MEAC preseason accolades.
Howard was picked to finish in second with 557 points with one first-place vote. The Lady Bison, who will open up their season in the Women's National Invitational Tournament (WNIT), concluded the 2010-11 campaign with a 9-7 mark in the MEAC and 16-18 overall record.
North Carolina A&T was predicted to finish third while Florida A&M and Morgan State round out the top five preseason predictions.
Coppin State was chosen to finish sixth, followed by Bethune-Cookman (7th), Maryland Eastern Shore (8th), South Carolina State (9th), Delaware State (10th), Savannah State (11th), North Carolina Central (12th) and Norfolk State (13th).
Joining Doyle on the Preseason All-MEAC First Team are Florida A&M's Antonia Bennett and Tameka McKelton, Hampton's Jericka Jenkins and North Carolina A&T's JaQuayla Berry.
The 2011-12 MEAC women's basketball season tips off on Friday, Nov. 11 with eight MEAC teams in action.
The 2012 MEAC Basketball Tournament is slated for March 5-10 at the Lawrence Joel Veteran Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem, N.C.