On Saturday, the Howard Bison and Morgan State Bears hit Cleveland at the inaugural NBA HBCU Classic. In what turned out to be a dramatic game, Howard rallied back to beat its MEAC opponent 68-66.
Howard’s Kyle Foster hit the game-winning shot that pushed the Bison ahead in the final moments. The Bison have now won six consecutive games and are 2-0 versus the Bears this season. On January 22, Howard defeated Morgan State 91-82.
Ahead of tipoff, Chris Paul and Stephen Curry visited the teams for words of encouragement. During the game, both teams were represented with their bands, dance teams, and raucous crowds.
Ahead of the HBCU Classic, Carlton Myers, NBA Head of Live Production and Entertainment, spoke with The Source about the creation of the HBCU Classic and what it means to support these prominent institutions.
The Source: We have seen support from the NBA toward HBCUs, both from the league as a whole but also in individual efforts from its players. How long has this HBCU classic been in the works, and what made Cleveland the perfect weekend to launch the game?
Carlton Myers: I’ll kind of start with the second half of that. For Cleveland, it was just coincidental timing. In a year, we do over $3 million in HBCU support. It was something that we wanted to continue, but not just do the same thing again. The HBCU classic idea sparked a few months after Allstar last year. We ended up landing on the idea of doing a game at Allstar since it’s our biggest event outside of the Finals. It’s where the lights shine the brightest, so we felt like it was the right time. The selection of Howard and Morgan State fell in our lap. They were already playing each other on that Friday. So we decided to take their conference game and move it to Cleveland.
This game had KeKe Palmer delivering the anthem, both bands in attendance, and more. How did the league decide how this experience should be presented when creating this event?
Great question. So we wanted to take the natural experience of an HBCU environment and put it at All-Star. The cheerleader from both has the opportunity to showcase their talents as a part of our game presentation. The idea is to have the best HBCU experience available on TV.
Now that the weekend is over, are there initiatives that we may not just know of yet that will continue through the remainder of the season?
I don’t think there’s anything that isn’t public yet. Our fellowship program launched, and that’s allowing HBCU undergrads to obtain internships with both the league and teams this upcoming summer. That’s something that we’re really excited about being able to offer. Providing access to learn the business of basketball and everything else that we do at the league and across the teams.
