N.C. Central athletics director Bill Hayes was part of a smart decision a couple of weeks ago, when he decided to offer women's basketball coach Joli Robinson a new contract.
In her previous eight seasons, Robinson (132-122) has proven she can be a big winner, although there sometimes have been rocky stretches that set the naysayers buzzing.
One of those stretches was at the start of this season. The Eagles were coming off a 14-14 campaign that got the program back on track after an often nightmarish 8-19 season in 2002-03 that was aided when the CIAA decided to forfeit both games NCCU had lost to Shaw.
The Eagles didn't have much going during an 11-game stretch between Nov. 23 and Jan. 13, a span in which they lost 10 of 11 games with one odd blowout of Lenoir-Rhyne thrown into the mix.
But what happened next was an exercise in perseverance. NCCU played three straight winnable games in front of small crowds on nights the men's team either was off or playing elsewhere, and suddenly the season was turned around.
Since Jan. 15, the Eagles won 12 of their last 15 games, beating everybody on a tough schedule except the three best teams they played.
It was a shame their season ended the way it did. With a lot of people paying attention to the team for the first time, NCCU had a bad day against powerful Shaw -- an opponent that's used to magnifying other teams' mistakes -- losing 86-44 in the CIAA semifinals.
I say burn the videotape of that one.
It didn't reflect the way NCCU had been playing for the second half of the year.
All the attention on the game, of course, had come because of what go-to player Cassie King had done three days earlier in an 84-79 win over a good Bowie State club.
An awful lot of mouths in the RBC Center that day, including mine, hung open as King scored 59 points, got 13 rebounds and committed neither a turnover nor a foul in 45 minutes.
It was a school and a CIAA Tournament record and the season's best game by anyone in NCAA women's basketball this year. The performance by King, who wound up averaging 22.9 points and 9.8 rebounds, was one of the most amazing things I have seen in 27 years of writing sports.
Yet when King got back to the arena that night, her head still fit through the door. That leads to the way the NCCU team reacted to the whole thing -- while King had to be a superior athlete to put the ball through the hoop that many times, it also was a team accomplishment, like when a pitcher throws a perfect game.
They had to all be both unselfish enough to give her the ball and forget about their own lines in the box score. The players knew their roles perfectly.
The second half of the Eagles' season should give their fans a reason for giddy optimism going into October.
Classy CIAA player of the year Allyson Hardy has played her last game for Bowie State, while Shaw -- which has a good shot at winning a national championship -- will have graduation losses akin to what NCCU suffered after the 2001-02 season when Amba Kongolo, Shenika Worthy, Zakia Van Hoose and company said their good-byes after going 24-7.
The Eagles were one of those rare good teams that didn't have a senior.
So when they tip off in the fall, King will be a candidate for national player of the year. Shanté Collins will be one of the most feared centers in the CIAA after blocking 55 shots this season. Guards Alisha Battle, who set a school freshman assist record with 130, and Karla Gamble, who dropped in 47 3-pointers, won't be freshmen any more.
And the Eagles were very, very deep. Unless King or Collins left the floor, there was a backup for every player who could get the job done almost as well.
The 2005-06 Eagles will come back with one great player, a lot of good, smart ones and a team concept that's part of a program heading in the right direction.
I can hardly wait to see their first game.