Morehouse basketball made a move last spring that resembled an NBA front office tactic as much as an HBCU basketball strategy. Less than a year later, Morehouse AD Harold Ellis has a championship to show for it after the Maroon Tigers beat Tuskegee 66-56 to win the SIAC title.
For all the joy of Morehouse finally ending a 23-year conference tournament drought, perhaps the bigger story is the decision that set this moment in motion.
Ellis, the former Morehouse player, NBA veteran and longtime pro executive, chose a different path for the program after Doug Whittler’s run. Whittler had produced consistent success. He won three straight SIAC East Division regular-season titles from 2022 through 2024, but the tournament banner never came. That is where leadership decisions get hard. Winning is one thing, but winning big enough is another.
Morehouse decided to go in a different direction.
That push led to Larry Dixon, hired in May 2025 as the program’s 14th head coach. In Year One, he delivered exactly what the move was supposed to produce: a conference tournament championship and an NCAA Tournament berth.
Morehouse and Larry Dixon aimed higher
Dixon made it clear after the game that he did not arrive at Morehouse thinking small.
“When I took over, because it’s just a belief in myself and the system,” Dixon said. “And I told our guys, Morehouse is too good of a brand academically to go 23 years because you can get the best of both worlds.”
Dixon saw Morehouse not just as an HBCU with tradition, but as a place where academic prestige and basketball ambition should work together, not compete with each other.
“You get great academics, great athletically,” Dixon said. “So I started talking to these guys the very first workout. We want to hang banners every year. We want to hang three banners, regular season championship and … championship tournament and then going to the NCAA.”
Dixon didn’t come in talking rebuild — he walking in with a championship standard.
And it matched the urgency of the administration that hired him.
HBCU culture and buy-in changed the season
Dixon did not inherit a broken team. He inherited a talented one that needed to break through. He said the turning point came when the group truly embraced his message.
“Well, I just say it’s a testament to them,” Dixon said. “And we took off when Jermonte Hill and Sincere started to buy in. And when they bought in, we took another level.”
He even joked about the team’s rough stretch around Christmas.
“I’m so thankful that we lost. It was my plan all along to lose those games over Christmas and come back January and win the rest of the game,” Dixon said. “So we learned from that. We grew from that and we just kept getting better.”
That growth showed up in the championship game. After Tuskegee jumped out to an 8-0 lead, Morehouse responded, took a 33-24 halftime lead, and then built its advantage to 17 points in the second half. The Maroon Tigers shot 48 percent from the field, hit 10 threes and led for nearly 32 minutes. Josiah Lawson scored 17 points, while Sincere Moore, JerMontae Hill and Sincere Key all finished in double figures.
Dixon said the chemistry inside the locker room was a major reason why.
“I think the one thing, they like each other. And anytime you like each other, it’s a great brotherhood,” Dixon said. “So I told these guys I want them to have memories that when they come back to the great homecoming, they can talk about their team.”
Later, he added that his approach was simple: “I just want to sell my vision, sell my vision for the program, sell my vision for the kids.”
NBA mindset translates at HBCU
Ellis did not sound like a man surprised by what happened. He sounded like someone who believed the move was necessary.
“I am so proud of my team,” Ellis said. “They fought all year. They prepared for it. And consistent. Coach Dixon empowered all the young men… and we got it done here. And as I said, championship number one, baby.”
Not the championship, but championship number one.
That sounds like a former NBA mind looking at a foundation, not a fluke.
Even Dixon was already talking that way after the nets were cut down. “When I took the job, I don’t have a three year plan. I don’t have a five year plan,” he said. “I got a every year plan.”
That is the story here. Morehouse had a winning coach before. But Ellis made a hard call because he wanted a higher ceiling. In the HBCU world, that kind of move can backfire fast and publicly.
This one did not.
It produced a SIAC title, an NCAA Tournament berth and immediate proof that Morehouse’s leadership believed this program should be doing more than stacking respectable seasons. It should be hanging banners.
And now, for the first time in 23 years, it is.