The CIAA is a Division II league, but has a recent history of producing big-league talent like Ben Wallace (Cleveland) and Ronald "Flip" Murray (Atlanta). Anthony Hilliard could be next. Hilliard isn't a national name, but the Elizabeth City State guard has the game. He owns back-to-back CIAA player of the year honors, a league tournament MVP award and could be on the verge of another all-America designation.

That's pretty heady stuff for a kid who was all but ignored by college recruiters coming out of 71st High School in Fayetteville, N.C.. How good is Hilliard? At 6-foot-3, he has finished in the top six in Division II rebounding the past two seasons and has more than 1,000 for his career. Hilliard is fifth in scoring this season at 23 points a game and third in rebounding at 11.3.

Most important, his team wins. He led the Vikings to the CIAA title as a sophomore and ECSU to its second-straight 20-win campaign this season, the first time that's happened since the program's glory days in 1970-72. Hilliard has immediate concerns, starting with the CIAA tournament in Charlotte Feb. 24-28.

ECSU is one of the favorites, but NBA scouts who routinely frequent the tournament will keep an eye on Hilliard, who already has the attention of Marty Blake, the league's scouting director. With the CIAA tournament on a national stage via ESPN, Hilliard is in position to grab more.

Three finalists for the Basketball Hall of Fame have black college connections. Al Attles (N.C. A&T), Cynthia Cooper-Dyke (Prairie View A&M) and C. Vivian Stringer (Cheyney) are up for induction this year in a class that could include Michael Jordan, John Stockton and David Robinson

Attles, a 1960 A&T grad who played guard for Philadelphia and San Francisco from 1960-70, is one of five Warriors to have his jersey number retired. He averaged 8.9 points per game, but made his real mark as a coach when he led the Golden State Warriors to the 1974-75 NBA title in an upset of the Washington Bullets. Attles coached the Warriors from 1970-83, going 557-518 with six playoff berths. He moved from coaching to executive with the Warriors and now serves as a community ambassador - a 49-year run with the franchise.

Cooper-Dyke, a two-time WNBA most valuable player and the glue to the Houston Comets' dominance in the league's early years, has been head women's coach at Prairie View since 2005. "It feels great to be considered a finalist and the first thing I thought of is how proud my mother would be if she was still here," said Cooper-Dyke, who led Southern California to national championships in 1983 and '84. 'When you're a kid, you grow up dreaming of things like this and it's even more exciting because I didn't even know I was being considered, plus I'm more in awe than anything that they would consider me and my career." Cooper-Dyke coached the Panthers to back-to-back SWAC regular season conference championships, the best season in school history with 22 wins and a berth in the 2008 Women's National Invitational Tournament. She was named SWAC co-coach of the year after leading the Panthers to their first winning season in program history. Prairie View won the conference tournament in 2007 and earned a berth in the NCAA tournament.

Stringer, the first coach of either gender to lead three programs to the Final Four, started her career at Cheyney in 1971. Although women's athletics programs remained woefully underfunded after Title IX became law in 1972, Stringer's Wolves emerged as a national power. In 1982, Cheyney advanced to the finals in the NCAA's first women's tournament, losing to Louisiana Tech. By the time Stringer left for Iowa in 1983, she had compiled a 281-51 mark at Cheyney. Stringer has 819 wins, second among active women's coaches.

HBCU football programs are preaching change from competing schools of thought. It might be the middle of winter, but coaches are still being hired - and fired. Johnson C. Smith and Hampton turned to assistant coaches Steve Aycock and Donovan Rose, assuring links to deposed regimes. Lincoln (Mo.), on the other hand, made a clean break in hiring Nathan Cochran to pump new blood into its program. All three are first-time head coaches.

Aycock was bumped up to the top job nearly three months after Daryl McNeill produced a 13-28 record over four seasons. "Steven definitely deserves this opportunity," JCSU Athletics Director Steve Joyner said. "He has held our football student-athletes together and served as an excellent leader during some tumultuous times." Aycock, who was the Bulls' offensive line coach and recruiting coordinator, continued in that role after McNeill's ouster. An all-conference offensive lineman at Savannah State in 1991-92, Aycock was also an assistant coach at Tennessee State and Savannah State.

That training, he believes, prepared him for the challenge of rebuilding a program that limped to 3-7 records the last two seasons. "I learned a lot from my mentor, (former Savannah State, Tennessee State and JCSU) coach Bill Davis and coach McNeill," Aycock said. "I am ready to make Johnson C. Smith football a powerhouse in the CIAA and in Division II." That's a tall order for a program that has managed just three winning campaigns since 1981. Rose, who spent 18 years as a Hampton assistant and was defensive coordinator in 2008, will be the program's third coach in as many years. He succeeds Jerry Holmes, who was fired after one season and a 6-5 record. "Unfortunately, we were not on one accord as it related to the future direction of the football program," Hampton AD Alonza Hardy said. "I felt a dire need to have a head football coach whose commitment, loyalty and devotion to Hampton University were without question."

Translation: Holmes wasn't enough of a team player for a program that knew nothing but success until coach Joe Taylor bolted for Florida A&M. Rose, a 1979 Hampton grad, earned all-America honors and was CIAA defensive player of the year in 1978. He earned a Canadian Football League championship with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1984 and led the NFL's Miami Dolphins in interceptions before retiring in 1988. "With the tradition, the family atmosphere and the roots that I have here at Hampton University, I definitely consider this a great opportunity for me to be named head coach," Rose said. "Hampton has always been known for its academics and for its athletic achievements. With hard work and determination, and with having the players and coaches on one accord, we can make Hampton a force to be reckoned with again."

Cochran is Lincoln's fourth coach since the program was launched in 1999, succeeding Lemar Parrish. "This is my dream job and I am excited about the opportunity of being the head football coach at Lincoln University," he said. Cochran, a South Carolina State graduate, was assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at Blackburn (Ill.) College. In 2007, the Division III program broke more than 30 team and individual school records, and was ninth in the country in rushing.

Ultimately, the only way to measure change is wins and losses.

Savannah State's Shannon Sharpe might have the best odds of being the next black-college alum inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he won't be the only candidate. Sharpe is one of 17 finalists for the class of 2009, along with HBCU greats Bob Hayes (Florida A&M) and Tennessee State's Richard Dent and Claude Humphrey, who will be announced during Super Bowl week .

Hayes and Humphrey made the finals after being nominated by the Senior Committee. Election to the hall requires 80 percent of votes cast. Sharpe, who played from 1990-2003 for Denver and Baltimore and won Super Bowls with both, is one of four first-year eligible candidates, along with Bruce Smith, Rod Woodson and John Randle. When Sharpe retired, he held the NFL record for catches and touchdowns by a tight end and is credited with revolutionizing the position as a nimble pass-catcher who pulled in at least 60 passes in 12 of his 14 seasons. Dent, who played from 1983-1997 with four teams, has solid credentials, too.

The defensive end was a key cog in the Chicago Bears' intimidating defenses of the 1980s and, at the time of his retirement, trailed only Reggie White and Bruce Smith in all-time sacks with 137.5. Hayes's inclusion is the most overdue.

From the mid-1960s to early '70s with Dallas, the former Olympic 100 meters champ brought pure speed to the passing game, forcing defenses to develop bump-and-run coverages to keep pace with the receiver. He finished his career (1965-75) with 7,414 receiving yards and 71 touchdowns. Humphrey, a defensive end who played with Atlanta and Philadelphia from 1968-1981, racked up 122 sacks and was named first-team All Pro five times. His best season was in 1976, when he returned from a knee injury to record 15 sacks for Atlanta. He also had a team high 14.5 in 1980 for Philadelphia.

Jacary Atkinson has been the most recognizable player in black-college football for the last two seasons, but that hasn't been enough to get him invitations to all-star games to showcase his skills in front of NFL scouts. Atkinson, the record-setting Tuskegee quarterback, is spending his winter preparing for workouts, while his peers are in nearby Mobile, Ala., for Saturday Senior Bowl, arguably the most important all-star game of the year.

That's because nearly every NFL has scouts and personnel staff on hand for a week of measurements and critiques of every player - mostly from BCS schools - invited. Atkinson, however, isn't on the roster, nor did he get a shout from the East-West Shrine game or the Cactus Bowl, the Division II showcase. It's not like the electrical engineering major from Valley, Ala., didn't produce big-time stats as a major cog in Tuskegee's 26-game winning streak and a black college national championship in 2007. In 2008, he passed for 2,662 yards and 24 touchdowns, and ran for 724 yards and 12 scores to lead the Golden Tigers to a second straight SIAC championship. Atkinson, 22-1 as a starting quarterback, earned two straight Doug Williams offensive player of the year awards from Sheridan Broadcasting Network and is a two-time SBN All-America. He was a finalist for the Harlon Hill Trophy, Division II's most outstanding player award.

At 6-foot-2, 205 pounds, he has the potential to stick in the pros, if not as a quarterback, as an athlete in the latest NFL craze - the Wildcat formation. Atkinson also played receiver at Tuskegee before moving permanently to quarterback, so he's versatile enough to at least earn a look from the pros. But it won't be based on an all-star appearance, which is very curious.

Historically black colleges can produce big-time soccer talent, too. Alabama A&M standout Futhi Bhembe was the 57th overall pick in the Major League Soccer SuperDraft by Real Salt Lake. The senior forward from Swaziland tallied 14 goals in 16 matches to lead the Bulldogs to a 9-5-3 finish in 2008. Bhembe tied for third in NCAA Division I goals per game at 1.94 and at one point last season was the first player in the country to reach the 11-goal mark as A&M went on an eight-game unbeaten streak. Bhembe is headed to one of the MLS's top teams. Real Salt Lake went 10-10-10 for 40 points in 2008, good for third place in the West Division and a spot in the playoffs.

It's easy to see why Duke Crews created so much preseason buzz in the CIAA. Crews, Bowie State's 6-foot-8 junior forward, was arguably the most hyped player in black college basketball when he transferred from Tennessee.

He's lived up the talk, especially after dropping a career-high 25 points and 12 rebounds on Johnson C. Smith, a preseason favorite to win the West Division. "I'm just trying to make the most of my situation," he said. "I love the game of basketball and every time I get out on the court, I have a blast." Crews is having lots of fun in Division II and Bowie State, where he's played six games since his transfer was approved by the NCAA Clearinghouse.

He's playing in front of smaller crowds, but CIAA fans are every bit as knowledgeable and rabid as any in the nation. Crews is responded by averaging 18.2 points and 8.6 rebounds per game for the 9-6 Bulldogs. "It's a different type of atmosphere (in the CIAA)," Crews says. "You've got the band; you got the dance line and the cheerleaders. You get to interact with the fans more.

It gives you a high school feel almost, but it's more intense and it's a totally different experience. You play in front of 25,000 people (in the SEC) but it's different, whereas at a historically black college, it's going to be a different environment everywhere you go with smaller gyms, but the people still love the game and you have to respect that."

And Crews respects what he's getting at Bowie State after being kicked off Tennessee's team after breaking undisclosed team rules. After a slow start without Crews, the Bulldogs have a three-game win streak and are playing like the team expected to win the CIAA East according to preseason polls.

"We kind of took a step back when I came back trying to get our chemistry and jell, but right now we're jelling better every day," he said. "We've just got to continue to do that, and by the time the (CIAA tournament) comes around, the sky's the limit."