Preview: Gophers vs. Coppin State

Happy New Year, and congratulations to the Gopher Football team on their Music City Bowl victory. As for the men’s basketball team, they closed out 2004 with six consecutive victories and are playing the best team basketball we’ve seen in years. The past two victories have especially been impressive. The key for the first week of January is to keep that momentum building into Big Ten season.

The Coppin State Eagles should provide Minnesota with the opportunity to do just that, and they also figure to provide the Gophers with a little different look. Many of Minnesota’s opponents to date have had some offensive weapons but not necessarily a whole lot of focus on defense.

Coppin State is the exact opposite, as legendary coach Ron “Fang” Mitchell makes defense the #1, #2, and #3 priority. The Eagles led the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference in defense last season and ranked 21st in the country in points allowed. That propelled them to a share of the MEAC regular-season title and brought them within one game of the NCAA Tournament.

This year, it might be Coach Mitchell’s only chance at success, as the Eagles have so far proven to be an absolutely horrible offensive team. Their top scorer from last season (Jimmy Boykin – 14 ppg) graduated, and their best offensive player this season (Kelvin Green – a preseason all-conference pick) left the team in late November for personal reasons. That leaves Coppin State with just one player (6’7″ junior wing Nicholas King – 10.5 ppg) averaging in double figures.

The offensive stats get worse from there. The Eagles are averaging just 44 points per game, are shooting just 34% from the field, have made just 24% of their 3-point attempts, and have twice as many turnovers as assists. It has not been pretty.

Making things even worse, Coppin State has played a monstrous schedule. Their 2-9 record as basically meaningless, as they’ve had to play on the road against Kentucky, Dayton, Texas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Utah, and Marquette. Yikes. The Eagles of course lost each of those games, and they never even cracked 50 points until this Wednesday against Marquette (when they lost 55-65). 42-73 at Pittsburgh and 37-66 at Utah tell you how they’ve been shooting the ball on the road.

Here are my Gopher Keys of the Game:

1. Don’t Regress. Against an overmatched team like Coppin State, the Gophers won’t be able to show improvement. But they will be able to show regression. With the Big 10 opener a week away, that would be bad. Minnesota needs to maintain the level of aggressiveness, hustle, and confidence we’ve seen in the past two games, even they don’t need to do that to beat the Eagles.

2. Supporting Cast. Vincent Grier is a beast, Jeff Hagen has been dominant in several games, Brent Lawson and Aaron Robinson have really stepped up their play as seniors, and Rico Tucker is beginning to find his groove (although he still needs to improve his assist/turnover ratio). The key to an upper-half Big 10 finish (yes, it is a legitimate possibility to discuss) is to get the other three guys playing a little more consistently. Dan Coleman (probably the biggest key) looks to be getting his confidence back but still needs to play a little tougher. J’son Stamper has been a rebounding force when healthy but needs to get a little more comfortable on the offensive end. And Spencer Tollackson needs to improve his decision making on when to shoot and when to just make the simple pass. This will be a good game to try to get these three some more confidence and experience.

3. Patience and Smother. The Eagles have good defensive fundamentals and will try to slow the tempo, so the Gophers need to be patient on offense and get good shots. Defensively, they need to be bullies. The Gophers have proven to be as good or better defensively as the other teams that have held Coppin State below 50, and they need to make sure the Eagles have nightmares about The Barn on the way home by not giving them any room to breathe on offense.

New Year’s Day tends to result in some sluggish performances, but if the Gophers were able to keep (and improve) their intensity over a week-long Christmas break, they should be able to do it now. With a potentially tougher game coming up on Monday night, this might be Minnesota’s last chance this season to cruise to a comfortable victory and get the reserves some playing time. My prediction: Minnesota 71 Coppin State 49.

Talk about the game on our Gopher Basketball message board.