When the Coppin State men?s basketball team takes the floor tonight against Mount St. Mary?s in the NCAA Tournament?s opening-round game in Dayton, Ohio, a national television audience on ESPN will see the Eagles have lost 20 games.
But what many outside of the Baltimore area don?t know is how the Eagles lost more games than any team that has ever qualified for the NCAA Tournament.
Just call it: “Coach Fang?s Road Trip.”
The Eagles and Ron “Fang” Mitchell spent the early portion of the schedule competing in what has become an annual nationwide, non-conference barnstorming tour. The team went 1-10 in games against teams from conferences regarded much higher in the Ratings Percentage Index than Coppin State?s Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. But included in that group were four teams ? Kent State, Xavier, Indiana and Marquette ? that went on to make the NCAA Tournament this season.
The Eagles? players feel the losses they took were trumped by the experience of playing against better competition than the MEAC offers.
“That was one of the reasons I came here,” senior forward Julian Conyers said. “I wanted to play against the best competition. I got the opportunity, and I think it really prepared us to play against the top competition in the nation, because we?ve seen them before.”
Last season, the Eagles faced a plethora of teams from major conferences: Alabama, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas State, Missouri, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia Tech.
This season, though, Mitchell tinkered with the schedule, going with “a couple easy games” before playing against the big boys.
“If you feel it?s just a game you can?t win, what are your chances of winning?,” Mitchell said. “I?m talking about competing and taking a challenge, because that?s what this is all about. Life is going to be constantly that way ? constant battles.”
Coppin State certainly won the battle at the MEAC Tournament last week. The seventh-seeded Eagles defeated top-seeded Morgan State (22-10) in the final to cap a run in which they won four games in five days to earn their first berth in the NCAA Tournament since 1997.
The next battle for Coppin State is in-state foe Mount St. Mary?s (18-14), which won the Northeast Conference Tournament last week.
If the Eagles win, they?ll return to the RBC Center in Raleigh, N.C. ? the same place they won the MEAC Tournament ? to face top-seeded and top-ranked North Carolina (32-2) on Friday night at 7:10 on CBS.
“We?re hot there,” senior guard Tywain McKee said. “That?s good for us, because we?ve played a couple games there. It?ll be good for us.”
