Andrews’ 25 points not enough in 83-77 loss
December games at ranked Indiana, Kansas and Kansas State boosted the visibility of the Howard basketball program. But losing by an average of 49.3 points, also damaged the psyche of a talented but fragile team that is juggling personnel and searching for an identity.
Wednesday night at Burr Gymnasium, Howard was happy to say: We’re not in Kansas anymore.
But ruining the homecoming was MEAC foe Coppin State. In an entertaining game full of momentum shifts and racehorse runs, the Eagles of Baltimore used a late 13-0 charge to burst past the Bison, 83-77.
With Coppin’s legendary coach Ron “Fang” Mitchell changing defenses, the Eagles made it a game of guards versus guards. Coppin (6-8, 1-0) forced 20 turnovers and converted many into quick-strike scores. Howard (4-12, 1-2) couldn’t keep pace, especially with its most-experienced ball-handler, Calvin Thompson (separated shoulder), out of the lineup.
“My hat’s off to coach Mitchell,” Howard coach Kevin Nickelberry said. “He did a good job with the junk defenses all night, made us think a little bit. We’ve got a freshman point guard [Simuel Frazier] playing a lot of minutes. We turned the ball over at crucial moments.”
Coppin senior forward Akeem Ellis (28 points, five rebounds) and senior guard Tony Gallo (23 points, four assists, three steals) were the catalysts, negating the work of Tulsa transfer and former T.C. Williams star Glenn Andrews (25 points, seven rebounds, six assists).
In the final two minutes, Andrews followed his own miss with a put-back and added a 3-pointer to cut the Coppin lead to 76-73. But the Eagles were true at the free-throw line, hitting seven of eight attempts in the final 61 seconds.
“We have a lot of guard slash forwards, like myself,” the 6-foot-6 Ellis said. “We can create a lot of matchup problems for other teams.”
Howard had the edge inside with 6-10 sophomore Alphonso Leary (six points, one rebound) and 6-7 junior Mike Phillips (five points, six rebounds, three blocks). But the duo took only seven shots, hitting five. With Coppin switching from man-to-man pressure to zone pressure, Howard could never get settled on offense. Andrews took 17 shots from beyond the arc, hitting just four.
“What the junk defenses did was take Phillips out of the game. He was a non-factor,” Nickelberry said. “Too many shots from Andrews. That’s not what I want. I don’t want to take his aggressiveness away, I want to get some other guys to step up.”
Doing that in the first half was Howard junior Dadrian Collins (11 points, four rebounds), who hit three straight 3-pointers and scored all of his points in a span of less than four minutes as Howard took its biggest lead, 22-13. But Coppin retaliated with a 14-0 run, highlighted by a pair of 3-pointers by Gallo, to take a 42-36 lead at the half.
When Frazier (11 points, five assists, five turnovers) found cracks in the Coppin defense midway through the second half, he scored on consecutive drives, one a three-point-play, as Howard briefly took the lead, 57-55. But Coppin’s retaliation was swift.
“We’re missing Thompson. We’re used to having the ball in his hands a lot,” Nickelberry said. “Thompson gets to the free throw line so much. That’s the dynamic we need. But we can’t cry over spilled milk.”
Notes: Nickelberry is unsure when Thompson will return … Howard shot 50 percent from the floor. Other than Andrews, the Bison hit 21 of 35 shots (60 percent) … Coppin’s most conspicuous player is 6-8 Caucasian Logan Wiens (nine points, eight rebounds), a rarity in the MEAC, which is made up of 11 schools, all among the nation’s historically black colleges and universities. Wiens, 25,is a former minor league baseball pitcher in his first season at Coppin.
