Taylor Coppenrath scores a tourney record 43 points as Vermont ends the Black Bears’ season.
By Randy Whitehouse
Staff Writer

BURLINGTON, Vt. – “You can’t stop him!”

With just under two minutes left in the first half, what had quickly become painfully obvious to the University of Maine was finally echoing off the walls of Patrick Gym. The Black Bears could not stop the University of Vermont’s Taylor Coppenrath.

Playing his first game after missing a month with a broken bone in his left wrist, the 6-foot-9 Coppenrath scored an America East tournament record 43 points to lead No. 2 Vermont over No. 4 Maine, 72-53, in the America East Tournament Saturday.

Coppenrath, the two-time conference player of the year, shot 14-of-19 from the field and 14-of-15 from the charity stripe and added 13 rebounds to help the Catamounts collect their second straight conference title. The junior forward outscored the Black Bears, 28-23, in the first half.

“I thought I was going to play limited minutes and just contribute how ever I could,” Coppenrath said. “The guys hit me when I needed to get the ball.”

“It’s absolutely impossible to guard him with one person,” said Maine coach John Giannini. “Forget it.”

After learning that lesson in the first half, Maine began putting two defenders on Coppenrath in the post to start the second. While the strategy limited his opportunities (five field goal attempts in the second half), Coppenrath was able to create contact, despite wearing a splint on his left thumb.

“A couple of times it got bumped a little bit and shot a little pain in there, but no real long-lasting pain,” Coppenrath said.

“Needless to say, I never once asked him how it was,” UVM coach Tom Brennan said. “I didn’t want to know.”

Germain Njila added 13 points for the Catamounts. Eric Dobson led the Black Bears with 11 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, while Joe Campbell added 10 and Kevin Reed nine.

Not only did Maine (20-10, 12-7 in America East) have to overcome a 17-point halftime deficit, but they had to do so without their best low-post option, senior Mark Flavin, who was limited to four minutes and zero points with a calf injury suffered last week. On top of that, Maine wasn’t getting the transition offense it was hoping for (just two fast break baskets) or hitting from beyond the 3-point arc (4-for-29).

Yet the Black Bears still managed to put together a 12-3 run and pulled within eight, 49-41, on one of those rare transition hoops by Reed with 11:23 to go. Vermont (22-8, 16-3) then began to gradually pull away in the next six minutes, widening the margin on a T.J. Sorrentine trey with 5:48 left and then an off-balance jumper by Coppenrath a minute later.

“I wasn’t that concerned (about Maine’s run) because these guys don’t get shook when it gets close,” said Brennan. “Fortunately, it never came down to that. And I knew it as soon as T.J. hit that dagger.”

Actually, the dagger may have come when Coppenrath was announced during pre-game introductions, sending the crowd of 3,200 into an early frenzy.

Coppenrath then started and ended a 14-0 UVM run with inside buckets that put the Cats up 22-10 midway through the first half. Treys by Chris Markwood and Udo Hadjisotirov helped get the Black Bears in the game with an 8-0 run of their own. But Vermont responded with a 10-0 string late in the half and Coppenrath accounted for the Cats’ final eight points to make it 40-23 at intermission.

“I think if I would have been smart enough (to double-team Coppenrath) the whole game, it could have been interesting,” Giannini said. “My players did everything I could have asked. I just didn’t have them doing the things we needed to to win the game until it was way late.”

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