clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Coppin State vs. North Carolina Central: MEAC Tournament Features Eagle On Eagle Crime

Because of course I looked at my computer screen and saw the final score and thought "how bad could this train wreck have possibly been?"

By Nicolas A. Lewis
Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

In any postseason conference tournament, it can be a challenge to advance, as you play teams you are very familiar with, and who know just as much about you. The best play the worst, and the two wind up in those slots for fairly apparent reasons.

Except in the MEAC. It is well known to those who follow this conference that seeding quite literally means nothing come conference tournament time. In fact, the MEAC recently had a multi-year stretch where the top seed didn't even win a game, let alone the conference's autobid.

Given that information, you could argue that Jordan Parks' layup with 11 seconds left to defeat Coppin State when they met in the regular season is a result that is either extremely useful or completely goddamn worthless as a predictive tool.

Good news, owner of that second opinion, you were absolutely right. Because the Eagles (of NCCU) didn't just beat the Eagles (of Coppin State) by a final tally of 91-43. It could be argued that the game wasn't even that close.

Consider the following:

  • Coppin's two leading scorers, Arnold Fripp and Taariq Cephas, combined to shoot 8-for-16 from the floor and 5-for-7 from 3-point range for a solid 23 points. The rest of the team shot 7-for-34 and was just a hot mess.
  • In the last 14 minutes of game action, Coppin turned the ball over 12 times, and also missed 12 of the 14 field goals they attempted.
  • That included a stretch of 3:22 where they didn't attempt a shot. Not didn't make a shot, didn't even attempt a single shot.
  • North Carolina Central scored 52 points in the paint. They could have missed every shot they took from outside of about 10 feet and still won this game by 28.
Granted, the result from last night probably makes a lot more sence than NCCU's two-point victory in January, considering the massive size and experience discrepancy. One-third of Coppin's nine-man rotation is 5'10" or shorter, while every NCCU player is at least six foot tall; NCCU starts four seniors, while half of Coppin's six seniors play sparingly.

I think the matchup between Parks and Coppin State's Jerimyjah Batts was a great example of everything that was bound to go wrong in this game. Parks is a 6' 7", 200 pound lanky and quick athlete who has just about every skill you could want from a post player; Batts is a 6'8" 255 pound brick who is... good at being big.

Multiple times in the first half, Batts was matched up on Parks and had to just watch helplessly as his poor agility, poor footwork, and overall slow play was exploited for easy baskets. He's lucky he wasn't called for a flagrant foul on his shove of Karamo Jawara under the basket.

The second half was more of the same; uninspired basketball where Coppin's complete absence of any post game meant a lot of shooting, not so much passing, and even fewer made baskets.

Oh hey, look. What's up, Jeremiah Ingram and Enoch Hood? Yeah, you're going to be fun to watch next season.

Why did I watch this game again?

North Carolina Central played some of the sloppiest, most uninspired basketball I've seen all season in the second half... and they still out-scored Coppin State 33-8 in the last 14 minutes.

Highlights from the announcing of this game:

  • "I, like Coppin State, am just reaching for anything at this point."
  • "And who?[silence]...Guess who?[more silence]...Guess who?[still nothing]... That young man Jordan Parks."
  • "North Carolina Central, who I'm going to start referring to as the Cobra Kai, because they show no mercy."
  • Also, the fact that they could not figure out why Nimrod Hilliard's left thumb was taped for the entire second half (he jammed it deflecting a pass in the first half).

More From Mid-Major Madness