Flashback #4: Submitted March 24

Maryland pulls away from Coppin women
By Keith Henry

COLLEGE PARK- The Coppin State Lady Eagles knew what they were walking into on March 23 at the Comcast Center. They had to battle the Maryland Lady Terrapins plus the referees which seemed to give Maryland the majority of the calls. But Coppin State gave Maryland hell for quite a while before the inside strength of the Lady Terps combined with foul trouble for the Lady Eagles equaled an 80-66 victory for Maryland in the NCAA Tournament first round.

Coppin State head coach Derek Brown was happy about the Lady Eagles effort. “Number one, I think our team played very well today. We had a good week of practice,” said Brown. “(Maryland) don’t do a lot of things and they’re going to wear you down with talent. I felt we did a very good job defensively. Most of the game, in the second half, they really started to get the ball down low … As you know, we don’t have that many people and were in foul trouble, so there were things there that we just couldn’t do. I probably should have double teamed more, but I didn’t. I thought about that after the game. Overall, these two young ladies here (Shalamar Oakley and Rashida Suber), I’ll put them up against anybody in the country. I think they proved themselves again today as they do game in and game out, they know how to play.”

Maryland came out with a 15-6 start and appeared ready to turn this game into a rout. However, the Coppin backcourt duo of Rashida Suber and Shalamar Oakley wouldn’t let Coppin State fold. The Coppin backcourt scored the next 14 points to give Coppin State (22-12) a 20-15 lead midway through the first half. The duo scored Coppin State’s first 27 points of the game. Suber led Coppin with 25 points while Oakley scored 20 in the game.

The main problem with Coppin on the afternoon was rebounding where Maryland had a 42-26 advantage. Especially on the offensive side where Maryland outrebounded Coppin 17-8 and outscored them 16-9 on second chance points. That was a point of concern for the Lady Eagles most of the season. It was no different in this game.

Brown stated, “When people are in foul trouble, we couldn’t play the way we usually play. Crystal Langhorne (who led Maryland with 25 points and 12 rebounds) usually sets herself opposite the basketball and when the shot goes up, she works very hard to get the offensive rebound. She is very hard to move if we’re playing weak side at the time. Now when the shot goes up, her defender has to go back and try to push her out because she does not move easily.”

The first of a couple knockout blows came early in the second half. After an Oakley lay-up drew CSU within 45-41 with 17:14 left, Maryland (31-3) went on a 12-2 run. The strength of that run was a couple of wide open three point shots from Kristi Tolliver and Ashleigh Newman. A jumper from Marissa Coleman put Maryland ahead 57-43 with 12:39 left.

The physical play of Coppin also kept them in the game. Tolliver said, “They were an extremely physical team. I think it was in their game plan to be physical with us and test our toughness. In the first half they were definitely the aggressor. In the second half, we regained some composure and embraced their aggressive player. We credit them for putting us out of our comfort zone in the first half, but credit to us in the second half
for making adjustments and getting tougher in the second half.”

Suber said, “I don’t think it affected them. They just turned the intensity up as well. We tried to match them but the calls just didn’t seem to go our way but it seemed they weren’t getting the calls either. We were both playing physical!”