Flashback #5: Submitted March 25

Coppin women conclude tough, successful season
By Keith Henry

COLLEGE PARK- The Coppin State Lady Eagles wrapped up what was a crazy season for them. A few unexpected happenings took place for the Lady Eagles. But under head coach Derek Brown, things seem to have a way of working out for good.

The Lady Eagles senior backcourt duo of Rashida Suber and Shalamar Oakley will be missed. As Brown stated, “They’re two young ladies that put their heart into every practice and every game. Rashida was a little tough to teach defense to, but as of last year, she became a very good defender. Since they arrived at (Coppin State), they’ve been nothing but winners. We talked about it in the locker room a few minutes ago that their leadership will be gone and I don’t know who’s going to step up and be the leader or leaders. They’ll be very hard to replace.”

The duo was ranked fifth in the country in scoring coming into their NCAA first round game with Maryland. Even though they lost 80-66 on March 23, Coppin State (22-12) had nothing to really hang their heads about. The Lady Eagles threw a serious scare at Maryland before they pulled away in the second half. Oakley stated, “Coming into the game, of course we practiced hard all week and Coach Brown prepared us very well, so we were confident they we could play with them. We knew we were going to go out and play our hardest and give them a good game. They got off to a quick start but we maintained our focus and we stayed confident with each other and we felt we could keep the game close.”

Suber added, “Obviously we got there attention right from the start. Once the game started, we never backed down. We prepared very well and never backed down.”

In all four years with this duo, Coppin has advanced to a postseason tournament. The Lady Eagles made history as the first MEAC team to win a WNIT game in 2007 when they defeated St. Joseph’s on their home court in Philadelphia.

It has been 25 years since a MEAC team has won a game in the NCAA tournament. South Carolina State beat LaSalle in a play-in game in 1983 before getting smoked at Tennessee in the first round.

The season began with Whitney Cunningham and Danielle Anders being declared academically ineligible for the fall half of the season, which was a problem because they were part of the main cogs for the Lady Eagles. When they came back for the Pepperdine game, the Lady Eagles had to adjust to them getting back in the lineup.

Unfortunately, that included MEAC losses to eventual regular season champion North Carolina A&T, Morgan State and UMES. But the Lady Eagles rebounded with 11 consecutive victories which included their hard fought 72-70 victory over N.C. A&T in the MEAC Championship game to earn their third NCAA bid in four years.

Coppin will look to go farther next year, but with an ever increasingly competitive MEAC staring at them next season, it will once again be a battle to get to this stage of the game.