Wrapping up Coppin StateThe Coppin State players are getting the benefit of a scholarship and the school plenty of good paydays for the guarantee games the Eagles have played thus far.
Even still, you have to feel sorry for the group that lost by 47 points on Friday at the Bradley Center, then hopped on a bus and headed south to Bloomington where the Eagles are liable to lose as badly - if not worse - when they take to the Assembly Hall court at noon.
Taking into consideration the experience he has in scheduling games, I asked MU coach Tom Crean how tough such a turnaround is for a team.
"(Coach Fang Mitchell) is such an excellent person, and you'd find very few people in the game that don't root for him to be successful, other than the night they're playing him," he said. "That's tough. That is tough. I don't know what to say. It's a tough situation all the way around, to get on a bus and go that far. But they have to do what they have to do, we have to do what we have to do and I'm glad we got the win."
Injury update: Not surprisingly, neither Dan Fitzgerald (left wrist) nor David Cubillan (left ankle) played against Coppin State.
It appears as though MU will take the remaining time it has before its Big East opener Jan. 3 against Providence to allow Fitzgerald as much time as possible to heal. Crean said he might have been able to spot Cubillan some minutes, but judging by the way he was hopping solely on his right foot in the Golden Eagles' pre-game huddle, that might have been wishful thinking.
Crean appeared confident Cubillan would be able to get back onto the court at some point next week.
Keeping it up: The way MU has played over the past few weeks, there can't be any quibbling over its No. 10 ranking.
The Golden Eagles have done everything they're supposed to do: win in tough environments on the road as well as pummel the opponents visiting the Bradley Center for guarantee games. The performance against Coppin State might have been the most complete, prompting Crean to say this:
"We've had some outstanding, high-level games and for the most part in the last 120 minutes of basketball this past week. I'd say we competed at a very high level for 105, 110 of those."
Lineup shuffle: After a couple of lackluster performances coming on the heels of his 12-point, nine-rebound outing at Wisconsin, Dwight Burke was replaced in the starting lineup Friday by Lawrence Blackledge.
Blackledge was solid in 18 minutes, putting up four points, five rebounds and two blocked shots. Burke, meanwhile, was last big man off the bench (excluding freshman Pat Hazel) and played just eight minutes, finishing with two points and two rebounds.
Blackledge provided one of the two biggest highlights for MU with a rim-rattling alley oop dunk. Wesley Matthews' throwdown of an oop from Maurice Acker - a play during which he actually stole the pass in mid-air away from Dominic James - was the other.
Happy holidays: Crean gave the Golden Eagles off until 2 p.m. on Dec. 26. It's much-deserved time off, according to the ninth-year coach.
"I think everybody's ready for a break," he said. "They've done a great job. They've played very hard. I've got a couple of guys that I always read and I thought the day off we took this week was good. In the past I'd never take a day off during Christmas. We gave them a full day off and you see the dividends paid, and we don't practice very long now and when we get back we won't do that either. Mature team, experienced team, and I'm anxious to see them come back with a great feeling because of the rest they got."
http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archive/2007/12/22/wrapping-up-coppin-state.aspx
