BALTIMORE, Md. – A 21-point halftime deficit was too large to overcome as the Coppin State University men's basketball team dropped its home opener to the United States Naval Academy, 70-53 at the PEC Arena. The Eagles fall to 0-9 on the year while the Midshipmen improve to 8-3.
Karonn Davis scored a game-high 18 points on 6-of-13 shooting with three treys along with a season-high six assists to go with four rebounds and two steals. Coppin also got nine points from
KeAndre Fair on an identical three triples while
Cedric Council matched his season-high with eight points.
The Eagles outscored Navy, 39-35 in the second half after shooting an impressive 50% from the field in the period, matching its highest shooting percentage of any half this season. Unfortunately, Coppin shot just 21.4% in the first half compared to 54.2% for Navy allowing the Mids to jump out to a 35-14 halftime lead.
Coppin opened up the game with a pair of threes from
Lamar Morgan and Fair to tie the game at six with 14:05 left in the first half and played pretty even until Navy went on a 23-2 run over an eight minute stretch to pull away.
Navy scored the first five points of the second half to take its largest lead at 40-14 with 16:06 remaining but Coppin finally started to hit some shots and pulled to within 13 points on multiple occasions. Davis tallied 14 points in the final 20 minutes to key the second half run for the Eagles.
The Midshipmen were led by George Kiernan with 17 points with all but two coming in the first half.
Next up for the Navy & Gold is a road trip to the University of Connecticut on Saturday, December 9. Tipoff is scheduled for 2 pm on ESPNEWS.
