University of Vermont Catamounts Basketball 2003-04 America East Champions

2003-04 News Articles Cats outdid themselves

By Patrick Garrity, Free Press Staff The Burlington Free Press March 25, 2004

Minutes before the University of Vermont men's basketball title defense officially commenced with the season-opening prac- tice the morning of Oct. 18, Catamounts coach Tom Brennan spoke of the challenge that lay ahead. "The single hardest thing to do in sports is do it again," Brennan said. "The expectations are astronomical, really, for a team from Vermont. All that being said, I ain't worried about it one little bit." Why worry? So the year would begin with a four-game, 13,000-mile losing streak. So the star guard was bound for a sea- son-long shooting slump. So the two fifth-year senior centers would have one good knee between them. So the leading scorer would break his wrist in the middle of the pennant race. All of it made The Championship Season, Part II, that much more compelling. The great expectations of October gave way to a rollicking winter ride that somehow managed to one-up the 2002-03 sea- son -- only the best season in the history of the program. I'll see your 21 wins and raise you to a record 22. I'll see your conference championship buzzer-beater in Boston and raise you a one-armed, 43-point masterpiece at Patrick Gym. I'll see your sacrificial offering to Arizona in the NCAA debut and raise you a fearless, 40-minute effort against Connecticut in the sequel. The single hardest thing to do in sports isn't to do it again, Coach, it is to do it even better the second time around, and your Cats accomplished the feat. What's more, next year could be better still. A bumpy trip Let's get this out of the way: Yes, UVM received a substantial break in the America East tournament when Boston U and Northeastern went down in a quarterfinal twin-killing. To suggest the Catamounts' road to the NCAAs was plowed and salted, how- ever, ignores the potholes. Starting with Matt Sheftic's torn knee ligament and ending with Taylor Coppenrath's broken wrist bone, the Cats played hurt all season. Alex Jensen, slowed by his own knee injury, was unable to be a consistent perimeter performer. Scotty Jones was crip- pled by chronic arthritis in both knees, leaving the green Martin Klimes as the only healthy center. Then there was Coppenrath. The Northeast Kingdom's most significant contribution since Thaddeus Fairbanks invented the platform scale, Coppenrath was lost for seven games with a cracked scaphoid. His heroic return obscures the fact that the team man- aged to go 5-2 -- including a pair of tourney wins -- without him. "It's really incredible what we've done given what has happened to us along the way," Brennan said. "There's just something about this group. They're not going to be denied." From Barnet, with love Nobody, not even Brennan the ultra-optimist, was thinking about Selection Sunday after Rhode Island belted the Cats by 38 points Dec. 30. "If it was a fight, they would have stopped it," the coach said of a defeat that dropped his team's record to 3-5. The Cats wouldn't lose again for 47 days. A sweep of Northeastern. A win at BU. The annual Nick Billings razz-fest. The ensu- ing school-record, 13-game winning streak was filled with shining moments. Coppenrath sparkled in each. The 6-foot-9 junior produced one of the finest seasons in school history, deservedly earning national acclaim along the way. No less an authority than UConn's Emeka Okafor called him "a big-time player" and that was after the Huskies star helped limit him to 3-for-17 shooting. That rough finale cannot smudge a brilliant winter nor will it sober Coppenrath's prospects for next season. NBA scouts might be as common a sight at Patrick Gym next year as Rally Cat and Mama Gooch. Coppenrath is 79 points shy of Tony Orciari for second place on the program's all-time scoring list and a clear favorite to match Reggie Lewis as the league's only three-time player of the year. Get a good look at No. 22 next winter, Cats fans. The next time you see that number, it will be hanging on a wall. More from more Coppenrath will be hard-pressed to improve on his performance, but you can expect more from his teammates. Exhibit A: T.J. Sorrentine. The junior guard returned to the lineup after missing 2002-03 because of injury, but it was a sea- son-long fight. His jumper was never reliable. His timing was often a half-beat off. He battled though, then carried the team through the conference quarterfinals and semifinals until Coppenrath was ready. The swagger Sorrentine displayed in the NCAA loss to UConn was the Sorrentine of 2002. "He's still not all the way back," Brennan said. "Part of who he is is shooting that dagger, that big shot, and this year, he struggled with that. "But look at the kid. All he's done is win rookie of the year, player of the year and first-team all-conference, and we only expect him to get better. That's a crazy thing." David Hehn and Germain Njila also will return to deliver a final installment of heart, and Jensen's recovery, Klimes' contin- ued growth and Matt Hanson's imminent blossoming can only strengthen the core. Kyle Cieplicki, a season of practice under his belt, and recruits Ryan Schneider and Josh Duell join the mix next year, and the team hopes to add two more big bodies to the Class of 2008. One more time Two 1,400-point scorers. Four starters. Six seniors. The pieces are in place for another run. Where will that run end? Let's see ... the 2005 NCAA tournament first-round sites include Worcester, Mass.; Boise, Idaho; Tuscon, Ariz.; Cleveland; Indianapolis; Nashville, Tenn.; Oklahoma City; and Charlotte, N.C. Sounds greedy, yes, but the Catamounts have rewritten all the rules over the last two winters, and no one understands that better than the Catamounts themselves. "I told the guys, "Get hungry; stay hungry,'" Sorrentine said, minutes after the loss to UConn. "We'll be back." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Coppenrath's Day In Sun Isn't Ready To Set Just Yet

The Caledonian-Record · Friday March 26, 2004 By Jamie Norton

It's been little more than a week since the greatest men's basketball season in the history of the University of Vermont came to an end, and the buzz surrounding the Catamounts' historic season has yet to die down. Anywhere you go in Vermont, you can still hear the idle chatter. "Did you watch the game?" Everybody knows what game you mean. "Oh yeah, we were right there in the first half. That big Okafor kid really shut us down." You walk down the street, pick up the paper, there's at least a little something about it. You turn on the TV, J.J. Cioffi makes a passing remark. Yes, the buzz is still alive and well, and right at the center of that buzz is Taylor Coppenrath. By now, if you didn't get a chance to see him play, you've heard the stories. The kid helped the Cats get to the NCAA tournament for the first time ever last year as they put together their best season in school history. Then, they outdid themselves by compiling an even better record and getting back to the tourney this year. Coppenrath, of course, was their leading man. And as if his legacy were in doubt, the 6-foot-9 junior's 43-point performace in the America East Championship game all but sealed it - it was his first game back after miss- ing seven games with a broken wrist. The simple truth following that contest was that if you didn't know who Coppenrath was before, you knew now. He wasn't just a one-man show, though. His roommate and buddy, guard T.J. Sorrentine, was among a supporting cast that befits that of a Seinfeld marathon. Think the Catamounts could have flown that far the past two years just on Coppenrath's ticket? Guess again. But Taylor is something special. You already know about his fourth-in-the-nation 24.1 points per game this season. You've heard about his 1,600-plus career points at UVM. You probably read somewhere that his 20.1 ppg is second all-time at UVM, and he'll proba- bly pass that next year. There's more to it than that. Coppenrath's gifts go beyond what he does on the court. His contributions tranc- send the baselines and the sidelines and the 3-point line and the free throw line. What he has done both for sports in Vermont and Vermont itself is almost unprecedented - at least in basketball. He has done for hoops in our humble little state what John LeClair did for hockey - he put us back on the map. Coppenrath has quickly become the closest thing to a celebrity to come out of the Green Mountain State since, well - Howard Dean. But Dean probably can't knock down a jumper with the same kind of touch as Taylor. He has become a bona fide sports super- star - at least by the standards of a state that bases its economy on maple syrup and snow tires. In the tiny little puddle-sized lake that is Vermont, he is our blue whale. It would be one thing if UVM's biggest gun came to us as a sholarship player from a huge prep school somewhere out in the midwest, a la LeBron James. But the thing that makes him even more special - and probably even more popular - is that our guy really is our guy. During the nationally televised broadcast of UVM's game against the mighty Huskies of UConn last week, it was mentioned that he hails from our tiny little town of West Barnet. When else would a town the size of the stock room at Wal-Mart be mentioned on national TV? Taylor attended high school at our very own St. Johnsbury Academy. Being a Division I high school, he played against the very best Vermont high school hoops had to offer, but who would have thought that would prepare him to face the very best the NCAA had to offer? Especially considering he was kept off the varsity team as a sophomore and only got two years of varsity expe- rience before battling with the big dogs at UVM. He didn't even score 1,000 points for the Academy, and suddenly, here he is - Vermont's savior. But all that's in the past. Coppenrath's sights are now focused indelibly on the future. He's still got one more year to play as a Catamount, as do most of his key teammates, so they'll have one more shot at the big prize. And after that, what will "Big T" do with his undeniable basketball talent? Will he be drafted by the NBA and play along- side the likes of Paul Pierce or Tracy McGrady? Or will he catch on with a team in town and wreak havoc in the rec leagues? Nobody knows. But no matter what the future holds, one thing is for certain - Taylor Coppenrath's 15 minutes of fame aren't up yet. © The Caledonian-Record News 1997 - 2004 · St. Johnsbury, Vermont http://www.caledonianrecord.com Back Talk: Vermont Hoops Hooked Him, But Now He Must Share

The New York Times March 21, 2004 By JON HART

At universities like Duke and Syracuse, making the N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament is a tradition. But when I was a student at the University of Vermont, it was a fantasy.In fact, a good portion of the student body probably did not even know the university had a squad. Perhaps that was a good thing. The players just were not good. Indeed, they were bad, extremely bad. While the ski team enjoyed a Lakersesque dominance and the hockey team played to raucous crowds, the Catamount hoopsters languished at the bottom of Division I. During my freshman year, I happened upon the team after a workout. The coach, the recently hired Tom Brennan, was greeting a smattering of fans assembled in the high-school-style wood bleachers. The atmosphere was more community board meeting than Carrier Dome pep rally, to put it mildly. But the ever-smiling Brennan, standing alone on the hardwood under the dim lights of Patrick Gymnasium, did not seem discouraged. Still, I didn't stay. Nor did many others for the Catamounts' 5-23 season in 1986-87. Perhaps Vermont was not meant to be a basketball power. I mean, the uni- versity wasn't really built for it. During my freshman year, two Goliath-size players were housed in my microsize dorm, known as the shoeboxes. A semester later, they did a fast break out of Vermont. A year or two later, my friend Mert persuaded me to go to a game. Soon, I was hooked. Perhaps the arctic temperatures had gotten the best of me, or maybe it was too difficult to get hockey tickets. Regardless, these hapless hoopsters, under the amiable Brennan, became my team. Heck, only a few hundred showed up at games, and Brennan would wave his hands, exhorting the fans. On television, he would crack jokes and implore the fans to show up. During the off-season, Brennan spent a few moments talking to my roommates and me at an off-campus hoagie shop. All this without a shoe contract from L. L. Bean, much less Nike or Adidas. Gradually, his work started to pay off as his recruits started to put a freeze on Vermont's losing ways. Kenny White, Staten Island's version of Bobby Hurley, and Kevin Roberson, our version of Christian Laettner (without the attitude), spearheaded the team's rise to respectability. Their efforts on the court did not translate into many victories, but we savored those that came, with Mert tap- ing the radio broadcast call of the time White hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat Northeastern. We never fathomed being on the road to the Final Four, but we hit the road anyway, trekking to Durham - New Hampshire, that is - for a showdown with the merely mediocre Wildcats. "Why are you here?" White said when he saw us. Now, the Cats are no longer my team alone. They regularly play to packed houses and have a large contingent of fans who travel to their road games. On Thursday, the Cats lost to UConn, 70-53, and finished the season 22-9, their third consecutive sea- son with at least 20 victories. Through all of it, Brennan, who has coached the team for 18 seasons, has not lost his soft touch. During a game at Albany last season, a player shot Brennan a look of discontent after he was taken out. Brennan ignored the game for a moment to confront his petulant player. As he engaged the player, he explained his actions. "I'm just trying to win a ballgame," he said. © The New York Times Company

Conn-quered Big East champion Huskies send Catamounts home with first-round win

The Burlington Free Press By Hillary Read MARCH 19, 2004

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Catamounts bared their teeth early and dug in for the long haul. The Huskies' claws were simply too long and too sharp. The best season in University of Vermont men's basketball history closed in the NCAA's first round Thursday night, with sec- ond-seeded Connecticut riding every wave of extraordinary size and talent to quell UVM star Taylor Coppenrath and secure a gritty 70-53 win. The 15th-seeded Catamounts, making their second straight NCAA appearance, leapt out to a 7-0 lead and hung tight for most of the first half before falling behind in double digits for good against the Big East champions. "This year, we understood what was going on, and we knew we had a chance," said David Hehn, who held All-American guard Ben Gordon to 14 points on 5-of-17 shooting. "Through the course of the game, I think you saw some All-Americans playing basket- ball. They are just unbelievable athletes, and that's stuff you don't coach." A Coppenrath 3-pointer kicked off the scoring, and a jumper from Germain Njila and two Coppenrath free throws had UVM up 7-0 with 1 minute, 56 seconds gone. Rashad Anderson lit the fuse of his scorching first half with two 3-pointers in a 66-second span to pull the Huskies to within 7-6, and Taliek Brown followed with a putback for UConn's first lead. UConn coach Jim Calhoun, who has raved about Coppenrath since the West Barnet luminary's 43-point performance against Maine on Saturday, shifted his lineup after UVM's fast start to put Emeka Okafor on Coppenrath, and the decision worked. Coppenrath finished just 3 of 17 from the field for 12 points on the night against the national preseason player of the year, who came into the game ranked eighth all-time in blocks as a junior. "Josh (Boone, who started the game on Coppenrath) apparently didn't believe the statis- tics the kid had, so I made the switch," Calhoun said. "Emeka had been after me for days to let me play against Coppenrath; he loves playing against the best." UVM (22-9) fought back to take the lead twice more; the Huskies responded with heavy zone pressure. UConn's breakneck transition game converted three Catamounts turnovers into a 9-0 run and a 21-15 lead with 9:48 to go. T.J. Sorrentine and Alex Jensen sandwiched a trio of 3-pointers around Anderson's fourth 3 for a 24-24 tie at the 8:30 mark, but Anderson's fifth and sixth 3s kicked off a 12-0 Huskies run. UConn took a 37-27 lead into intermission despite just nine points combined from Okafor and Gordon. "I just got into a rhythm," Anderson (22 points) said. "Felt like I couldn't miss." "The press got the game going and got the rhythm the way we wanted," Calhoun said. "From that point on, we kind of ground it out. We didn't have the kind of energy we had (winning the Big East championship last week), but I think you've got to credit some of that to Vermont." The Huskies (27-7) scored the first two buckets of the second half and moved ahead by 16 before Sorrentine (19 points) hauled the Cats back in his first NCAA appearance. His fifth 3-pointer pulled UVM back within 51-41 with 11:22 to play, but UConn finished the job with balanced scoring and a 14-rebound edge in the second half. "We played a pro team with a pro front line, so I'm very proud of our kids' efforts. I couldn't be happier," UVM coach Tom Brennan said, "and T.J. was great. He was great." "All the fanfare and everything, it wasn't a shock this time, and I think it helped all of us," Sorrentine said. "We just came out and played, and we believed we could win this game." While UVM took 32 of its 60 shots from 3-point land, UConn pumped in 36 points in the paint. Okafor finished with 15 points and 14 rebounds, and all-time school assists leader Brown (14 points, seven assists) went over the 1,000-point career mark in the second half. "This was good for our kids," Brennan said. "This was a great experience. I love these kids, and I love what they've done for me, and, hey, this was a great game. We played our hearts out." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Cats hang tough, fall to mighty Uconn UCONN...70 VERMONT...53 The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity MARCH 19, 2004

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Too big. Too quick. Too good. The nation's seventh-ranked men's basketball team was a little too much for the University of Vermont on Thursday night. The Catamounts badgered the powerful University of Connecticut for much of an NCAA tournament first-round game before the Huskies muscled out a 70-53 decision. UConn will continue down a tourney road it expects to end in San Antonio and the Final Four. UVM's road leads home, anoth- er historic season in tow. "I'm proud, so proud," Catamounts coach Tom Brennan said. "They played their hearts out." UVM's first NCAA appearance was rocky from start to finish a year ago, from a blizzard-plagued flight to an 80-51 dismissal by Arizona. This week in Buffalo, and particularly Thursday at HSBC Arena, the Catamounts made good on their second chance. They staggered the second-seeded Huskies with a 7-0 opening salvo, then answered a UConn surge with one of their own. When T.J. Sorrentine drained a 3-point shot with 8 minutes left in the first half, the score was even at 24 and a yellow-clad throng of UVM fans went mad. "A lot of people came out here to support us," said Sorrentine, who scored a team-high 19 points, "so it was important for us as players to put on a good show for the fans and to represent Vermont." Jay Menninger, manager of the UVM bookstore, was among the 125 people who flew to Buffalo on a chartered jet to show support. "To see UVM in the NCAAs, playing a team like UConn," Menninger said, "it's phenomenal. It's a great night." UConn withstood another Catamounts' run after halftime to advance to Saturday's second round. As for the Catamounts, a season that tipped off in the middle of autumn comes to an end two days short of spring. Their 22 victories are a school record. "If anybody thinks we don't belong here, that the best 64 teams in the country should be here, they just don't understand what this is all about," Brennan said. "To dream and drive all year, to make this kind of statement and get here ... they played there hearts out, and I couldn't be prouder." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press Sorrentine shines on big stage Cats point guard caps tough year with 19 in loss

The Burlington Free Press By Hillary Read MARCH 19, 2004

BUFFALO -- Two years, two broken wrists and one Taylor Coppenrath removed from top billing, T.J. Sorrentine proved on the grandest stage Thursday that he can still run the show. Sorrentine's 19-point NCAA debut kept the University of Vermont men's basketball team's hopes alive for the lion's share of the Catamounts' 70-53 fall to Connecticut and left Huskies coach Jim Calhoun in full admiration. "He's the kind of player everybody falls in love with," Calhoun said. Included in Sorrentine's 19 points were several steely buckets -- a fall- away 3-pointer for a 24-24 tie; a long 3 to cut UConn's second-half lead to 10 -- and absolutely no sign of prime-time jitters. "It's the big time, big arena, big game, so you want to bring your best," Sorrentine said, adding that he learned from experiencing UVM's first NCAA appearance on the sidelines last March. "A lot of people came out to sup- port us, so you want to give them a good show." Sorrentine's tumultuous season, which began on the wrong shooting foot and acquired a program's worth of responsibility with Coppenrath's stretch- run wrist injury, ended on a promising note for next season. "This guy was the king; he was the golden boy; but then everything fell apart for him," UVM coach Tom Brennan said of the 2002 America East play- er of the year. "It's not always easy to subjugate your game, but he's done nothing but that since forever. I have great, great regard for this kid, and I think next year is really going to be a break-out year for him," Brennan added. "This year was tough for him, but when it counted, he was there, and I think he will be again." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Coppenrath performance only human

The Burlington Free Press by Patrick Garrity, Free Press Columnist March 19, 2004 BUFFALO, N.Y. --Destiny works in funny ways, but it rarely leaves the ledger unbalanced. Five days after Taylor Coppenrath qualified for sainthood, he reminded us that he is only human after all. The University of Vermont superstar had a rough night Thursday, a 3-for-17 shooting nightmare that surely will rank as one of the worst in his star-spangled career. He finished with 12 points in the 70-53 loss to UConn in the NCAA tournament first-round game, and they were 12 hard points at that. Last weekend, in what will be remembered as one of the greatest athletic feats in Vermont history, Coppenrath scored 43 points against Maine in the America East championship game. The game was his first in a month; the performance came despite a broken bone in his left wrist. Hailed by hoops gurus and internet chat boards as the best secret in college basketball for most of the winter, Coppenrath outted himself with the fireworks display. Every newspaper from St. Johnsbury to San Francisco trumpeted his greatness, and ESPN replayed his highlights on a seemingly endless loop. Jim Calhoun and his seventh-ranked Huskies heard all about it. Picture this: A basketball coach with 674 career wins and a national championship his credit, not to mention an amazing- ly talented team, answering question after question about a kid from West Barnet. That was the scene Wednesday during Calhoun's pre-game news conference. So you can be pretty sure Calhoun had passed the word of Coppenrath onto his NBA-caliber frontcourt by tip-off Thursday. And just in case the Huskies weren't listening, Coppenrath bottomed out his first 3-point attempt 31 seconds into the game. Things went askew shortly after that. The Cats chose to bring Coppenrath onto the perimeter in hopes of drawing UConn's shot-blocking giant Emeka Okafor away from the basket. The plan didn't have Coppenrath missing 14 of his 17 shots, however. "I was a little frustrated," Coppenrath said. "I felt like I was rushing my shot and I think it maybe had a little to do with (Okafor). I just never could get in the flow." "Coppenrath's a tremendous player, but when they were saying they wanted to try to pull Emeka out, I almost wanted to tell them, no, they didn't,” said Calhoun “I've heard that too many times. He's more than just a shot blocker; he's a great defender, and he held a terrific player to 3-for-17." It seems like a horribly unfair ending to a fairy-tale season, considering what Coppenrath had done all winter. But Catamounts coach Tom Brennan wasn't worried about his boy. "The great thing about him is he's not going to change one bit," Brennan said. "He acts just this minute just like he was when he got 43. He just doesn't change, he doesn't get affected. ... He'll learn from this and he'll get a lot better from this." Perhaps classmate David Hehn said it best. "Everyone knows -- our team, our state, the whole country -- knows who Taylor Coppenrath is and what he means to us," Hehn said. "Maybe I feel a little bad his shots didn't fall, but I'm never going to stop passing him the ball." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press Conn-vincing Huskies shut down Coppenrath to send Catamounts home

The Boston Globe By Joe Sullivan, Globe Staff, 3/19/2004

BUFFALO -- For about 12 minutes last night, Vermont had the March Madness underdog cultists hoping, and the rabid Connecticut fans squirming in their seats at HSBC Arena and prob- ably on their couches at home. Then came the reality check. UConn is a team with Final Four and national champi- onship aspirations and the Huskies asserted themselves. The Catamounts never disgraced themselves, played valiantly and smart, but eventually succumbed, 70-53. It was the 3-point accuracy of Rashad Anderson (22 points) and an unrelenting defense that turned things UConn's way after Vermont led early and hung tough for much of the first half. Not surprisingly, the most important defender was the Huskies' All-America center, Emeka Okafor, who disarmed Vermont's star forward, Taylor Coppenrath (held to 12 points). Okafor also added 15 points and 14 rebounds in a performance that gave no indication he was suffering from a stress fracture in his lower back. He moved, ran, and jumped as if he were pain-free. Ben Gordon was his usual under-control self and scored an understated 14 points while also doing his part defensively in practically eliminating guard David Hehn from the Vermont offense. Vermont was kept in it by point guard T.J. Sorrentine, who scored 19 points. Following a TV timeout with 7:17 left in the first half, UConn started tightening up defensively and Vermont had great difficulty getting off good shots, and especially had trouble finding Coppenrath in scoring position. The only points Vermont would score before halftime came on a 3-pointer by reserve forward Corey Sullivan. At the timeout it was 27-24 UConn, and the Huskies came out of their huddle and got the ball down low to Okafor, who scored on a baby hook. Anderson then swished a 22-footer from just left of the top of the key to give UConn a 32-24 lead. The only way Vermont stayed in the game was with solid man-to-man defense and patience. They ran down the shot clock, and, for the most part, made UConn use the clock, and that kept the game from getting out of hand. UConn also missed free throws but still expanded its lead. Gordon neatly banked in a shot off a drive to make it 34-24 and Taliek Brown weaved his way to the hoop for a layup and a 36-24 lead. Okafor completed the first-half scoring for UConn by hitting the second of two free throws. In the first 12 minutes, Vermont more than held its own. The Catamounts raced to a 7-0 lead with Coppenrath hitting a 3- pointer and two free throws. Freshman forward Josh Boone started guarding Coppenrath but after Vermont's fast start, UConn coach Jim Calhoun quickly switched to Okafor, and the Huskies' center gained control of the matchup. Meanwhile, Anderson started getting open at the arc and he was nailing threes. He was 6 for 8 in the half. With Vermont holding a 15-12 lead, UConn surged with Gordon scoring a driving layup, Anderson hitting a 3-pointer, Brown a driving layup, and Gordon a dunk to give the Huskies a 21-15 lead. Sorrentine and Anderson traded threes and it was 24-18 UConn, but Alex Jensen and Sorrentine hit back-to-back 3-point- ers to bring Vermont within 27-24. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

ON COLLEGE BASKETBALL Fun and done for Vermont The Boston Globe By Mark Blaudschun, Globe Staff, 3/19/2004

BUFFALO -- It was the night before his team's NCAA spotlight dance and Vermont coach Tom Brennan was standing in a hotel lobby, waiting to go to dinner at a joint that has become his favorite in a city he's fond of. Brennan was mellow. He had handled one of the main chores of the trip -- the press conferences. And by a consensus opin- ion, Brennan had won that one hands down, with his folksy, straight-from-the-heart message of joy at being part of a tournament that has invited Vermont twice in two years. Now he was relaxed and ready for anything. "The hard part is over," he said. "The rest of this is gravy. It's time to just go out and have fun. All the pressure is off of us now." Fun? Yes, that was the way Brennan described what faced his Catamounts. Just go out and play No. 2 seed Connecticut in a first-round Phoenix Regional game last night at HSBC Arena. Fun? Yes, it was for the Catamounts, as they took a 7-0 lead, which was a quick wake-up call to the Huskies. Fun? Yes, it was very much that as the America East tournament champions matched the Big East tournament champions basket for basket through the first 10 minutes. It was the stuff of dreams, fairy tales, a New England version of "Hoosiers," with tiny UVM going up against mighty UConn. But there would be no Hollywood ending for Vermont. By halftime, UConn had put its tournament face on to build a 37-27 lead, which it used as a springboard to a 70-53 victory. The Huskies are moving on and the Catamounts are heading home. It was a learning experience for both teams. For Vermont, which will have point guard T.J. Sorrentine and forward Taylor Coppenrath returning next season, it was anoth- er bit of NCAA experience to file away. "I'm elated," said Brennan. "We did a lot of good things. It was a tremendous experience for our kids. And it showed our kids that we can play against a team like UConn. The last time we played them we were down, 51-18, at the half." For a team from a lower-profile conference such as the America East, last night was a "good loss" for the Catamounts. It was a defeat against a quality opponent that was anything but an embarrassment. If nothing else, Vermont emerged with more respect. For UConn, it was a good test for the tougher tests to come, as the Huskies chase another national championship. They were hardly overpowering, which will give UConn coach Jim Calhoun something to focus on this afternoon at practice. They missed foul shots (11 of 23), had some defensive lapses, and couldn't put Vermont away as quickly as Calhoun would have liked. But this is the time of the season when style points matter little. It's survive and move on. "That team played liked Tommy's personality," joked Calhoun. "They played hard and they played tough." But now the Catamounts are headed back to Burlington, Vt., and the Huskies are headed for the practice court for some fine-tuning. Calhoun has broken it down into a series of two-game tournaments. Win one game, move to the next. Win two games, move to the next weekend at a different site. Vermont was a speed bump in the Huskies' path to San Antonio, and UConn had to move carefully to avoid any damage. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

Vermont looks like a returner The Boston Globe By Mark Blaudschun, Globe Staff, 3/19/2004

BUFFALO -- Experience counts. Especially in the NCAA Tournament. Although Vermont dropped a 70-53 decision in a Phoenix Regional first-round game at HSBC Arena, the Catamounts and America East officials feel they are getting closer to respectability for the league as an NCAA Tournament participant. "It's amazing the difference the second year makes for a team," said America East commissioner Chris Monasch, who watched the Catamounts give Connecticut all it could handle for more than 30 minutes yesterday. "Having been there before makes a differ- ence." A year ago, Vermont went through a 40-hour trip to the first- round site in Salt Lake City and dropped an 80-51 decision to Arizona in a game that had a deer-in-the-headlights look. "We're going to be back," said Vermont coach Tom Brennan, who has his two best players, T.J. Sorrentine and Taylor Coppenrath returning. Don't bet against it. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

Opening outburst is Cat-a-mount to miracle

By Lisa Olson The New York Daily News March 19, 2004

Buffalo, N.Y. -- Sometimes the joy can't be understood from the obvious angles. Sometimes it helps to flip upside down, cross the eyes and let the madness carve its own delirium. There is another way to view the next fortnight, which promises to be as loony as ever. Golly gee whiz, already we have Bobby Knight and Phil Martelli primed to share the same court, and should they end in a sleeper-hold, surely Billy Packer will add a few noogies. But hold off on the pessimistic projecting. Instead, why not drop the beer goggles and catch the tournament at its purest, before the big dog seeds have a chance to start their preening. This was one night when it paid to be fashionably earlier, just in case the impossible transpired. This was Vermont, taking a 7-0 lead! There are certain cardinal rules of sportswriting; that sentence just broke two of them. Never offer a partial score before telling the reader the final, and scratch the exclamation points, because goodness knows we don't want the readers thinking we're excitable. But that's a sentence that bears repeating, even if the final numbers on the scoreboard read: University of Connecticut 70, Vermont 53. Vermont coach Tom Brennan, who missed his calling as Howard Dean's scriptwriter, had said beating UConn wouldn't be greeted by the good folks back home as anything more thrilling than beating Stony Brook. Brennan says a lot of hokey things, many on that morning radio show of his that rates higher than Don Imus' and Howard Stern's. You don't see the FCC peeping through Brennan's window, probably because his proclamations are more apt to cause listeners to giggle into their Happy Meals, especially when he poetically tweaks Grady Little. ("How can he be so bad? ... Oh, yeah, he's a New Hampshire grad.") Of Catamounts forward Taylor Coppenrath, Brennan breathlessly won- dered: "Can you imagine if you're George Coppenrath, and you wake up one day in West Barnet, Vt., and you realize you've sired Seabiscuit?" George being the father of Taylor, who last week dropped 43 points in the America East conference final last Saturday not long after breaking his wrist. So last night, after St. Joe's had yawned its way around the perimeter and Texas Tech gave Knight a reason to stay clear of salad bars for one more weekend, the Catamounts tried to pretend UConn was really Stony Brook in bril- liant disguise. They didn't need to squint hard to notice Emeka Okafor's back needs a rest he won't receive until April. For a few brief wondrous moments, Vermont saw Stony Brook, and sniffed upset. Taliek Brown, who later would notch his 1,000th career point, had the ball stolen from him on the very first play by David Hehn, leading to a Coppenrath three-pointer. Okafor, so rusty you could practically hear his lumbar creak, missed a hook shot, then couldn't get the rebound, and before anyone dared blink there were visions of Cleveland State back in 1986, hanging with mighty Indiana. Brennan bounced around the sidelines, exhorting Coppenrath to "believe, baby, believe," sounding a little like Dicky V. (but in a good way). Coppenrath, with his Bill Walton-esque goatee, was sweating so much it appeared he was running in a swimming pool, despite only three minutes having passed - three brilliant minutes the Catamounts would like to dip in bronze. UConn, being UConn, and a Final Four favorite assuming Okafor really does "feel great," as Jim Calhoun proclaimed in his postgame ramble, has never lacked in size, or brain cells. Coppenrath ripped off five points in the initial 90 seconds, before Okafor, an amazing force even when he's ailing, convinced Calhoun to let him do the defending. It was, said Calhoun, akin to "cutting the head off the dragon." Coppenrath, forced to the outside, finished 3-of-17. The Huskies' press and Rashad Anderson slashed away Vermont's remaining legs. Anderson hit six straight three-pointers and later admitted if he had been open, probably none would have fallen. He likes to make it difficult, twisting and turning before fir- ing daggers. In the midst of Anderson's frenzy, T.J. Sorrentine's trey evened it, 24-all, but then the bells chimed, Okafor blocked another shot, and madness crept away. "They played like Tom's personality," Calhoun said of Vermont. "They didn't seem to care about a lot of things other than having fun and competing and making my life as miserable as possible with all the three-point shots." Knight, basketball curmudgeon, has suggested that the NCAA Tournament assume a BCS-like formula, meaning March Madness would lose all of its quirky, human qualities. If Knight were king, the Vermonts of the world might not make the cut, and we'd all be poorer for it. 'Anybody who thinks we don't belong here, that the best 64 teams in the country should be here," said Brennan, "they just misunderstand what this is all about." That's the proper view, even from the other side of the scoreboard. Copyright 2004, N.Y. Daily News

Standout night for Sorrentine

By Matt Eagan The Hartford Courant March 19, 2004

Buffalo, N.Y. --Once upon a time, T.J. Sorrentine was the man at Vermont. He had one of the decorated seasons in Vermont history when he was named America East player of the year in 2001-02 as a sophomore. Then he broke both his wrists in a scrimmage and missed all of 2002-03. Sorrentine missed the Catamounts' trip to last year's NCAA Tournament. He missed the emergence of Taylor Coppenrath, who grabbed most of the attention Vermont received at this tournament. No doubt Coppenrath, who also won conference player of the year, deserved it. In the America East championship game against Maine, Coppenrath not only returned after missing seven games with a broken wrist but scored a career-high 43 points. But on a day when Coppenrath could not escape the wrath of Emeka Okafor, Sorrentine got a chance to live a moment that seemed a long time coming. The junior guard, who was redshirted last year, had 19 points and kept the Catamounts from getting run out of HSBC Arena Thursday. Vermont, the No. 15 seed, lost to second-seeded UConn 70-53 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. "We believed we could win the game," Sorrentine said. "That's the key. No matter who you are playing, you have to believe you can win the game. This was a big stage and a big arena and I just tried to play my A game for all the people who came out here to support us." The Huskies sent Taliek Brown, their best perimeter defender, after Sorrentine, but Brown had a hard time getting around all of the Vermont screens. "He had me running all over, going through picks and everything," Brown said. "He was really solid out there." Nobody was happier about the strong showing than Vermont coach Tom Brennan. "I know he wanted to do well tonight," Brennan said. "You have to remember that he was the king. He was it. He was the golden boy. Then he got hurt and Coppenrath emerged and became Coppenrath and it's not always easy to say, `Ok, I'm going to sub- jugate my game.' "I have great, great regard for that kid and the way he handles himself." Copyright 2004, Hartford Courant

Cats savor their shot After missing out last year, team soaks up pageantry The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity 3/18/04

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Winter has made a last stand on the shores of Lake Erie. The University of Vermont men's basketball team likely will do so as well. A late-season storm smacked Buffalo with 14 inches of snow Tuesday; the Catamounts will take their swings at a national powerhouse tonight. They tip off at 7:10 against the University of Connecticut in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. While winter's time is up -- spring allegedly arrives Saturday-- the Cats' prospects seem equally dire. UConn is a 20-point favorite tonight and a 6-to-1 choice to land its second national title in six seasons. UVM's odds? One expert made the Cats a solid 2 billion-to-1 shot. The slim hopes didn't bother Tom Brennan on Wednesday. Before his team took its turn on the HSBC Arena floor for prac- tice, the Catamounts' garrulous coach took his turn on the dais for a news conference. "We're thrilled to be here for the university, for the community, for the state," Brennan said. "There's no expectation at Vermont that these things are going to happen, and when they do, there's just so much love that's generated in the campus and the university and the city that just makes it very special." Brennan and the Catamounts were robbed of their moment in the spotlight last year despite earning the program's first NCAA berth. Instead of joining seven other teams in Salt Lake City for pre-game preparations, the Cats spent a day-and-a-half in a Denver Holiday Inn while a blizzard roiled in the Rocky Mountains. They missed their assigned practice time, their chance to meet the media and just about everything else involved with the pageantry surrounding one of America's biggest sporting events. They are making up for that lost time in Buffalo. Tuesday night, the team ate dinner at the restaurant where top-seeded St. Joseph's and coach Phil Martelli were dining. "Coach Brennan and Coach Martelli were going at it pretty good, joking around," senior Matt Sheftic said. "It was just kind of neat to see guys like ... (Hawks star) Jameer Nelson and the guys you read about in ESPN The Magazine. It's a great experience." Earlier, UConn coach Jim Calhoun fielded question after question about UVM star Taylor Coppenrath and his 43 points in last weekend's conference final. "Forty-three is 43 is 43. I coached in that league for 14 years and saw some awfully good players," said Calhoun, who was at Northeastern before going to UConn 18 years ago, "guys who were really, really good players. "I had Reggie Lewis, God rest his soul, and Reggie didn't get 43," Calhoun said of the late Boston Celtics star. "Forty-three is a lot of points." The Catamounts are sharing the spotlight with college basketball's biggest stars. Hours before Brennan charmed the media, legendary and, at times, toxic Texas Tech coach Bob Knight held court. Nelson and St. Joseph's took the floor for a 50-minute work- out shortly after 3 p.m., snapping jumpers before a smattering of fans. Then came UConn. The Huskies are a common choice of pundits and office pools alike to reach San Antonio and the Final Four. "Ladies and gentlemen, the University of Connecticut Huskies and coach Jim Calhoun," the public-address man announced at 5 sharp, and the nation's seventh-ranked team flooded onto the floor. Six-foot-10 forward Emeka Okafor, the "50" on his back as big as a road sign, led his teammates through drills, then pronounced the title pursuit under way. "We're just ready," Okafor said. "We've won nine out of 10 and have been playing more consistently, and we plan on doing it for six more games." The Huskies' comments underscored the differences in expectations and outlooks of tonight's opponents. So, too, did UVM junior guard David Hehn's. "These things are not guaranteed in life," Hehn said. "This is definitely a blessing and just a dream we're all living out. You've got to soak everything in and enjoy all this, because there's no guarantee we'll ever get this chance again." Free Press staff writer Hillary Read contributed to this report. © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press If He Can Just Relax, He's One Good Copp

By Desmond Conner The Hartford Courant March 18, 2004

Buffalo, N.Y. -- Vermont forward Taylor Coppenrath had just come off the podium Wednesday, only to find himself coaxed into answering more questions. With each one, he became more fidgety, anxious, as if he wanted to run onto the court and start the Catamounts' first-round NCAA Tournament game against UConn immediate- ly. Coppenrath, a 6-foot-9, 245-pound junior who is fifth in the nation in scoring (24.7), probably does want to get back on the court as soon as he can, to see if he still has the hot hand. He dropped 43 points on Maine in the America East final Saturday, and if can have another big game it would be a big boost for the 15th-seeded Catamounts against No.2 seed UConn tonight at HSBC Arena. There's only one small problem. The nation's leading shot blocker, Emeka Okafor, is on the other team. And, he's got help in Charlie Villanueva and Josh Boone. Coppenrath and the Catamounts haven't seen anything like Mek and his crew. But the big kid from the small town of West Barnet, Vt., won't be intimidated. This is a chance for Vermont to get nation- al exposure and respect. It's a chance for Coppenrath to show the country that he isn't the two-time conference player of the year for nothing. "I think any type of publicity will be great,'' said Coppenrath, who scored 38 points against UCLA in a one-point loss in November. "Pretty much anything I do against [Okafor] will be pretty good. I just have to stay aggressive and I think that our team has to be, too. Don't hold back anything because if you hold back, then they're just going to run on you, get out there and you have no shot. "If you're aggressive and you do what you've got to do and take care of the ball, you do have a slight chance to hang around a little bit. If things aren't going well for them you could end up with an upset.'' For the record, UConn hasn't lost a first-round game in 11 appearances under Jim Calhoun. Since the NCAA field went to 64 teams in 1985, the No.15 seeds are 4-72. The Catamounts are 20-point underdog against UConn. But people want to see how good Coppenrath is against the best competition. No one is discounting the fact that Coppenrath scored those 43 against Maine. "Forty-three is 43 is 43," Calhoun said And Coppenrath did it in his first game back after missing seven games because of a broken bone in his left wrist. "It's just incredible, really,'' Coppenrath said. "I can't even describe what happened in that game. I was a little worried about my wrist, but you know I just said, `Go out, be aggressive.' Because if you hold back a little and worry about your wrist, maybe you could hurt something else trying to compensate. But it was just an incredible game. It's still a blur to me to this day.'' Coppenrath is not a stiff. He is a legitimate inside-outside threat who can put the ball on the floor. He's been working on passing out of double teams because he wants to be prepared for everything. For the most part, he is very poised on the court and doesn't rattle easily, although that will be tested today. But if Coppenrath is all that, why is he at Vermont? He admits he wasn't that good in high school. Vermont, Albany and Bucknell were the only schools that showed much inter- est. And he decided to stay home. "I really like Coach [Tom] Brennan, the players and the coaching staff,'' Coppenrath said. "They don't really recruit any hard- asses or selfish people, so it was fine for me.'' Since Coppenrath, who was redshirted as a freshman, got into the mix at Vermont he has been a star in the league. He earned the Reggie Lewis award as the most outstanding player in the America East tournament. "God rest his soul,'' Calhoun said of Lewis, whom he coached while at Northeastern. "But Reggie never scored 43, as good as he was.'' But Lewis is the only player in the conference to have won player of the year three straight seasons (1985-87). Coppenrath can match that. Today, he can show the world what he is about. That's if he can stop fidgeting. "I do put a little undue pressure on myself,'' he said. "I think that because I've helped the team out so much, everything rides on me to do well. If I don't do well then I think to force some things and that gets kind of ugly. But if I just stay relaxed and calm and aggressive and let things come, usually good things happen - to our team as well.'' Copyright, The Hartford Courant, 2004 Vermont center set to march

By Sean Brennan The New York Daily News March 18, 2004

Buffalo, N.Y. -- In what most likely will be a very short stay for the Vermont Catamounts in the NCAA Tournament, Matt Sheftic is soaking it all in. "(Tuesday night) we ate in the same restaurant as St. Joe's," said Sheftic, Vermont's senior center. "I got to see Jameer Nelson, guys you read about all the time. That was pretty cool." Sheftic is perhaps enjoying the tournament more than his team- mates because, despite having another year of eligibility, he has decided to accept his commission into the U.S. Army after fulfilling his ROTC requirements at Vermont. It was a difficult decision for Sheftic, but when the Army said that it had a slot open in military intelligence, Sheftic's top choice, he thought long-term and chose the Army. "I always wanted to be in the FBI or the CIA," said Sheftic, whose Vermont team faces UConn tonight in the NCAA Tournament first round. "I never really grew out of that cops-and-robbers stage. So getting a shot at military intelligence was like a dream come true." The 6-8, 260-pound Sheftic at first hoped to fly planes at the Naval Academy. But it didn't pan out. "I was too big to fly," he said. "So I joined ROTC, went to Airborne school and learned how to jump out of planes. I fell in love with it. I fig- ured the next best thing to flying them was jumping out of them." Sheftic knows that at some point down the line he could wind up in harm's way, seeing action in Iraq or Afghanistan. "It all depends on how those situations are going," Sheftic said. ".. . But I'll be getting to do what I love. And let's be real- istic, it's not like I was going to the NBA or anything." Copyright 2004, N.Y. Daily News

Vermont Player Taps Hoop Dreams

By Rick Green The Hartford Courant March 18, 2004

West Barnet, Vt. -- March Madness means the arrival of another mud season up here and a chance to lay bets at the gen- eral store on "ice out" day at Harvey's Lake. With no sign yet of the ice breaking up, local hopes instead are riding on an earnest young man with a name out of Dickens, whose feel-good story is quickly erasing bitter memories of the Dean Scream. That's because the hardy souls in this village 200 miles north of Hartford feel they have already won. They have Taylor Coppenrath to talk about for decades to come. For the rest of the college basketball world, though, there isn't much time left this year to witness the Coppenrath comet. The University of Vermont Catamounts and their all-star forward take on the University of Connecticut in Buffalo tonight in what very likely promises to be a Husky blowout. "We're really proud of him. The whole town is. It's almost like he is the town's child," said Gary Schoolcraft, who runs the West Barnet Garage, which features two pumps and service on engines of all sizes. "We closed early the other day just to go home and watch him play." Folks are "just happy that a small-town boy has gone as far as he has." Few give Coppenrath, a 245-pound junior averaging 25 points a game, much of a chance against the likes of Emeka Okafor tonight. Then again, there was last Saturday, an afternoon already chiseled in Vermont granite. The mop top kid without a tattoo on his 6-foot-9 maple-tree-size frame was believed to be out for the season with a bro- ken wrist. With the America East championship and a trip to the NCAA tournament on the line, Coppenrath came off the bench and scored 43 points in a frenzied victory over the University of Maine at UVM's Patrick Gym. A Vermont legend was born. Or, in the words of chatty UVM coach Tom Brennan, a Seabiscuit was sired in little West Barnet. How big is this? Ben and Jerry's has come out with a special ice-cream flavor - "Slam Chunk Sundae" - in honor of his team. Phish, the legendary Vermont hippie jam band, sang the national anthem at Saturday's game. Kids know Coppenrath's number, 22, like Red Sox fans know Ted Williams' No. 9. And the agents have started calling Coppenrath's softspoken dad, George, gushing about his son's 38-point performance against UCLA earlier this season, whispering NBA dreams. Taylor, he says, wants to be a teacher and is well-known for his patience with children, but who knows? It's all as unreal as, well, talking NCAA basketball in March in Vermont. "You've got this Vermont team, stumbling out of the hills," said George Coppenrath, an insurance agent in West Barnet, who was making plans Tuesday night to set out for Buffalo in his pickup truck with his wife and two other sons. "This is kind of crazy, but it's really a wonderful experience." Like any dad, Coppenrath has seen his son's gift for years, marveling at Taylor's focus, gentle demeanor and mathematical study of the basketball court. "We used to have family tournaments. But basketball was a fun thing. It wasn't a serious thing," he said. "Taylor took it to another level." "I'm still trying to get over the game last Saturday," Coppenrath said, talking about his son's fragile wrist and keeping a close eye on ESPN's "SportsCenter" on the television. "I was conflicted. I was so afraid he was going to injure it again." So was much of West Barnet, a village of perhaps 300 a half-dozen miles off I-91, where they still milk cows and cut trees for a living and the local paper has just put out the annual "special Maple issue." Coppenrath's unfolding drama is fast closing in on another West Barnet legend: that time years ago when Jacques Cousteau practiced his diving skills in Harvey's Lake. "Way to go Taylor. We're so Proud of you #22," blares the sign in the window of the West Barnet General Store, where owner Sharon Roy loans out free videotapes of Coppenrath's games and they've banked an extra pile of Sunday's Burlington Free Press - the one with Coppenrath draining a three-pointer across the top of the front page. "There's never been anything that's this exciting that I can think of. We've got a star here," said Roy, whose store is some- thing of a community center, where folks buy milk and beer or have a cup of Roy's signature chowder beneath the stuffed deer heads. "He's got a career going," said another local, Tom Sheehan, before heading off to the night shift at the nearby Cabot Creamery. "He's a stud. He's incredible." People remember Coppenrath as a polite kid who was always around town, which consists of little more than a clutch of white clapboard houses, a church, a couple of general stores and the West Barnet Garage. A graduate of St. Johnsbury Academy, a private high school that serves the public school students in the region, Coppenrath also was recruited by Colgate, Bucknell and the University of Albany, but UVM was the only school that offered him a full scholar- ship. On the UVM team, he's the one known for his willingness to spend time with young fans. Coppenrath is just "a nice little blessing," said Lauren Travis, 19, who went to elementary school with the Coppenrath boys. "It gives the town some excitement that we need." Coppenrath was the third-grader who got special permission to play on the sixth-grade team. In a mountain village of skiers and fishermen, this lanky kid took basketball just a little more seriously than the others in the Coppenrath family basketball games. "I'd hear that thump against the garage. He was always playing basketball," said Schoolcraft, whose business is next door to the Coppenraths' home - and the family basketball hoop, which hangs, a little crooked, above a picket fence. "He helped paint the trim around the garage once and he didn't need a ladder." There's a lesson in all this that outsiders shouldn't miss, said Jeff Roberts, a local carpenter and father of two daughters. In a world of trash-talking sports heroes, Coppenrath is real, a gracious team player who works hard and knows he's a role model. "It's where he was brought up. It's the small town," Roberts said before climbing into his pickup and heading off into the mountain darkness Tuesday night. "It's just a nice place to be."

Brennan sees forest in the trees Vermont coach Tom Brennan is the most beloved person in his state.

The Buffalo News By Jerry Sullivan, Columnist March 18, 2004

Last spring, Vermont coach Tom Brennan got a call from a friend in Georgia. His alma mater, reeling from the Jim Harrick scandal, was looking for a new coach; his buddy was act- ing as a go-between, feeling him out on the matter. "They need someone to ride in on a white horse," his friend said. Brennan was intrigued, to say the least. He had just taken Vermont to the NCAA Tournament for the first time. He had a spotless reputation. He had played for Georgia in the late 1960s. The salary would be staggering, maybe 10 times what he was making. He went home and mentioned the job to his wife. He told her how much it would pay. "Baby," he said, "it makes sense." Without even lifting up her head from her book, Lynn Brennan pointed to the picture window of their lakefront home. "Look out the window," Lynn said. "Look at what you have." Brennan looked out and saw the sun setting over the Adirondack Mountains across from Lake Champlain. He also saw a little sign in the sky, asking him who the hell he was kidding, thinking he could coach at Georgia in the Southeastern Conference. "This is my place," he thought to himself. "This is where I belong." Really, how could he give up what he had in Vermont? Now that Howard Dean has fizzled, Brennan is the most beloved person in the state. He has coached its Division I basketball team to consecutive America East titles. He is co-host of the state's top-rated morning radio show, a daily three-hour program that gets better ratings than Howard Stern. There are days when he'll be driving from the radio station to practice, thinking, "God, I've got the best gig in America." "I do, all the time," said Brennan, whose team meets mighty Connecticut tonight in HSBC Arena. "You couldn't do it any- where else in the country. There's nowhere but Vermont that you could do both of these things. It just fits there. "Vermont is like it used to be. You know how you grew up and you knew all your neighbors? You knew the people eight doors down and you knew what their kids did, and if their kids messed up, you told their mother? That's how Vermont is. And when you're on the radio, it's a drink-the-Kool-Aid mentality. If they like you, they get into you. If they don't like you, they change the chan- nel." Like him? After listening to Brennan for 20 minutes Wednesday, I was ready to move to Vermont. It was a big day for coach- ing press conferences. Phil Martelli of Saint Joseph's was gracious, funny and well-behaved. Same with UConn's Jim Calhoun. Bob Knight, who can always be counted on to suck the charm out of this event, said the NCAA should seed the tournament by comput- er so they could have the 64 best teams. In his tourney, there would be no Vermont or Liberty. There would be no Tom Brennan, on one of the happiest days of his life, talking about the sunset on the lake. Brennan stole the show. You could tell he had waited his entire career for this moment. "I'm a dinosaur as far as coaches go," he said. "I just thank God every single day. My first three years we were 14-68. In this day and time, you don't get to stay when you're 14-68. The school was always very patient with me. They always believed in the values I believed in. "It was great to be able to give that back, to say, "Hey, this is for you people, for what you meant to us.' I walked out on that floor (for the conference title game) the other day and there were 3,228 people in there rocking and rolling, and my chest was swelling with pride, and I looked around and said, "Hell, I know everybody here!' " Sometimes, he'll be huddled with his team in the final minutes of a close game, and one of the locals will walk by and ask where he's going after the game. He had more than 200 people in his house after the Catamounts beat Maine for the America East title. "We broke all the Brennan family attendance records," he said. About 20 of his former players were at the victory party. His players love him, too, even when he calls them from his radio show at 6 a.m. and starts screaming at them. Brennan, 55, concedes he's no Dean Smith, but he's been coaching for 33 years and knows what he's doing. He was an assis- tant under Rollie Massimino (Villanova), Bill Raftery (Seton Hall) and Bruce Parkhill (William and Mary), and was head coach at Yale before taking the Vermont job in 1986. He won five, three and six games his first three years. Those were the old NAC days, when Canisius and Niagara beat up on him regularly. Things began turning around from 1989-92, when a Buffalo kid named Kevin Roberson became the star. Roberson is still Vermont's career leader in rebounds and blocked shots. He and his sister were killed in a car accident in 1993. Brennan brought the entire team to the funeral. I remember Brennan making the family's suffering a little more bearable. "Buffalo is a very special place to me," he said, "because of Kevin and because it's an extremely underrated city. This is a really great place. You got the snow and the nastiness to deal with, but other than that, I've always loved coming here. You got the Anchor Bar, thousands of great joints, Elmwood Avenue and Chippewa Street. "Back in the day when I was running around, this was a very good place to go. Now I'm in my room getting room service, I'm not going out anywhere, but the memories will linger forever." How sweet it would be if the Catamounts could create a lasting Buffalo memory this evening. It's hard to imagine them hanging with UConn, but Brennan feels they have a chance. "These guys really think they have a chance to win a game," he said. "They have every right to think that. "This junior class has won 64 games in three years. They don't know anything but winning. As a matter of fact, the only loser they're even close to is me." A loser? Hardly. When Brennan looked out his window last year, he realized he had something that can't be measured on a scoreboard or a paycheck. Copyright, The Buffalo News, 2004

Coppenrath one tough Catamount

The Buffalo News By RODNEY MCKISSIC, News Sports Reporter 3/18/2004

Taylor Coppenrath was thrust into the national spotlight without shiny packaging, glossy photos or a sports information director working the phones in an attempt to get some publicity for his guy. A 43-point outing in your first game back from a wrist injury has a way of making people take notice, even if you play for tiny Vermont. Jim Calhoun sure noticed, and the Connecticut coach didn't care who the opponent was. "Forty-three is 43 is 43," Calhoun said. UConn All-American Emeka Okafor noticed. Here's a player who's faced his fair share of top-flight big men in the Big East Conference, yet he views his matchup against the 6-foot-9, 245-pound Coppenrath as a challenge. "He's gotten a lot of attention and he deserves it," Okafor said. "Forty-three points . . . that's an impressive number right there. On my part, I couldn't ask for anything better. I'm up for the challenge." Coppenrath is an unselfish player who has a jumper sweeter than Ben and Jerry's and the muscle of an action figure in the lane. Another standout performance tonight against Okafor and the Huskies (27-6) could catapult this Catamount even further into the nation's conscience. "Anything I do against (Okafor) will be pretty good," said Coppenrath, who leads Vermont (22-8) against the Huskies in an NCAA Tournament first-round game at 7:10 p.m. at HSBC Arena. "I should stay aggressive, that's what our team has to be. Don't hold back because if you hold back then they're just going to run on you and we'll have no shot. If you're aggressive and you do what you have to do and take care of the ball, you have a slight chance to hang around." Coppenrath was named the America East Player of the Year for the second straight year, despite missing seven games with a broken bone in his left wrist. When he returned, he detonated for a career-best 43 points in the America East Conference Tournament final against Maine and was also named the tournament's most outstanding player. Earlier this season, Coppenrath scored 38 points in a one-point loss at UCLA, one of the top single-game performances ever at storied Pauley Pavilion. For the season, he's averaging 24.7 points, fifth-highest in the nation, 7.4 rebounds and shooting .525 from the field. Coming out of St. Johnsbury Academy, a private school in St. Johnsbury, Vt., Coppenrath, who is from West Barnet, Vt., was- n't heavily recruited. Only Vermont, Albany and Bucknell offered scholarships. Calhoun said UConn "didn't really look at him." Vermont coach Tom Brennan wasn't blown away by Coppenrath, either. "The only reason why we recruited him is because we knew he had some potential," Brennan said. "But it was never a sit- uation where we thought, "We stole this guy.' " Stealing one away from UConn is what the 20-point underdog Catamounts will attempt to do tonight. "If we play our best game and they slip up a little bit, or a lot, then it could be a pretty good, excited game," Coppenrath. "I think it will be anyway." Okafor, who missed two games in the Big East tournament with a stress fracture in his back, practiced on Wednesday is expected to start tonight.Coppenrath will wear a protective covering over his left wrist but said the wrist remains sore. Copyright, The Buffalo News, 2004

Cats shoot for stars

The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity, Free Press Columnist 3/17/04

Someone get word to Emeka Okafor. The Catamounts are playing to win. The University of Vermont men's basketball team's visit to last year's NCAA Tournament was blizzard-impaired and exception- ally brief, but the Catamounts set out Tuesday with the resolve to stay awhile the second time around. "Our program is now at a point where we think we can compete," UVM coach Tom Brennan said. "We've got good players and we're not going just to show up." UVM tackles the seventh-ranked University of Connecticut and its all-everything center Okafor on Thursday in Buffalo, N.Y. The team left Burlington International Airport shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday arrived in Buffalo around 7 after a snow-delayed connection in New York City. The team will practice today at the 18,000-seat HSBC Arena on the shores of Lake Erie. A pregame practice was something the Cats were unable to enjoy last year at Salt Lake City. Stranded in Denver because a snowstorm, they arrived just 14 hours before taking the court against Arizona. The result was a predictably lopsided 80-51 defeat. Thursday's prospects would seem to be no brighter. UConn is among the handful of favorites to win the national champi- onship. The Huskies have outscored their opponents by 15.7 points per game, lead the nation in field-goal defense and, in Okafor and guard Ben Gordon, have two future NBA first-round draft picks in their starting lineup. And yet, the Catamounts insist they are not content with just making a ceremonial appearance. "We're going to try to win the game," said guard T.J. Sorrentine. "That's what we have to do; that's why we play this game. "We've got to go in there and just fly around. We've got nothing to lose. That's the key, and that's the only way we're going to have a chance." Sorrentine will be making his NCAA debut after sitting out last year while recovering from two broken wrists. Eight of his teammates, including starters Taylor Coppenrath, David Hehn, Scotty Jones and Germain Njila, got a dose of the NCAA experience last March. "Last year, it was just like 'Hey, whoever we play, let's just go and have some fun,'" Brennan said. "Now, we really feel like this program has established itself, and when you've got a player as great as Coppenrath, and back-up guys like the Hehns, and the Njilas, and the Joneses and the Sorrentines of the world, if everybody plays good on your team, you can win. "So we really believe we can win. We're going to have to give our best effort, but we've got as good a player as there is, certainly on our level, so, we'll see what happens." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Vermont coach won’t disquise happiness Catamount's Tom Brennan, brother of local radio personality, has team in tournament again

The Mobile (Ala.) Register By TOMMY HICKS, Sports Reporter 3/18/04

Lots of coaches will tell you just reaching the NCAA tournament is the main thrill, much the same as those up for the Oscar for Best Actor will tell you just being nominated is the real reward. But Vermont's Tom Brennan means it. He's just happy to have his team in the Big Dance. Again. For the second consecu- tive year -- and only the second time in school history -- the Catamounts won the America East Conference tournament title and the automatic berth into March Madness. Perhaps no one appreciates the opportunity more than Brennan, the brother of Mobile radio personality Dan Brennan of WKSJ-FM. For Brennan, whose 18th team at Vermont is seeded No. 15 in the Phoenix Region and faces No. 2 seed Connecticut at 6:10 tonight in Buffalo, this is the good life -- even if it lasts just one game. "It's all been phenomenal," Brennan said in a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon. "The state is so small -- we're the only Division I school in the state -- and this means so much to the people of Vermont. We have no basketball tradition to speak of, but our junior class has won 65 games the last three years. "We're a school with tough academic restrictions and we have only 10 scholarships for basketball. These guys have defied the odds, and the great thing is what it has meant for the community and the people here." Dan Brennan hopped aboard an airplane Wednesday to be in Buffalo for tonight's game. He even took along his Vermont sweatshirt, given to him by his brother a few years ago, which he said he has been proudly wearing, at least lately. "I started wearing it the last two years," Dan Brennan joked. "I told him, if he ain't winning, I ain't gonna wear it." The joking, as much a part of the Brennan family as breathing, covers up a thinly veiled love and respect for his older brother. "Tommy was my idol growing up," Dan said of Tom, the oldest of seven siblings. "He walked into a room and he owned it. I just loved being around him." People outside the family share Dan's respect. Growing up in Phillipsburg, N.J., Tom established the school's all-time scor- ing record at Phillipsburg Catholic High School, a mark that still stands. For the boys. Sister Noreen came along and set the girls' mark and broke her brother's all-time scoring mark, too. Tom Brennan played basketball at Georgia, where his last two seasons he had the honor of having to guard LSU's Pete Maravich. "I'm shuddering now, just thinking about it," he joked. He was a graduate assistant at Georgia for a year and later served on the coaching staffs at Seton Hall and Villanova before landing the head-coaching job at Yale. He remained there for four years when the folks at Vermont called. Vermont lost 50 of Brennan's first 58 games, but he was never called to the athletic director's office or president's office to justify his hiring. "They told me they were happy with me and happy with the job I was doing," Brennan said. "We were 14-68 the first four years. You do that today and you're gone." Today, Brennan's teams have set the school record for wins in a season the past three seasons. Like his brother, he has a morning drive-time radio show. Having waited since the beginning of the program to reach the NCAA tournament, the team had to wait some more, flight delays getting the team to its tournament site 42 hours late last year. This year's flight was also delayed because of weather prob- lems, but the team arrived Tuesday night. Tonight, Brennan goes against friend Jim Calhoun of UConn. Brennan and Calhoun began their coaching stints at their cur- rent schools the same season, 1985-86. Of the 56 coaches that were first-year NCAA Division I coaches that year, only five still hold those jobs. Mike Montgomery of Stanford, Famy Mitchell of Coppin State and Dave Magarity of Marist are the others. None of the five will be happier tonight, regardless of the outcome, than Brennan, who was mentioned briefly as a possi- ble candidate for the Georgia job last year, only to have his wife, Lynn, when Brennan mentioned how much money would go with the job, asked: "What don't you have now that you want? Where haven't you been that you want to go?" "She was right," Brennan said. "You never say never, but this is where I want to be. We're so involved in the community and we've really got it going now. This team is a source of pride for the state of Vermont and the state of Vermont is a source of pride for us." Brennan said he was reminded of the words of the late North Carolina State coach Jim Valvano, who once told him, "You don't mess with happy." Tom Brennan is very happy: "Vermont getting to the NCAA tournament in back-to-back years is like UConn or Villanova or Seton Hall making it to the Final Four." And Dan Brennan could not be any more proud of his brother. "You don't meet many people like him," Dan said. "I've always felt that way, always been very proud of him. I've always known he was a really good basketball coach, but now the secret's out." © Copyright 2004 The Mobile Register

Klimes Makes NCAA Tourney By John Harvey The Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg, Va. March 17, 2004

Williamsburg, Va. -- Every college basketball player in America dreams of playing in the NCAA tournament. For one Walsingham Academy graduate, that dream will become a reality this week as Martin Klimes and the University of Vermont move into the “Big Dance.” “This is unbelievable,” Klimes said during a phone interview Monday. “There's 309 teams in Division I and to get a chance to play in the final tournament is just amazing. This is all you ever play for.” Vermont (22-8), a 15th seed, will take on Big East champion and No. 2 seed Connecticut (27-6) in Thursday's first-round game held at the HRBC Center in Buffalo. This will mark the Catamounts second straight appearance in the NCAA tournament. Vermont lost to perennial powerhouse Arizona 80-51 in the first round of last year's tournament. Klimes was a redshirt freshman last year. He traveled with the team to the tournament, but didn't play. This season, Klimes has been a key contributor as a reserve for Catamounts coach Tom Brennan. The 6-foot-8 forward has played in all 30 games for Vermont this season, including seven starts. He has averaged 3.4 points and 3.8 rebounds in 18 minutes of action. The Virginia Gazette Player of the Year in 2002 credits the year off as a major factor behind his transformation into a pro- ductive college basketball player. “The one [difference] between European and American basketball is the emphasis on strength and power,” Klimes said. “There are a lot of European players who are very skilled, especially post players, who have trouble under the basket because [American] players are so strong. That's one of the things that I had to learn. “I've gotten a lot more comfortable playing [this year],” Klimes continued. “I improved a lot on getting more relaxed with the ball and the [year off] helped me get more adjusted to the system.” Klimes also credits his teammates for his success. “Playing with these guys, it's easy for me to just go out and perform,” he said. “I felt like I've been very good defensively and distributing the ball and just putting people in position to score.” Playing in the NCAA tournament is nothing new to the Klimes family. Martin's sister, Zuzi Klimesova, led Vanderbilt to a No. 1 seed in the 2002 tournament. Klimesova, who played for the WNBA's Indiana Fever, had some words of encouragement for her broth- er. “She told me, when you go to the tournament, make sure you have as much fun as you can,” Klimes said. “For her, they were seeded number one and were picked to make the Final Four. We're the underdogs. We're trying to make the impossible happen.” Klimes' basketball bloodlines don't stop with his sister. Both his father, Vlastibor Klimes, and mother, Dana Klimesova, played for Czechloslovkian national teams in the Olympics. His grandmother is also considered the “greatest all-around female athlete of post-World War II Europe.” Klimes credits his family for his success. “They led me to basketball through their connections. You get to learn things from their experiences and it gives you moti- vation. You want to live through what they've accomplished. They're as excited as I am.” Klimes said the excitement hasn't been limited to just his family. His school e- mail account has been flooded with messages since Sunday's brackets were announced. “I've been swamped with e-mails from all over the place with people congratu- lating me,” he said. “I definitely want people to watch. There's so much excitement, and everyone lives this dream with us. I think that it would be a shame if we went and did- n't give our best effort." The No. 15 seeds have been far from pushovers since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams back in the mid-1980s. Mid-major conference teams like Santa Clara, Richmond and Hampton have all recorded victories over No. 2 seeds. Klimes hopes that history repeats itself on Thursday. “When we made it last year, we were excited because it was [Vermont's] first time making the tournament,” he said. “This year we're much more serious. Everyone has been there and we know what it takes.” Klimes has made the most of his two years as a college basketball player. Among his list of travels are games at North Carolina's Dean Dome and UCLA's Pauley Pavilion. Klimes hopes to add an NCAA tournament victory to his list of accomplishments on Thursday. © Copyright 2004 The Virginia Gazette

Small-towner Coppenrath brings UVM to the big time

The Boston Globe March 16, 2004 By Joe Burris, Globe Staff

WEST BARNET, Vt. -- The main road cleaves a path between snow-coated trees in this mountainous region. It winds, it slopes, it wreaks havoc on a four-cylinder engine -- and occasionally it reveals a sleepy village. West Barnet is practically a hermit haven, a scenic if bucolic venue that seems to whisper, "Not much goes on here." Actually, that's not true. In fact, some might say that thanks to University of Vermont star forward Taylor Coppenrath, the village has quietly got it going on. As the West Barnet resident continues making an impact on the college basketball scene, folks want to know more about a place whose name doesn't even show up on some road maps. "Way to go Taylor. We're so proud of you, number 22," reads a sign at the West Barnet General Store, one of a handful of businesses in the village. A similar, larger sign is out front at Paula's Place Market and Deli, where newspaper clippings on Coppenrath and UVM are posted in the window. The college is about a 90-minute drive southeast from West Barnet, and it is doubtful that Coppenrath will be home soon to see the congratulatory signs. He and the America East champion Catamounts are headed west, to Buffalo and the NCAA Tournament, where they will meet Connecticut in the first round Thursday night. Coppenrath's team is a No. 15 seed in the tourney and will be a heavy underdog against the second-seeded (and seventh- ranked) Huskies. But folks here see no reason to contain their pride for their hometown hero. Coppenrath has put a major dent in perceptions about Vermont basketball. It is now conceivable that a youngster can learn the game up here, then go out and become the best player in a conference filled with standouts from New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Miami. In two seasons, Coppenrath has led the Catamounts to success unprecedented in school history. A program that often strug- gled to be competitive in the past is now expected to contend for the America East title. A legend takes hold This season, Coppenrath led UVM in scoring in 19 of its first 22 games. He scored 20 points or more 14 times, and his 23.8- point season average is the third-best in UVM history. On Jan. 7, Coppenrath scored a career-high 41 points against Northeastern, making 18 of 23 shots from the floor. It was a UVM record for field goals and tied the conference mark. He scored 38 points at UCLA on Nov. 28 -- one of the top five performances by a Bruins opponent in the 39-year history of Pauley Pavilion. "No question he'd be starting for us," said UCLA coach Ben Howland. But last Saturday against Maine in the America East tournament championship, Coppenrath had a performance that made him a Green Mountain State legend: He outscored the Black Bears, 28-23, in the first half and finished with a tournament-record 43 points. What's more, it was Coppenrath's first contest since breaking a bone in his left wrist Feb. 11, an injury that was expected to sideline him for the rest of the season. The 22-year-old junior forward carries the hopes of people across the state, young and old, some of whom scarcely travel far beyond the places they grew up. In him they see one of their own, a person with the same values and demeanor, a guy making it in the big time because he dared to dream beyond the borders. "I've never seen anybody embraced here the way he is embraced," said UVM coach Tom Brennan. Coppenrath is aware of his standing in the state. Asked Sunday about the Catamounts heading back to the NCAA Tournament, he spoke about what an accomplishment it is for the team "and the state of Vermont." The 6-foot-9-inch Coppenrath is unassuming, soft-spoken, and, as for- mer high school coach Layne Higgs said, the kind of person who is likely to be seated in the back of a crowded room, so as to not draw attention to him- self. For that reason, his handling of the spotlight may be as impressive as his on-the-court performance. "A fourth-grader called him up and asked to talk to him for a class proj- ect," said Brennan. "And Taylor says, `I'll be in the gym at 5 o'clock after practice.' Later, the kid called back and says, `My dad has to work late and I can't come,' so Taylor says, `OK, I'll come over to your house.' "He doesn't think anything of it. The kid couldn't come here, so he goes there. That's how the whole state is. There's no sense of entitlement here, no sense of, `We deserve this,' or `We deserve that.' People are just hard-work- ing and caring." Still, Coppenrath's decision to return despite the injury was an agoniz- ing one. His father had reservations, but there was a lot of encouragement from others. It is part of what comes with being an icon. "I was thinking about that going into making my decision," said Photo Credit: Toby Talbot (AP) Coppenrath. "I was thinking that maybe my father would have liked for me not to play, but I'm sure he's happy about the decision now. "I think there is a little bit of pressure that I put on myself and that the community puts on me to play, because I feel like I can really help out. If we win this game [against UConn], it will be another step in the right direction and another accomplish- ment and a chance to make history again." Coppenrath's story is similar to those of other big men: He was 6-2 as a high school freshman, developed point guard skills, then sprouted to 6-7 by his senior year, yet kept developing guard fundamentals. "In Vermont, it's really rare, maybe like one every decade, that you get a Division 1 basketball player out of this state," said Higgs, the St. Johnsbury Academy mentor who also coached former Georgia Tech standout Bruce Dalrymple. "I've been here since 1971, and in the whole state there have been less than 10. "But we only have a half-million people. You have to keep remembering that. For some reason, Taylor, right from the get-go, had no fear from the unknown. People say, 'How do you know you can play with guys from the big cities?' He wouldn't fear that. He would see that as an opportunity." Father's eyes opened George Coppenrath's eighth-grade team was ahead of Barre by 15 points late in the game, so he removed his star player, Taylor, and the other starters. But they kept begging for more action. So with 58 seconds left, he reinserted the boys, figuring they couldn't run up the score with so little time left. When the buzzer sounded, George had some explaining to do to an irate opposing coach. Taylor had scored 10 points in those 58 seconds, via two 3-pointers, a 3-point play, and a free throw. That was when George realized that his tall, lanky son had the potential to play at a higher level. "I used to play him and his two brothers in basketball as second-graders and I'd let them win," he said. "By the fifth grade, I would play them straight up and foul them up. By the eighth grade, he was beating me pretty handily." By then, Taylor Coppenrath had benefited not only from playing basketball but soccer, as a goalie. “I think that's where I developed my hands, just trying to keep everything out of the net," said Coppenrath, who played goalie through high school. He didn't play varsity basketball until his junior year -- after leading the junior varsity to a 20-0 mark as a sophomore. Coppenrath went on to become the Gatorade and USA Today Player of the Year for Vermont his senior season (1999- 00), when he averaged 22.7 points and 10 rebounds. He scored 854 points in 41 varsity games. When he arrived at UVM, Coppenrath was just 190 pounds. The team was already loaded with upperclass big men, so Coppenrath was red-shirted for his first season, to allow him to physically develop. Coppenrath is now a two-time America East Player of the Year. He is fourth in UVM history in scoring, second in career scor- ing average, fourth in field goals, fourth in free throws. His amazing performance against Maine Saturday -- the first time UVM host- ed an America East final -- came only after a game-time decision to play. When he took the floor, it set off a roar that reverberated throughout Patrick Gym. After Coppenrath broke the bone in his wrist, he visited Celtics physician Arnold Scheller, who spoke of long-term compli- cations with range of motion and flexibility if Coppenrath played before it healed completely. "A lot of people don't realize the risk he took in playing that game," said George Coppenrath. Ultimately, he respected his son's decision to play. He watched nervously from the stands but calmed down as his son excelled. "He's a warrior on the court," said George, "and I know he took the risk for his teammates, basically." Having made it through Saturday's contest, George said Thursday's game will not be as difficult to watch. "There won't be as much pressure on Taylor," he said. "I know Connecticut will not go and try to hurt Taylor. I think it will be great, just because he will have the experience of playing against UConn." © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

This time, Sorrentine can savor postseason

The Pawtucket Times by Jeff Sullivan 03/16/2004

Last March, the University of Vermont captured its first NCAA tournament berth in the program’s 104-year history. And while UVM celebrated, Pawtucket’s T.J. Sorrentine smiled, congratulated his teammates and enjoyed the experience. At no time, however, did Sorrentine feel like a member of the team. It should’ve been the realization of Sorrentine’s childhood basketball fantasies. The coach’s kid from a city Division 1 college basketball rarely recruits from playing against Arizona in the NCAA tournament. Instead, as he did for the entire 2002-03 season, Sorrentine watched the Catamounts from the sidelines. As the reigning America East Player of the Year, Sorrentine broke both his wrists attempting to break his fall during a pre- season scrimmage and redshirted what should’ve been his junior season. This past Saturday, however, Sorrentine had his moment as Vermont defeated Maine, 72-53, to repeat as conference champions and earn an auto- matic NCAA berth. "It’s a totally different feeling, no doubt," said Sorrentine. "I went from one side to the another. Honestly, I felt like a fan last year, that’s all I really was. This time around, I was a big part of the win and I’ll be playing in the NCAA tournament." Despite struggling against Maine, scoring six points on 2-of-10 shoot- ing, Sorrentine was named to the all-tournament team. In UVM’s other two America East tourney games, Sorrentine led the Catamounts in scoring with 19 and 18 points, respectively, against New Hampshire and Hartford. However, with the return of two-time America East Player of the Year Taylor Coppenrath, who scored 43 points against Maine, Sorrentine returned to his new role this season of pass-first, score-second point guard that was somewhat uncharted territory for the team’s leading scorer in 2002. He still averaged 14.6 points and led the American East with almost five assists per contest. As a sophomore, Sorrentine averaged 18.8 points and four assists. Coppenrath had missed seven games with, of all injuries a broken wrist, before returning for the title game, with Sorrentine leading the team in scoring in four of the seven. "My role changed, I use to have a lot more freedom and I had to become more selective," said Sorrentine. "I became more selective in my shot selection because I am no longer the first option, but I still run the offense at point guard." "When Taylor went out, I had to step my game up and I had no problem with that. I can step up at any time and I went into a different mode. It was good for me to show I could still do that." With the victory, Vermont (22-8) earned the 15th seed in the Phoenix Region and plays No. 2 seed Connecticut Thursday at 7:10 p.m. in Buffalo. UConn, the Big East champion, was picked by almost every publication and expert as the pre-season favorite to capture its second-ever National Championship. Last season, Vermont lost in the first round to Arizona, 80-51. "We have to play well, show we belong after being smacked around by Arizona last season," said Sorrentine. "It’s going to be two East Coast teams, so the entire region will be watching. Last year, we were just happy to be there, not we going in to show we belong, to show the world that we can play." "It’s going to be unbelievable, I’ll be dreaming of the game the next few nights," said Sorrentine. "When the buzzer sound- ed against Maine, I got goose bumps, it was so overwhelming." Vermont coach Tom Brennan believes his team is more prepared this season than last. "Our approach this year will be less elation and more pragmatic," Brennan said. "We think we can compete better with play- ers like Taylor Coppenrath and T.J. Sorrentine against a talented team like Connecticut." Sorrentine, who starred for his father, Tom at St. Raphael Academy before departing for Vermont said the excitement around Burlington about the NCAA berth is almost hard to describe in words. "The people around here, they treat you with so much respect, making the NCAA, they really recognize that as something," said Sorrentine, one of UVM’s tri-captains. "They come up to me on the street, people I don’t know, to offer congratulations. They’re like, damn, you guys are pretty good, that was a great game." As for UConn, Sorrentine admits that while a victory would be great -UVM could become just the third No. 15 seed to defeat a No. 2 seed since the tournament went to 64 teams in 1979 -that earning the respect of the college basketball world would be mean almost as much. "A lot of people are picking UConn to go the Final Four, even to win the tournament and my philosophy is you want to play the best," Sorrentine said. "To be best, you have to play and beat the best and we have that chance. It also gives us as players a chance to see where we stack up against the best players in the country." "I know I started out slow this season, the first eight or nine games I couldn’t find my rhythm, but I persevered and played well most of the season. I’m as confident as ever and that’s important heading into this type of game." ©The Pawtucket Times 2004

Catamounts’ star to get an audience

By SEAN O’ROURKE The New Haven Register 03/16/2004

How’s this for a quick twist of fate. Taylor Coppenrath, perhaps the greatest player to ever don the green and gold for the University of Vermont men’s basket- ball team, scored 43 points to lead the Catamounts to a 72-53 win over Maine in the America East championship game Saturday. The effort came before an ESPN audience after the 6-foot-9, 240-pound junior center had missed the previous seven games with a wrist injury. The Catamounts (22-8) were rewarded with an automatic NCAA tournament berth. And less than 24 hours later, Coppenrath and his teammates discovered they were the No. 15 seed in the Phoenix Region. Their opponent? How about No. 2-seeded Connecticut, featuring one of the best centers in history in 6-10 junior Emeka Okafor, aching back and all. "It’s great to be in the tournament again," Vermont coach Tom Brennan said Monday. "The only disappointment is that the only guy in the country who can stop Coppenrath is Okafor, and we draw him in the first round." The old Yankee Conference foes meet in the first round of the tournament Thursday at 7:10 p.m. (WFSB-3) at the HSBC Center in Buffalo. The Huskies own a 44-8 series edge on the Catamounts, but the teams have met just once since 1980 -- an 89-52 UConn win in November 1999 at Gampel Pavilion. Coppenrath has owned the America East for three seasons, earning player of the year honors the past two seasons and rook- ie of the year as a freshman. He’s a guy that didn’t score 1,000 points in his high school career at St. Johnsbury (Vt.) Academy,but he reached the plateau after just 50 games at Vermont. "Offensively, there was no other story than Coppenrath ..none," said Maine coach John Giannini after his team was torched by Coppenrath for 28 points in the first half Saturday. "I just didn’t think he could be 100 percent. Maybe he wasn’t, maybe he can play better. He is an absolute clinic. He gets in position in the post and thinks two, three passes ahead to get in perfect position." Then Giannini, before he knew Vermont would play UConn, made an interesting remark to the media covering the America East title game. "I can’t wait to see them (Catamounts) in the NCAAs (because) some team won’t understand how good he is." In Vermont, Coppenrath is an idol and was asked after the Maine game if he liked his rock star status in the Green Mountain State. "I don’t really think of myself as a rock star," Coppenrath said in his usual matter-of-fact response. "I’m a basketball play- er." It’s already been suggested that Coppenrath may be the best to ever play in the America East. Brennan wouldn’t go that far, mentioning Northeastern’s Reggie Lewis (who played for UConn coach Jim Calhoun) and Hofstra’s Speedy Claxton. But you get the point: The player who grew up in a community of about 400 in the village of West Barnet, Vt., is real good. He’s the same one who was only recruited at the Division I level by Vermont. There have been a few inquiries from pro scouts about Coppenrath. "Can he play in the NBA? Hell, I coach Vermont so what do I know?" asked Brennan, who coached at Yale in the mid-1980’s before leaving for Vermont. "But I know some scouts are taking a peek at him. I know Dave Gavitt called (Indiana Pacers President) Larry Bird about him, so we’ll see." Waiting for him will be Okafor, the nation’s best defender who enters the game tied for eighth on the NCAA list for career blocked shots with 428. "He’s been able to score on anybody, but, of course, that’s against guys in the America East," Brennan said. "This is going to be a little different." Calhoun is impressed by the 24.7 scoring average and believes the wrist injury -- which was supposed to end his season -- could have been a positive for Coppenrath in the long run. "He’s one of the better centers we’ll face from a numbers standpoint," Calhoun said. "He had 36 against UCLA (a 68-67 loss at Pauley Pavilion), and he had 43 (Saturday). I’m sure he has all kinds of life. Sometimes when guys come back from injury their legs are fresher because they’re not worn down." Brennan, in turn, is impressed by Okafor, Calhoun’s national player of the year candidate and already the academic student- athlete of the year. "I can’t wait to shake that guy’s hand," Brennan said. "I mean, he’s a great student, a great player and a great kid. That’s great for the game." Brennan just wishes Okafor and the Huskies could have opened the tournament against someone other than his Catamounts. © Copyright 2004 The New Haven Register

Vermont coach has the gift of gab

The Philadelphia Inquirer March 16, 2004 By Mike Jensen Inquirer Staff Writer

BURLINGTON, Vt. - So there was this New Jersey Irishman sitting in a corner at a Vermont classic rock station at 5:30 a.m. yesterday, talking sports, with occasional interruptions by Warren Zevon and Aerosmith. "Get up, you sleepyheads!" Tom Brennan, part of The Corm and the Coach Morning Team, shouted later in the show. "If you've got to be at work at 8, you've got 53 minutes!" And he had a plane to catch. The Coach really is one. After he left the station, WCPV-FM, the 18th-year head coach of the Vermont Catamounts was taking his team to Buffalo, to the NCAA tournament, for the second straight season and the second time in the school's history. Working the 5:30-to-9-a.m. shift at 101.3, he also doubles Howard Stern's ratings in Vermont, because on the air, you get Tom Brennan. He set up his first guest, mentioning that Vermont was one of 10 teams CBS intended to follow around for the tour- nament. "Maybe they're looking at budget cuts," the caller wondered. "Let's follow a team around for 12 minutes." The Catamounts are officially two-billion-to-one to win it all, and a 20-point underdog tomorrow against Connecticut. As a No. 15 seed, they're staying at a Holiday Inn by the airport. Brennan said he couldn't wait to meet Emeka Okafor, the UConn star, and introduce the three players who were going to be guarding him. Brennan howled when that first caller - "Dr. Cory Windblown," a show regular and allegedly Brennan's first roommate at the University of Georgia - brought up Billy Packer, the CBS basketball analyst who took shots at St. Joseph's and its No. 1 seeding this week. "If they built statues for self-importance," Dr. Cory said, "Billy Packer would be like the Washington Monument." Brennan, a native of Phillipsburg, N.J., and an early Rollie Massimino assistant coach for a couple of years at Villanova, did take umbrage at an article in that morning's paper about influential Vermont politicians and other VIPs who were getting NCAA tick- ets. He said on the air: "Shouldn't the governor be there?" Vermont's former governor, Howard Dean, was at the last game. "You give two to Todd down at the Mobil Station," Brennan said. "He works overnight. That's a VIP to me... . We don't want to be big time." His wife delivered socks to the station yesterday in a plastic bag. "It's hard to find a good woman, Joey Victory," he said to another show sidekick. "We thought we were going to the Miami regional. I had Italian loafers and no socks." Brennan knows that Texas Tech coach Bob Knight will also be in Buffalo. He doesn't figure they'll spend any time chatting. "We're just different, very different - complete opposites," Brennan said. "He makes me nervous." St. Joe's is more his kind of squad, and Phil Martelli his kind of coach. "Their third-best player is named Chet!" he told his listeners. "You coach at St. Joe, you've got St. Joe players. You coach at Stanford, you've got Stanford players." And if you're at Vermont... He remembers sitting next to Martelli once at a summer game, watching a player, with Martelli joking, "One of us is in the wrong gym." But Brennan's got a special one right now in Taylor Coppenrath, the two-time America East player of the year, who scored 43 points in Sunday's conference title game, his first game back after he sat out a month with a broken hand. Coppenrath is a native Vermonter, from West Barnet, a one-road hamlet over in the Northeast quadrant. Coppenrath didn't make his high school varsity until his junior year. Brennan has taken to calling him Seabiscuit. He loves talking about how he had 200 people over to his house Sunday after the game, but where was Taylor? Home taking a nap. Brennan has been doing this radio show with the station's program director, Steve Cormier, for 11 years. When his teams were back in the pack in the America East, they used to wake up opposing coaches for unscheduled early-morning game-day inter- views. But not so much anymore. He's at the top, so he's got to act a little more respectable. He just calls his closest friends and wakes them up. Yesterday, Brennan had to cut out from the radio station 30 minutes early. He had that plane to catch. © 2004 Philadelphia Inquirer

Cats to face UConn Thursday in Buffalo UVM team members welcome No. 15 seed

The Burlington Free Press MARCH 15, 2004 By Patrick Garrity

"Please. Please," begged Tom Brennan as the chance for an all-expenses-paid trip to Orlando flashed on the TV screen. Seconds later, the word "MONMOUTH" filled the tube, and a collective groan went up from the crowd gathered at the Rusty Scuffer restaurant in Burlington. Brennan, his University of Vermont men's basketball team and dozens more waited restlessly Sunday evening as the 65-team field for the NCAA tournament was announced. The tension the CBS Selection Show created was as great as any the Catamounts endured Saturday in beating the University of Maine to win the America East title for their NCAA berth. A first-round meeting with Gonzaga? "VALPARAISO" was greeted by another groan. A first-round trip to Denver? "PRINCETON," to a relieved "Ohhhh." A tangle with Oklahoma State in Kansas City? "EASTERN WASHINGTON." Then, at half-past six, the wait ended. A first-round matchup against Connecticut in Buffalo? "VERMONT" the Zenith unveiled, and a roar erupted. The Catamounts' second consecutive appearance in the "Big Dance" will be a trip to Buffalo and a first-round appointment with mighty UConn. The game is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. Thursday at HSBC Arena. "We were hoping for Orlando, but we'll take it. It's certainly not Denver," said Brennan in reference to the team's blizzard- marred trek last year to the first round in Salt Lake City that included a two-day layover in Denver. "They probably wanted to get us somewhere as quickly as they could." The Catamounts are the 15th-seeded team in the 16-team Phoenix Regional, named for the site of the regional semifinals and final. Last year, the Cats entered their first tourney as a 16th seed and were beaten in the first round by Arizona. "I was hoping maybe we'd get a 14, but I just didn't think we would," said junior point guard T.J. Sorrentine. "I'm happy with a 15. It's a step up from last year, and that's what you want to do: Keep improving." "I didn't really have a preference. I know the No. 2 teams are all tough teams," junior Germain Njila said. The native of Cameroon longed for a trip to Orlando and warmer weather. "They don't understand me, man," Njila said with a big grin. "They need to send me somewhere warm." Junior guard David Hehn said waiting for his team's assignment was more suspense than he cares to endure. "I'm not really good with anticipation," said Hehn, whose Sarnia, Ontario, home is just 200 miles from Buffalo. " I t ' s everyone's dream to see their team up there in that bracket, so it's just a great thing to watch and be a part of." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Call goes out for UConn Cats shuffle off to Buffalo to take on vaunted Huskies

The Burlington Free Press MARCH 15, 2004 By Patrick Garrity

Their two best players are juniors. Their coach has been at the helm for 18 seasons. They both have an Ontarioan in the starting lineup. That might be where the similarities between the University of Vermont and the University of Connecticut end. For the second consecutive year, the Catamounts' opening assignment for the NCAA Tournament is a meeting with a former national champion. The NCAA selection committee has made Mighty UConn, Big East power, top-10 staple and 1999 national champ, the Cats' first-round foe. They meet at 7:10 p.m. Thursday at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, N.Y. UConn (27-6), which won the Big East Conference title Saturday night, is making its 25th appearance in the tournament. The Huskies are coached by Jim Calhoun, he of the 674 career victories, and led by junior stars Ben Gordon and Emeka Okafor. Gordon was named the most valuable player for the Big East tournament after breaking Allen Iverson's tourney scoring record with 81 points in three games. Okafor, a national player of the year favorite, is the first player in Big East history to earn player of the year, defender of the year and scholar-athlete of the year trophies. The 6-foot-10 center has been fighting back spasms and missed two games in the conference tournament. "There might be one guy in the country who can guard (Taylor) Coppenrath, and we drew him," Catamounts coach Tom Brennan said. "Okafor is a great, great defender, and that'll really cause us problems." "They might be the best team in the country right now," said Jesse Agel, UVM associate head coach. ".. (Gordon's) an NBA two-guard and obviously with Okafor, they've got one of the one or two best players in the country." Coppenrath returned to the lineup Saturday after missing four weeks with a broken wrist. His 43-point, 13-rebound perform- ance lifted UVM to a 72-53 win over the University of Maine for the America East Conference title. "He's big, real strong and athletic," said Coppenrath of Okafor. "Maybe me stepping out a little, getting him away from the basket if he's guarding me will make it easier for other people to score. It'll be a tough matchup, for sure, but it'll be fun to see how we do." "UConn plays on TV all the time, and I think a lot of guys are familiar with them," guard T.J. Sorrentine said. "Preseason, they were No. 1 in the country, so they know what their goal is, they're trying to win a national championship. We just have to come out ready to play." The Catamounts and Huskies are former Yankee Conference rivals and have played 52 times in a series that began in 1926. UConn holds a 44-8 advantage, including an 89-52 win in the last meeting Nov. 19, 1999. The game was the first collegiate game for current UVM fifth-year seniors Scotty Jones, Matt Sheftic and Corey Sullivan. "They're obviously a great team," Brennan said, "but our boys have been tremendous all year and we're looking forward to it very much." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Choice destination for UVM The Boston Globe By Joe Burris, Globe Staff, 3/15/2004

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- If you're a member of the Vermont Catamounts, and your NCAA Tournament experience last year includ- ed getting stuck in Denver in a snowstorm before arriving in Salt Lake City 14 hours before the first-round tipoff, where would you like to head for this year's tournament? "Orlando, please give me Orlando," said coach Tom Brennan while awaiting his team's fate to be flashed on the television screen. The 18-year mentor didn't get his wish, but the America East champions did get a break. Vermont (22-8) is headed to Buffalo, the sub-regional site closest to its campus, as a No. 15 seed. The Catamounts will play second-seeded Connecticut (27-6) in the first round Thursday in the Phoenix regional. "I'm thrilled with Buffalo, great restaurants. Buffalo is a very underrated city," said Brennan, who guided the Catamounts to their first Tournament berth last season, which ended with a first-round loss to Arizona. He said he felt less elation watching the selection show this season and took a pragmatic view. "The opponent is much more important this year. Last year, it was, `Who cares?' because it was our first time," said Brennan. "Our program is now at a point where we think we can compete. We've got good players and we're not going just to show up." Like last season, the Catamounts watched the show from the Rusty Scuffer restaurant in Burlington, just minutes from cam- pus. Moments after the selection was announced and the cheering subsided, many spoke about the matchup between Vermont star Taylor Coppenrath and Connecticut's National Player of the Year candidate, Emeka Okafor. The 6-foot-9-inch Coppenrath, who scored an America East tournament-record 43 points in Saturday's win over Maine in the league championship -- after missing seven games with a broken bone in his left wrist -- was told repeatedly that he must fake shot attempts against UConn's 6-10 shot-blocker supreme. "I'm going to do what I do every game, just go out there, play, concentrate, maybe work on shot-faking a little more, but I've played against 7-footers. They block shots," said Coppenrath, who is averaging 24.7 points and 7.4 rebounds. "You just have to be aggressive, play our type of game and see what happens." The Catamounts envisioned playing UConn in the preseason National Invitation Tournament, but lost to Nevada in the first round. "Matchup-wise, it's going to be very, very tough," said Brennan. He said defensive specialist Germain Njila will start against UConn guard Ben Gordon and Brennan will likely start 6-7 pivot Scotty Jones against Okafor. Brennan will use reinforcements against Okafor, switching to 6-8 backup Martin Klimes or 6-8, 260-pound center Matt Sheftic, who has played sparingly while recovering from knee surgery. "I know how we can play against people at our level," said Brennan. "We've guarded so well in this tournament. Now, can we step it up a level and guard? That's a big question." Last season the Catamounts were stuck in Denver after a snowstorm shut down the city. The team stayed overnight at a hotel, then caught a bus the next morning to Colorado Springs, where they flew to Salt Lake City. By the second half of their game against Arizona, the travel-lagged Catamounts were spent, and unlike many teams, scarce- ly had time to adjust to the high altitude. Vermont was routed, 80-51. The school is exploring traveling via a chartered plane. Brennan said the team will head to Buffalo tomorrow afternoon. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

'If we have to, we can walk there' By Jim Litke Associated Press Sports March 15, 2004

In these days of can-you-top-this recruiting tales, the story of how coach Tom Brennan landed the kid that Vermont's largest newspaper calls ''the state's basketball god'' might be the most improbable of them all. ''He went to class in the morning, had lunch with the team and dinner with the coaches. Might have stuck around to watch practice, too,'' Brennan recalled Sunday, ''but I can't swear to it.'' The kid's name is Taylor Coppenrath, and if you don't know it yet, tune in Thursday night when he and the 15th-seeded Catamounts are matched against No. 2 UConn and everybody's All-American, Emeka Okafor. It might be the only chance the rest of America gets to see him. ''And isn't that just our luck?'' Brennan snorted. ''One guy in the country can guard Taylor, and we drew the guy.'' Sixty-five teams were selected for the NCAA tournament Sunday, and you can count on both hands the programs that made the cut doing things the right way. Whatever the exact number, Vermont is the thumb. Brennan has been there 18 years, despite winning just 14 games in his first three seasons, and still runs a clean, competitive program that people across the state can rally around. He relies on real students to portray athletes instead of the other way around, because he isn't looking to go anywhere else. The only time he even considered applying for another coaching job was last year, right after Jim Harrick's messy exile from Georgia left the program in need of fumi- gation. Brennan played basketball there almost 25 years ago and was deeply embarrassed for his alma mater. Even so, the discussion with his wife, Lynn, lasted less than five min- utes. ''We were at home looking out at Lake Champlain and I said, 'We should check into this. It's a lot of money and they need somebody to come in on a white horse. It just might be us.' She didn't even look up from whatever she was reading, just pointed at the window and said, 'This is your home. These are your people.' ''The second I heard it, I knew she was right. I have no desire to coach where you have to deal with AAU guys and sneak- er reps and all that,'' Brennan said. ''It's not the game that's passed me by, but the business of the game. Without my assistants, I'd be like Col. Potter (on the old TV series 'Mash'), walking around all the time without a clue about what was really going on. ''So maybe it's a blessing all this didn't come to me until late in my career. Because the truth, I guess, is that I really like being on the periphery.'' The emergence of Coppenrath — who hails from nearby West Barnet, a town of 300 where locals exchange highlight videos of the games at the general store — has made it harder to remain there. Last season was the first time Vermont qualified for the tournament, but after waiting 103 years to get in, the Catamounts were ousted by Arizona after just a few hours. The real shame was that after a cross-country trip straight out of ''Planes, Trains and Automobiles,'' Brennan and his kids didn't reach the tournament site in Salt Lake City until 13 hours before tip-off. That was way too late for anybody to make a fuss over them, but time enough for top-seed Arizona to send the Catamounts packing without so much as a parting gift. At the time, Brennan was funny and philosophical about their fate, as befits a man who already enjoyed the respect of almost everybody in Vermont and whose morning-drive radio show is one of the most popular in the state. Of course, he also knew he had Coppenrath and a strong supporting cast returning, and he figured the odyssey trip would be good preparation for this season. It was — though not in the way Brennan imagined. Vermont opened it with a four-game, 13,000-mile road trip pinballing across the country and lost all four. Then the America East schedule began in January, and the Cats promptly strung together 13 con- secutive wins. But just as all the pieces were falling into place, Coppenrath broke a bone in his left wrist Feb. 16. No one talked about a comeback until the Catamounts won their first two games in the conference tourney, and even then, the likelihood that he would even play in the final against Maine wasn't a done deal until the rock-band Phish — a collection of for- mer Vermont students who would qualify as the state's musical gods — finished performing the national anthem. All Coppenrath did was outscore the Black Bears 28-23 in the opening half, en route to 43 points total and a 72-53 Vermont win. Maine coach John Giannini explained his decision not to double-team Coppenrath until the second half this way: ''I just thought that he wouldn't be 100 percent. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he can play even better; I wouldn't put it past him.'' And then Giannini added, ''You could not script this any better. I expect I'll take my kids to see this as a Disney movie some- day.'' However this tournament go-round ends, Brennan already figures he and the Catamounts have been playing with house money all along. On top of that, he started checking flight schedules Sunday night for the trip to play the Huskies in Buffalo, N.Y., and found a couple of non-stops. ''And if we have to,'' he said, ''we could walk there.'' Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. © 2004 The Associated Press.

It's UVM, UConn in first round

March 15, 2004 By Patrick Joy Barre Times Argus

BURLINGTON - Vermont's Matt Sheftic and Scotty Jones will begin the NCAA Men's National Basketball Championship as they began their college careers - facing the University of Connecticut. Sheftic - an Essex Junction native - Jones and about a hundred fans, faculty members, former players and journalists packed into the Rusty Scuffer restaurant on Church Street in Burlington Sunday, awaiting the NCAA's announcement of their seed and oppo- nent in the tournament. Just 24 hours after beating Maine, 72-53, to earn a bid in the tournament, UVM players drew a collective gasp, then let go a cheer as they watched their name pop up next to Connecticut on the restaurant's tiny television. Seeded 15th, the Catamounts will travel to Buffalo, N.Y., to take on the No. 2 Huskies on Thursday. The Huskies began the year ranked No. 1 in the country and are in hot pursuit of a national title. UConn knocked out Pittsburgh on Saturday to lay claim to the Big East title. Sheftic and Jones matched up with Connecticut five years ago, when the duo were freshmen at UVM. That game went poor- ly for the Cats, who were blown out by the Huskies in their first game of the season. UVM coach Tom Brennan is hoping for a differ- ent result this time around. "Yeah, you never know," said Brennan. "Back pain now, that's what our hope is now, that (Connecticut star Emeka) Okafor's just going to skip the first game and go to the second one. But ... now it's a free roll, we're playing with house money." Last year was the Catamounts first trip ever to the NCAA tournament after more than 100 years of basketball. The tourna- ment, which showcases 65 teams, and the best programs in the country, runs for three weeks and crowns a national champion on April 5. The Okafor that Brennan spoke of is the Huskies' Emeka Okafor, a national player of the year candidate and perhaps the most intimidating post player in the country. Okafor is the nation's leading shot blocker, and his 6-foot 10-inch frame and impeccable tim- ing will test UVM star forward Taylor Coppenrath like nothing has before. Okafor has been plagued with an injured back for the entire year, however, and Coppenrath will take any help he can get. "He's a real talented big guy, real athletic," Coppenrath said of Okafor. "He'll be entertaining to watch and to match up against his team because I think we have some talented big guys and guards and they have a really talented big guy and a guard so it will be interesting to play." Coppenrath was the biggest reason the Catamounts were gathered at the Scuffer Sunday. Dishing out a stunning 43-point effort, Coppenrath propelled the Cats to their overwhelming win over Maine and an automatic bid in the tournament. Hailing from tiny West Barnet in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, Coppenrath has taken UVM to the national stage. Saturday's contest was Coppenrath's first in a month, as the junior standout battled back from a broken wrist to lead Vermont. Coppenrath is the best player Vermont has seen in years, and arguably the best player in the school's history. Still, tourna- ment history heavily favors the Huskies, as only four No. 15 seeds have beaten No. 2 seeds since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1988. Tough matchups and long odds had little impact on the Catamounts Sunday, however. Laughing, jostling one another and pounding on their tables, the team was clearly happy to be headed back to the tourney. The team is also happy to be traveling across a single state line, and not across the country. Last year, Vermont played Arizona in Salt Lake City and endured a two-day odyssey traveling to the venue as their flights were repeatedly cancelled and the Cats stranded in Denver, Colo., due to a major snowstorm. The accomplishment is not easily downplayed. Power conferences and huge schools dominate the tournament while mid- majors like Vermont pray for a conference win and the chance to dance. For a team whose entire state population could fit inside one New York City borough, the Cats have taken their game to a new level, and Brennan isn't headed to Buffalo for the wings. "We're going to win now, we're not going just to go," he said. "Last year, it was like, hey, whoever we play let's just go some- where and have some fun. Now we really feel like this program has established itself and when you've got a player as good as Coppenrath ... everybody plays good on your team, you can win." © Copyright 2004 The Barre Times Argus Stonington’s Jensen realizes dream

March 15, 2004 The Westerly (R.I.) Sun By Aaron Greenberg

BURLINGTON, Vt. - After and up-and-down season for his team, this weekend was as good as it could get for Alex Jensen. The Stonington High grad first got to help the Vermont men's basketball team win the America East Championship on Saturday - on ESPN, no less - then found out on Sunday that the Catamounts will get to go dancing with a very special partner in the NCAA tournament. The University of Connecticut, the big school from the state where Jensen was the all-time fourth-leading high school scorer, will be playing Vermont at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, N.Y. on Thursday. "It's unbelievable, and getting UConn makes it even more remarkable," Jensen said on Sunday night. "Home state, hometown team, words really can't describe it. To play anyone would be great, but UConn? A team I grew up watching, going to the Civic Center." The Huskies weren't his team, but growing up in Mystic, how could he not have been interested in the goings-on at Storrs? "I followed them, the hometown team. I always knew what was happening," he said. The two schools nearly played earlier this year in the Preseason National Invitation Tournament, but Vermont lost to Nevada while the Huskies beat Yale. A lot has happened since. "It's been an unbelievable learning experience, learning to deal with highs and lows," Jensen said. "We've been as high as you can be and as low as you can be. In the end it turned out great." There was a one-point loss to UCLA that grabbed attention around the country, and a blowout loss at Rhode Island. But when the conference season got started, the Cats were rolling. Thirteen straight victories came in the America East, then a wrist injury to All-American candidate Taylor Coppenrath, a for- ward, put the postseason hopes in jeopardy. The Cats lost to Boston University, and there were questions of whether or not the team could win the conference title. Coppenrath appeared to be out for the season. Just as the season before, when the reigning conference Player of the Year (T.J. Sorrentine of Pawtucket) had to sit the whole year due to a pair of broken wrists, the team found a way to get by. The Cats won two playoff games, then Coppenrath returned to set a tournament record with 43 points against Maine in the finals before the faithful Patrick Gym crowd. It was an exciting time, and even better, it opened up the rights to the Big Dance. After everything, it was worth it. "This is the ultimate, it's what you play for," Jensen said. "We basically know, unless you pull an unbelievable record off, you have to win the tournament to get in." Jensen played 13 minutes in the game, on the court during a lengthy stretch in the second half with about a 10-point lead. He kept looking up at the clock, wanting to see it move faster towards the end. "It was exciting to be on the court," he said. "It was great, knowing I was helping the team win." Statistically, the numbers don't always show it. But there's a reason for that. "We have two real good players who do a lot of scoring. We need to play defense, run the offense, do the little things to help us win," he said. Jensen, with a knee injury, decided in December to put off surgery until after the season, and was the main guard off the bench, often for two-guard David Hehn. He had been the starting point guard for two years at Lehigh before transferring, and sit- ting last season out. Jensen is averaging 5.3 points and 1.9 rebounds in 28 games, shooting a career-best 35.8 percent on 3-pointers, with 38 so far. "I'm a role player. I come in off the bench and shoot, try to give us a lift," Jensen said. "It was tough at first to get used to it, but I came here to win a championship, be on a winning team. It's fine with me." The team went last year, as a No. 16 seed, to its first NCAA tournament. That ended with a blowout against Arizona. Going against the Huskies, most people will expect the same kind of finish. That's hardly a deterrent to Jensen. First of all, there's a little more respect. "The 16 seed, you're just happy to be there," he said. "Being a 15 makes it a little better. We kind of thought we were going to get a 14 or 15. But we also thought they'd probably keep us in the East, give us the best of both worlds." That they did, including a dream opponent. "In the end, it's just a dream come true to be in this position, to know that I've gotten a chance to make it to the tourna- ment," he said. "I can't wait. I'm getting butterflies now thinking about it. This is something I'll remember for the rest of my life. I'll probably tell my kids about it someday." © Copyright 2004 The Westerly Sun “You Can’t Stop Him” Coppenrath leads Cats to title victory The Burlington Free Press March 14, 2004 By Patrick Garrity Free Press Staff Writer

Taylor Coppenrath played. Brother, did he play. The University of Vermont men's basketball star marched from the sidelines directly into the record books Saturday, returning from injury to carry the Catamounts to a championship. Coppenrath poured in 43 points in his first game in a month, leading a 72-53 dismantling of the University of Maine in the America East Conference final. The sizzling performance, delivered to a sold-out Patrick Gym audience of 3,228, sends the Catamounts to the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year. They will learn who, when and where they play today when the tourney field is announced. "This wasn't a game, it was party," junior guard David Hehn said, "and Taylor was the DJ." "Unbelievable," said Maine coach John Giannini. Coppenrath, a 6-foot 9-inch junior from tiny West Barnet, had not played since he was diagnosed with a broken bone in his left wrist Feb. 16. He was believed to be lost for the season, but when the Catamounts survived the opening two rounds of the tour- nament last weekend in Boston, a comeback began to kindle. His cast was removed Monday, and he took part in team workouts throughout the week. His status for Saturday's game remained in doubt until pre-game introductions, when his name was called for the starting lineup to roaring approval from the Patrick crowd. What followed was a fireworks display unmatched in conference tournament history. His first basket, off a rebound 86 sec- onds into the game, uncorked a performance even Coppenrath never saw coming. "I thought I was going to play limited minutes and just contribute what I could, however much I could," he said. "I just decided to go out and do what I could." By halftime, he had contributed 28 points, outscoring Maine single-handedly. The hundreds of students who postponed spring break to attend taunted the visitors with a chant of "You can't stop him! You can't stop him!" The plain fact was, they could- n't. "I just thought that he wouldn't be 100 percent," Giannini said. "Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he can play even better; I would- n't put it past him. "You could not script this any better. I expect I'll take my kids to see this as a Disney movie some day." Only two weeks ago, Giannini's club left Patrick a 72-67 winner. But that was with Coppenrath dressed in a sweater and khakis. Saturday, he was dressed to kill, a small, elastic wrap around his wrist the only evidence of his injury. The 43 points, beamed to living rooms across the country by ESPN's live telecast, eclipsed a 17-year-old tournament scoring record. "Tuesday, I knew he was going to play," said UVM coach Tom Brennan with a grin. "I don't know when he knew, but I knew Tuesday he was playing." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Taylor-made The Burlington Free Press March 14, 2004 By Hillary Read Free Press Staff Writer

And after seven games, the state's basketball god was done resting. Was he ever done resting. West Barnet's Taylor Coppenrath returned to the University of Vermont men's basketball lineup with a 43-point, 13-rebound revela- tion in Saturday's America East championship game, and the Catamounts booked their second straight NCAA tournament berth with a 72-53 win over Maine. Coppenrath's intergalactic, career-best performance -- 14 of 19 field goals, 14 of 15 from the line -- broke the tournament scoring record by three points. The effort came after a four-week, seven-game layoff from a broken scaphoid bone in his left hand that left his game status in doubt until tipoff. "He became," said awed Black Bears coach John Giannini, "a legend for the ages." Coppenrath's starting-lineup introduction ratcheted a fevered crowd of 3,228, witnessing Patrick Gym's first men's basket- ball championship game, into pandemonium. And that was the calm before the storm. Twenty minutes into the game, Coppenrath had 28 points against single coverage, UVM had a 40-23 lead and a scruffy Northeast Kingdom towhead had replaced anthem singers Phish as the biggest act in town. "I thought I was going to play limited minutes and just contribute what I could, however much I could. See how my wrist felt, take it from there," Coppenrath said. "We just started going to it, getting some easy plays, and the guys hit me where I need- ed to get the ball." The Black Bears, who had hurt UVM in a 72-67 win at Patrick on Feb. 29, picked a bad day to fall quiet. Forward Mark Flavin's calf injury and Kevin Reed and Eric Dobson's shooting struggles against the Catamounts' thorny perimeter defense conspired to hob- ble Maine's attack. "We felt we could guard their guards, and we didn't want Flavin to hurt us," UVM coach Tom Brennan said. "Then, when he didn't play (Flavin went scoreless in four minutes of action), obviously that changed things." With Coppenrath 11 of 14 in the first half and the rest of the Catamounts three of 14, Giannini changed plans, and Maine (20-10) doubled Coppenrath on every second-half touch. UVM scored one point in a four-minute span starting at the 15:47 mark, and Reed's layup pulled Maine within 49-41 with 11:47 to go. "We were a little tentative; we got caught up in the crowd a little bit. And I think everyone wanted to make the one to get us back well again, and it just didn't happen," Brennan said. "It gave us a chance to make the game competitive," Giannini said of the double-team strategy. "I'll wish all offseason I had put two people on ... (Coppenrath) from the start." Two Coppenrath free throws extended the lead to 57-45 with 6:12 left. Reed missed at the other end, and all-tourney mem- ber T.J. Sorrentine shook off a poor shooting day to knuckle home a killer 3 with 5:52 to go and book his first NCAA appearance. "He struggled today shooting a little bit, but that dagger just ended it," Brennan said. Coppenrath's tip-in with 50 seconds to go broke his personal record of 41 points and topped UVM's lead at 70-50. Brennan removed his star with 34 seconds on the clock, and the Patrick faithful stood as one to honor the most dominant, dramatic perform- ance in the gym's history. Sorrentine and Germain Njila (13 points, five rebounds) joined Stony Brook's D.J. Munir and Dobson on the all-tournament team. Coppenrath's only game of the tournament was enough to earn him Reggie Lewis Most Outstanding Player honors. The Catamounts, whose 22-8 mark represents the most wins in program history, will learn of their NCAA fate when the brack- et is unveiled in today's selection show (6 p.m., WCAX). "I can't wait to see them in the NCAA tournament," Giannini said of the Catamounts and Coppenrath. "(The other team) will say, 'Oh, this guy is a pretty good player, but he's no different from the other guys. They'll have no clue." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Njila caps standout tournament The Burlington Free Press March 14, 2004 By Hillary Read, Free Press Staff Writer

Hard work. Focus. Defense. Throw in some rebounding and clutch free-throw shooting to Germain Njila's usual immeasurable contributions, and the choice for the University of Vermont's third all-America East tournament member was as obvious as the grin on the junior forward's face Saturday. "I just do what I have to do to help the team," Njila said after backing up Taylor Coppenrath's record day with 13 points, five rebounds and smothering perimeter defense in UVM's 72-53 America East men's basketball championship victory over Maine. Njila's effort -- which included 8 of 8 from the line -- brought his three-game tournament averages to 12 points and seven rebounds. He was instrumental in helping the Catamounts get through the quarters and semis, and he was the only UVM player who factored as a supplemental threat to Coppenrath's tournament-record 43 points Saturday. With Njila, David Hehn and T.J. Sorrentine clamping down on the wings, Maine guards Eric Dobson, Kevin Reed and Udo Hadjisotirov combined to hit just 9 of 40 shots. "Germain just plays so tough, and Dave does the same thing," Coppenrath said. "They limited Maine's best two shooters and their penetration and didn't give them anything easy on the break, so they struggled to score." Njila expressed gratitude after the game for the jubilant 3,228 who packed first-time championship venue Patrick Gym to root the Catamounts to their second straight NCAA berth. "As a basketball player, you know, you want to win games, and if you lose a game, you say, 'Oh, well. I lost a game,'" he said. "But making those people proud, that's a huge part. Sometimes it's hard, but for those people, you just have to give everything you have." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Vermont experiences re-berth

Sunday, March 14, 2004 The Boston Globe By Joe Burris, Globe Staff

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- To think there was some question whether Vermont star Taylor Coppenrath would play against Maine in yesterday's America East championship game. Not only did he play, he outplayed. The junior forward from West Barnet, Vt., who had not suited up since Feb. 15 because of a broken bone in his left wrist, outscored Maine, 28-23, in the first half and finished with an America East tournament record and career-high 43 points in the Catamounts' 72-53 triumph, leading Vermont to its second consecutive tournament title and automatic NCAA Tournament berth. Coppenrath converted his first six shots. His fifth basket, a 3-pointer, put him ahead of Maine in points for the first time, 12-10, and gave the Catamounts a 20-10 advantage. He finished the first half 11 of 14 and led the Catamounts to a 40-23 lead. Maine didn't outscore Coppenrath, the tournament's most outstanding player, until 15:28 remained in the second half, when Olli Ahvenniemi's tip-in pulled the Black Bears within 48-33. "How about if you're his old man, how about if you're George Coppenrath, and you wake up one day in West Barnet, Vt., and you realize you've sired Seabiscuit?" said Vermont coach Tom Brennan, whose Catamounts improved to 22-8. "You would think he would have nerves. He hasn't played in four weeks, it's the biggest game of his life, and he just dominated," Brennan added. One of the best finishers in America East history, the 6-foot-9-inch forward showed no signs of a layoff that was prompted when he suffered a broken bone in his wrist while drawing a charge against Stony Brook Feb. 11. Coppenrath played against Boston University four nights later, then was sidelined after his wrist swelled. At one point, he was expected to miss the rest of the season. His free throw with 13:06 left gave the Catamounts a 49-35 lead and gave him 33 points to surpass former Northeastern standout Perry Moss's championship game record of 32 against Niagara March 6, 1982. Coppenrath also surpassed the 40-point outputs of former BU guard Tony DaCosta against Northeastern March 10, 1989, in the semifinals and Vermont's Joe Calavita against Niagara March 3, 1987, in the quarterfinals. Coppenrath's previous career high was 41 against NU Jan. 18. "I never know what kind of game I'm going to have until the end of the game," Coppenrath said. "I just try to do what I can every time down to make our team better on that possession, whether it's get a rebound, take a charge, get a loose ball, make a basket, make a pass, whatever it is, I'm there to do that. "I thought I was going to play limited minutes and just contribute however much I could. When we just started going to it, and I got some easy plays, and the guys hit me where I needed to get the ball, that was the game right there." Coppenrath scored the Catamounts' first basket on a 3-point play that set off a rau- cous celebration from a Patrick Gym sellout crowd of 3,228. Tied, 10-10, Vermont scored 12 straight points. Maine cut the deficit to 22-18, but UVM responded by outscoring the Black Bears, 18-5 (including 14 by Coppenrath) for the 17-point halftime cushion. "I said to [the players] at halftime, `Look, Taylor's got 28, they've got 23, is there a message here?' " said Brennan. "I said, `Get him the ball. Make them stop him.' " Maine did a better job of containing Coppenrath in the second half, sandwiching him between two defenders and challeng- ing the other Catamounts to shoot from the perimeter. After Vermont went up, 42-23, on a layup by Scotty Jones with 19:41 left, Maine's strategy worked and prompted a furious rally. A basket by Kevin Reed with 11:47 left cut the lead to 49-41. But the Catamounts kept the game from getting closer by stepping up their defensive pressure and hitting an occasional clutch shot -- including a trey by T.J. Sorrentine with 5:42 left for a 60-45 edge. Maine never got closer than 13 points afterward. "If I just would have had enough foresight to play our defense [doubling Coppenrath] in the second half the whole game, we might have had a chance," said Maine coach Dr. John Giannini, whose Black Bears (20-10) were hampered because pivot and No. 3 scorer Mark Flavin played sparingly because of a calf injury. "If I had known that anyone outside the NBA could score 28 points on us in a half, I would have done it from the get-go. Are you kidding me?" said Giannini. "He can do anything he wants in this state, because he became a legend for the ages." "It was just a wonderful feeling," said Coppenrath. "It's incredible to have all these people come and fill this place up." © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

Coppenrath lifts Catamounts, dooms Maine

Portland (Maine) Press Herald By Glenn Jordan, Press Herald Sports March 14, 2004

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Nearly three decades have passed since Patrick Gymnasium hosted a nationally televised sporting event - the 1976 Olympic boxing trials. For the overwhelming majority of University of Vermont fans among Saturday's sellout crowd, the wait was well worth it. Taylor Coppenrath didn't simply return from a four-week absence due to a broken bone in his wrist. He returned with one of the most unforgettable performances in New England college basketball history. Coppenrath scored 43 points against the stingiest defense in America East to lead second-seeded Vermont past the fourth-seeded University of Maine 72-53 in the conference cham- pionship game Saturday. "Are you kidding me?" said Maine Coach John Giannini. "(Coppenrath) can do whatever he wants in this state, in my mind, because he became a legend for the ages (Saturday)." The victory sent the Catamounts (22-8) to the NCAA tournament for the second straight year. Maine remains the only state with a Division I men's basketball program never to have a team invited to the Big Dance. Many in the raucous crowd of 3,228 camped out overnight Tuesday for tickets that went on sale Wednesday morning. If you didn't arrive by 1 a.m., you got skunked. How loud was it inside Patrick Gym, where the locally grown Phish sang the national anthem? Howard Dean, the former pres- idential hopeful, was there and you couldn't hear him yell. Maine (20-10) took leads of 6-3 and 10-8, but Coppenrath was unstoppable. He is 6-foot-9. Hails from West Barnet, Vt. Wears a goatee. Think of a bulked-up Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo cartoons, and that's Coppenrath. With silky inside moves finished off by layups and jump hooks, Coppenrath led Vermont on runs of 14-0 and 16-2. By half- time he had outscored the entire Maine team (28-23) as Vermont took a 40-23 lead. "He is a phenomenal player, an amazing player," Giannini said. "To do that after four weeks off, no one would have dreamed it." In the second half, Maine clamped two players on Coppenrath the instant he crossed half court and held him to three field goals. The Black Bears used that strategy in holding him to a season-low 11 points in Orono in January, a game won by Vermont. All summer long, Giannini said, he will kick himself for not double-teaming Coppenrath from the start. "If I had known that anyone outside of the NBA could score 28 points on us in a half, I would have done it from the get- go," Giannini said. "I have no idea how high a level that guy can play. I would not put anything past him." Coppenrath appeared lost for the season after injuring his left wrist a month ago. He didn't play in Vermont's quarterfinal and semifinal victories last week in Boston, over No. 7 New Hampshire and No. 6 Hartford. After a week of speculation whether Coppenrath would play (two hours before the game he warmed up while balancing an ice bag on his left hand as if he were checking his wristwatch), he came out to a thunderous ovation and made his first six shots. He was 11 of 14 in the first half and surpassed the America East championship game scoring record of 32 with more than 13 minutes left. Overall, Coppenrath shot 14 of 19 from the field and 14 of 15 from the line. "I thought I was going to play limited minutes and contribute however much I could," said the unassuming Coppenrath. "A couple times it got bumped and shot a little pain in there, but no real long-lasting pain, which is a good sign." "Needless to say," interjected Vermont Coach Tom Brennan, "I never once asked him how it was. I didn't want to know." America East delays its championship game a week so it can be televised on ESPN the day before the NCAA tournament field is selected. While Coppenrath was healing, Maine's top low-post player, 6-foot-10 Mark Flavin, was ailing. Because of a strained left calf, Flavin played only 10 minutes in Maine's semifinal victory over No. 8 Stony Brook, which had knocked off top-seeded Boston University. On Saturday, Flavin managed only four minutes. He didn't start. His replacement, David Dubois, got into early foul trouble and played only 21 minutes. Two weeks ago, in the regular-season finale at Patrick, Flavin scored 17 points and Maine beat Vermont (without Coppenrath), 72-67. With no effective inside game, Maine attempted to shoot its way back into the game but connected on only 4 of 29 3-point- ers as Vermont extended its defense. Kevin Reed, who led Maine in scoring this season, was held to nine points on 3-of-16 shooting. Eric Dobson scored 11 and Joe Campbell had 10. They were a combined 1 of 20 beyond the 3-point arc. "It just felt like I didn't really get too many clear looks today," Reed said. "I forced a few shots. . . . but I try to keep things in perspective. © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

Coppenrath leads Vermont to NCAA Tourney

The Rutland Herald March 14, 2004 By CHUCK CLARINO Staff Writer

BURLINGTON — The University of Vermont Catamounts found their way back to the “Big Dance,” squired by its own Prince Charming, Taylor Coppenrath. Coppenrath shrugged off the rust from a month’s layoff due to a broken hand by putting on a sensational, one-man perform- ance that stunned and frustrated the Maine Black Bears and carried the Cats to the dance. In 39 minutes, Coppenrath pumped in 43 points, hauled in 13 rebounds and lifted UVM to a 72-53 victory over Maine in the America East Championship game, not to mention a school record 22 wins Saturday before a wild packed house at Patrick Gym. The win secured an automatic bid to the 64-team NCAA Tournament. It is the second straight year UVM has gained that honor. “To say he was the difference is the understatement of the year,” said Maine coach John Giannini. “He can do anything he wants in this state, he has become a legend. He is THE MAN.” As late as Friday, Coppenrath was undecided about whether he would play, even though he had been cleared to participate. He said he “had it in the back of his mind Thursday,” he would play but didn’t decide until Saturday. “He may not have known, but I knew on Tuesday that he would play,” said UVM coach Tom Brennan. “For him to come out there — I would think nerves — you know he hasn’t played in four weeks,” said Brennan. “In the biggest game of his life until this point, he came out and dominated.” UVM has had some notable alumni in attendance— in parftic- ular the rock group Phish who sang the National Anthem — and some- one asked Coppenrath how he felt about being compared to a rock star. “I don’t really think of myself as a rock star, I play basket- ball,” said Coppenrath, a junior from West Barnet, who was named the Reggie Lewis Most Valuable Player for the tournament. Coppenrath’s inside hoop at 14:03 mark evened the game at 10-10 and triggered a 14-0 run that allowed the Catamounts to dis- tance themselves from the Bears. During that run, Coppenrath hit nine points and one began to realize that this could be one of those spe- cial performances. “I thought that I was going to play limited minutes and con- tribute however much I could, depending upon how my wrist felt, and take it from there,” said Coppenrath. “But when we started going to it and got some easy plays and the guys hit me where I needed to get the ball, that was the game right there.” Another 10-0 spurt, also triggered by Coppenrath (this time on a baby hook), gave the Cats a 32-18 lead and the full house hooted and hollered in glee. Coppenrath said that he has some pain at times but not the debilitat- ing pain that would keep him from playing. Conversely, one of Maine’s big three, Mark Flavin, was pretty much unable to go. Flavin, a 6-foot-10 senior forward, is Maine’s chief inside threat. But he was hobbled by a calf injury and limited to four minutes, without scor- ing a point. Maine’s failure to get inside, at least to make Coppenrath play defense, was a key, especially since the other inside threat, power forward David Dubois, was saddled with foul trouble. Meanwhile, the Bears could generate little offense from the perimeter. In the meantime against the single coverage, Coppenrath had a party, scoring 28 points in the first half on 11-of-14 shooting. “That was a tough trade for us,” said Giannini of losing Flavin while the Cats got back Coppenrath. “I just thought that he wouldn’t be at 100 percent. But he’s a clinic, always thinking two or three passes ahead. We didn’t have the right plan to stop him until we were down by 17 and had 20 minutes left.” Trailing 40-23 at the half, Maine switched up and dispatched two men to cover Coppenrath. The Bears dared other UVM play- ers to score, leaving open men, while blanketing Coppenrath. The plan worked two ways. It not only made it difficult for the UVM players to get Coppenrath the ball, it also jump-start- ed the Maine offense. Eric Dobson (11 points) had success driving and pulling up with jumpers, while Joe Campbell (10 points) was able to get put-backs and some inside hoops off setups. A 10-2 run started with just over 13 minutes to go and inched the Black Bears closer at 51-41. Campbell’s stop-and-pop jumper at 10 minutes cut the lead to eight. Meanwhile, with Coppenrath double covered, UVM’s offense went away. The shots weren’t falling for T.J. Sorrentine, Germain Njila (13 points) or David Hehn, so Brennan inserted fifth-year senior Corey Sullivan. And he provided an instant reward with a jumper from the top of the key that stemmed the Maine flow and got UVM going again. A minute later, Sorrentine knocked down a 3-pointer that Brennan described as “a dagger,” and UVM’s lead bumped back up to over 10 at 60-45. The Cats made it stick by hitting foul shots — 22 of 24 in all— including the last eight. And as the clock ticked down, the jubilation in the crowd built like a volcano ready to erupt, with fans spilling onto the floor in wild euphoria as the final buzzer sound- ed. Lost in the Coppenrath frenzy was the fact that UVM played terrific team defense, limiting Maine to 53 points and 44 per- cent shooting overall, including 23 percent from 3-point land. “Again, (UVM assistant coach) Jesse Agel did a wonderful job of choreographing — that guy is a brilliant tactician,” said Brennan. “We really had a plan going in. We knew what they did and how to stop them.” Now the Cats await the NCAA seeding committee to learn their destination and what high-profile team they will face in some regional somewhere far from here. While the Cats say bring it on, Maine coach Giannini had a note of cautions for UVM’s next foe. “I can’t wait to see them in the NCAA,” said Giannini. “He (Coppenrath) is impossible to defend with one player. They will have no clue and he will be lighting them up and they won’t know what hit them.” © Copyright 2004 The Rutland Herald UVM gets its dancing shoes The Valley News March 14, 2004 By Bruce Wood, Valley News Sports

BURLINGTON- Taylor Coppenrath made his job look easy. Maine men’s basketball coach John Giannini made the media’s job easy after the 6-foot-9 Vermont forward scored 43 points to lead Vermont to the America east Tournament championship with a 72-53 win over the Black Bears and a second straight berth in the NCAA Tournament. “There’s no other story than that,” Giannini said after Coppenrath broke the conference tournament scoring record and earned the MVP award in his first game back from a broken left wrist. “That’s it. Your story is simple.” One month to the day after the break, Coppenrath hit 11-of-14 shots and poured in 28 points in the first half to outscore the entire Maine team by five points. The pride of West Barnet, Vermont finished the day 14-of-19 from the field, 14-of-15 from the line a led both teams with 13 rebounds. Not bad for a guy whose season was supposed to be over and who only knew he’d be able to give it a shot at midweek. “You could not script this better,” said Giannini, gracious in defeat. I’ll expect that I’ll take my kids to see this as a Disney movie someday.” Vermont, which improved to 22-8 overall, will learn its seed, opponent and destination for its second-ever NCAA Tournament game today. “This was a wonderful, wonderful effort by our kids and by our fans,” said Vermont coach Tom Brennan. “A couple weeks ago we lost to New Hampshire by 22 or whatever it was and they always say it’s darkest before the dawn. That appeared to be the case then. “I do want to say, I love my kids and they deserve every single thing they got. But (top-seeded Boston University) was the best team this year. They won 24 out of 25 games. ... So the first thing I want to do is tip my hat to BU and say I do feel badly for those guys. But we’ve had a lot of bad luck here, too.” Maine, seeded fouth in the America East tournament, finishes 20-10, barring a bid to the NIT. Playing with a soft cast and an Ace bandage on his left wrist, Coppenrath scored his team’s first basket on a put-back just 1:26 into the game, eliciting a deafening roar from the crowd of 3,228 who knew he might get some minutes, but certainly didn’t expect him to play 39. Nor did he. “I thought I was going to play limited minutes and just contribute however much I could,” said Coppenrath, the America East Player of the Year for the second winter in a row. “Depending on how my wrist felt, we’d take it from there. “Once we started going to it, I was getting some easy plays and the guys hit me where I needed to get the ball. That was the game right there.” All-tournament selection Germain Njila finished with 13 points and five rebounds to help UVM finish what Coppenrath’s big first half started. “Unbelievable,” said Giannini. “He can do whatever he wants in this state. He became a legend for the ages in my mind if I’m in this state.” Maine got 11 points from Eric Dobson and 10 from Joe Campbell, but only four minutes from starting center Mark Flavin, who was banged up during the same week’s wait for the championship game that allowed Coppenrath to heal enough to return. “Maine had a bad break today because Flavin couldn’t play,” said Brennan. “Down here two weeks ago Flavin really hurt us. And we got a good break because what’s-his-name did get to play and he did pretty good as it turns out.” Trailing by as many as 19 points early in the second half, Maine used a full-time double-team on Coppenrath to slice Vermont’s lead to 49-41 with 11:47 left. “That was somewhat troublesome,” said Brennan. “But the reality of it is, I said at halftime, ‘Look, Taylor’s got 28. They’ve got 23. Is there a message here? Is there a little formula we can subscribe to? Get him the ball.’ ” Vermont did. Eight points would be as close as the Bears would come as Coppenrath nailed two free throws and Nijila tiped in a missed 3-pointer to build the lead back to 10. Leading, 55-45, Vermont got two more free throws from Coppenrath and a triple from T.J. Sorrentine, the America East Player of the Year two seasons back to go up by 15 with 5:52 left. “T.J. hit a dagger,” Brennan said. “Let me say this about the kid. He went from being the handsome prince, just the gold- en boy and then all of a sudden the big golden boy shows up and everything changes. And he never wavered in his commitment. ... When (Coppenrath) went down, he really led us.” After the big golden boy hit a baseline fadeaway to stretch the lead to 17 with under 4:30 to play, the crowd resumed the chant it unveiled in the first half: “You can’t stop him. You can’t stop him.” They never did. “He’s just the most solid, a grounded guy you’d ever want to meet,” said Brennan, the morning radio host, once he got rolling. “How about if you are his old man? How about if you wake up one day in West Barnet, Vt., and realize you’ve sired Seabiscuit?” Because he did, Vermont is off to the races. © 2004 The Valley News

Scoring Tickets To UVM’s Dance Party The Valley News March 14, 2004 By Bruce Wood

BURLINGTON- a chill wind turning his hands blue, Sam Snead held up a small cardboard sign pleading for a ticket to yes- terday’s nationally televised America East men’s basketball championship game between Vermont and Maine. The former UVM student from Burlington had hoped to scarf up a ducat with help from a buddy when the student sale took place earlier in the week, but that didn’t pan out. He stopped by Patrick Gymnasium Wednesday morning when 550 or so tickets were going on sale for the general public and quickly discovered his mistake. “The line was outrageous,” he said. “I didn’t have a chance. People had been here since the night before.” Two of those people were Bill Soule and daughter, Jennifer, of White River Junction. When they showed up around 1 a.m. wednesday, there were already upward of 100 people ahead of them and six hours to sweat out whether the ticket allotment would hold out until they made it to the front of the line after the sale started at 7. “It was pretty tense there at the end,” Bill Soule said well after UVM clinched a trip to the NCAA Tournament wih a 72-53 win. “As you were getting up close, people were saying, ‘Wait a minute. don’t buy four. Think about other people.’ “ The Soules’ luck held. They got the very last tickets available for sale Wednesday. “It was unbelievable,” Bill Soule said. “When we got them, it was like we won the game. the adrenaline was flowing. It would really have been a bummer to have been up all night and gotten shut out.” Tell it to Mike Peltier. Not wanting to leave it up to chance, he left his house in Castleton, Vt., at 2:45 a.m., Wednesday, figuring he’d be a lock to get tickets. When he arrived in Burlinton at 4 a.m., and saw the line, he knew he was in trouble. Well after the Soules cleaned out the ticket sellers, Peltier put his name on the waiting list and crossed his fingers. When the rest of the Wednesday and all of Thursday and most of Friday went by without a phone call from the UVM ticket office, the general contractor was resigned to watching the game on TV and getting some important work done on a customer’s kitchen. Then the phone rang with good news for him and bad news for his customers. “They are Vermonters, and they know what we went through,” Peltier said while checking out the souvenir stand after pick- ing up his tickets yesterday. “I said, ‘Dudes, I just scored tickets. I’ll catch the kitchen Monday.’ “ John Pawlusiak of Burlington got his tickets through the back door. After oversleeping on Wednesday morning, he called the University of Maine to try to tap into the visiting team’s supply of tickets, the same ploy he used in the mid-’90s when the “French Connection” of Martin St. Louis and Eric Perrin made getting into Gutterson Fieldhouse almost impossible. Sorry, the Maine ticket seller said, if you aren’t an alum, don’t have children at the school and don’t live in the state, you can’t buy our tickets. Undaunted, Pawlusiak found a friend in Maine who bought him tickets and had them left at UVM’s will-call window. Kevin Shea didn’t have to worry. As a season ticket-holder, he was assured his seats for the championship game, although there was no assurance Vermont would get there until losses by Boston University and Northeastern last weekend greased the Catamounts’ path a little bit. “I was out on Church Street selling hot dogs last week when I found out (BU and Northeastern) lost,” said Shea, the green and yellow paint on his face cracking in the bitter cold at 8:15 a.m. “I started jumping up and down because I knew it meant they’d be playing here. People were looking at me like I was crazy.” Soon after the Patrick Gymnasium doors opened an hour before yesterday’s 11:30 a.m. tipoff, the tailgates were shut down and the 3,228-seat facility stared to fill. Paul Dane, a UVM senior from Brandon, Vt., was high above the court opposite the student section sorting through a pile of signs he and a friend had worked up, both to try to get their green-and-yellow faces on ESPN and to fire up superstar Taylor Coppenrath and his teammates. “I’m student teaching and we have had an education class with Coppenrath,” Dane said. “I called him up and asked him if he had any ideas for signs.” What 6-food-9 forward Coppenrath might have told his classmate vanished in the noise that erupted when the Vermont team came out on the court. Well-prepared for that noise was Timothy Hawley of Charlotte, who had green foam plugs stuck in his ears. “I lost my hearing in one ear with cancer,” he said, “and I don’t want to lose it in the other one.” Hawley was carrying a large, green flag with UVM adorning it in gold letters. “This is the second one I’ve had,” he said. “I got the first one in the mid-’80s and donated it to (former UVM hockey standout) John LeClair’s foundation, so then I had this one made up.” Hawley was standing on the first row of the bleachers until the aisle in front of him opened up. “I could have had four tick- ets up higher, but it’s better down here for them to see me waving the flag. The only problem is, I keep getting my toes stepped on.” While Hawley was trying to keep his toes out of harm’s way, the 18 members of the UVM dance squad were stretching beween the bleachers and the floor, out of view of most fans. “We are so excited,” said senior Rebecca LaHaie of Medfield, Mass. “We are really proud of the men’s team and have a new halftime routine this year. The audience has seen it, but we’ve got some new parts.” Just a few feet away, UVM Hall of Famer and current Middlebury men’s basketball coach Jeff Brown was watching the Catamounts shoot around and marveling at how far the program has come since he graduated in 1985. “It’s not even close,” he said. “They had four or five sellouts at the end of the year and now with the students behind them, it’s unbelievable.” Brown, unlike the others, didn’t spend the night in the Patrick lobby to get his tickets. “I’ve got friends in high places,” he said with a laugh. Out in the lobby, meanwhile, Jay Menninger and his staff were still doing big business at the UVM Bookstore souvenir stand in the final 15 minutes before the game. “It’s been phenomenal,” the shop manager said. “Probably two times what we usually do. It’s been frantic; we’ve already sold out all our hats and sweatshirts.” Wisely held out of view: 144 tournament championship T-shirts. “We’ve got a standing order with our printer to make more tomorrow,” Menninger said. “We’ll see these after we win.” And if the worst happened? “They’ll be collector’s items,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen.” Menninger had a radio to listen to the game, but the best he’d be able to do before hustling back to his stand at halftime and in the closing minutes of the game was to hover at the door and sneak a peak inside. Across the way, Sam Snead - the former UVM student hoping to buy a ticket and not the Hall of Fame golfer - spied a shut- tle bus with late-arriving fans and zipped out the door. A minute of two later, he was $50 poorer, but had his ticket. Hadn’t he said earlier that we wouldn’t pay that much? “Yeah,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to go over $40 out of principle, but I want to see the game.” He should have held out a little longer. Just moments after Snead handed his sign to another ticketless fan and disappeared into the gym, Steve Gerencser of Manchester, N.H., got a bargain at the $23 face value. “It’s just like fishing,” he said with a grin. “You’ve got to be patient. somebody showed up and I don’t know, maybe their buddy wanted to go to the bar and watch it instead.” Snead, Gerencser and the rest made it inside in plenty of time to hear famed Vermont band Phish, outfitted in UVM basket- ball shirts, perform the national anthem. Two hours later, after the crowd had spilled onto the floor to celebrate UVM’s win and impending trip to the NCAA Tournament, two of the Phish members strolled throught he crowd and gave “thumbs up” signs to Coppenrath while the MVP, who scored 43 points, was being interviewed by ESPN. Eyes glued on Coppenrath, not a single Phish fan noticed. © 2004 The Valley News

Who deserves what on Sunday By Andy Katz ESPN.com Saturday, March 13, 2004

The selection committee must be subjective on Selection Sunday. When it comes to those final calls on the top seeds in the NCAA Tournament all the way down to the last few spots in the field. That's why .... Air Force should be in without a question. The Falcons won the Mountain West Conference by two games. The selection com- mittee can't take BYU over Air Force since the Falcons were the clear champion during the regular season. If the committee isn't going to take Air Force, well, BYU shouldn't go either. Utah State will get one of the last bids in the field because the Aggies went 17-1 in the Big West, ended the season ranked in the Top 25 and were 25-3 overall. Those numbers should be good enough to get the Aggies into the field of 65. Sure, they didn't play a strong nonconference schedule. But Utah State will be rewarded for winning a conference. And it doesn't hurt that Pacific, the team that Utah State tied for the conference title, won the Big West tournament title. Richmond deserves a long, hard look as one of the last teams in the field -- ahead of Colorado, UTEP and Florida State. The Spiders did what the committee professes. Richmond not only went out and played teams on the road, but beat Big 12 teams Colorado and Kansas. Colorado didn't win at Kansas. Missouri, Notre Dame and Florida State could join Colorado as high-major programs feeling blue Sunday night. As for the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds? There are nine teams competing for the top eight spots. Expect Duke, Stanford and Kentucky to be locks for a No. 1 seed. The toughest argument will be for Saint Joseph's or Pittsburgh for the final top seed. The Hawks lost one game, albeit a rout to Xavier. But Xavier ultimately won the A-10 tournament in convincing fashion. Saint Joseph's still has one of the top RPIs and strength of schedule rating. The problem for Pittsburgh is that it's hard to make the Panthers a No. 1 seed after losing the Big East championship to Connecticut. The Huskies should vault from a No. 3 to a No. 2 with its win over Pitt on Saturday night. Mississippi State should be a lock for a No. 2 with only three losses all season. It's hard not to put Oklahoma State as a No. 2 seed if the Cowboys beat Texas for the Big 12 title. All this leaves Gonzaga as a No. 3 seed, which could be the toughest call among the top eight seeds. The problem for Gonzaga is that no other WCC team will be in the NCAA Tournament. As good as Gonzaga is this season, the Zags still didn't get a high-profile win in the WCC because there weren't any to be had. Saint Joseph's will have ultimately beaten NCAA teams in Xavier, Dayton and Richmond, assuming the Spiders make the field. That's why the A-10 has a better profile than the WCC. Big winners on Saturday were Maryland, Xavier, Utah, Western Michigan, Nevada, Florida, Connecticut and Stanford. Maryland's seeding will skyrocket with its ACC tournament title-game appearance. But the biggest winner of the day, without question, was Vermont's Taylor Coppenrath. The Catamounts' junior forward pulled off one of the best performances in Championship Week history. He scored 43 points with a broken wrist. That's right -- 43 points with a broken wrist. Think about that for a second. He is a native of Vermont and helped the Catamounts to one of the greatest wins in the history of their school, regardless of the sport. Coppenrath's gutsy effort should be applauded. As a result, the Catamounts, who are finally healthy for the first time in months, may move up a seed line. Vermont is one of the better stories in the tournament for the second straight year. Vermont was an ESPN.com emerging ‘hot bed’ in October. Burlington's temperature was spring-like inside Patrick Gym on Saturday afternoon and not even a pint of Ben & Jerry's Burlington-only flavor of "Slam Chunk" couldn't cool off the Catamounts or Coppenrath. Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

'Madness' grips state as Cats host Bears

March 13, 2004 The Rutland Herald By Chuck Clarino

BURLINGTON - Oblivious to gusting wind and swirling snow, the tandem of custodians worked sweeping out the entry way and shining up the glass doors of the Roy L. Patrick Gym Friday. Other University of Vermont maintenance workers raked the sparse, brown grass laid bare after most of the winter's blanket of snow had melted over the past couple of weeks. No one seemed concerned with the new snow that was falling but probably wouldn't stick. Everyone here seemed focused on the fact that the Patrick Gym would be center stage today on ESPN when the UVM Catamounts try to defend their America East crown in the league's championship game against the University of Maine Black Bears at 11:30 a.m. A win by the Cats means a second consecutive trip to college basketball's "Big Dance," the fabled 64-team, NCAA Division I basketball tournament. And March Madness was clearly sweeping the state of Vermont in general, the Queen City area and the UVM campus in particular. When the teams take the floor amidst some 3,228 screaming hoop fans, it will mark the first time a college basketball game has ever been televised nationally from the Patrick Gym. "The last time we had any national TV here was when they televised the 1976 Olympic boxing trials," said UVM Assistant Sports Information Director Bruce Bosley. "That included 'Sugar Ray' Leonard, Aaron Prior and Leon and Michael Spinks. But this is the first nationally televised basketball game in the state of Vermont." And what an event it will be. Dave Revsine and Doug Gottlieb will handle the on-air chores, with Digger Phelps and Rece Davis in the studio. An ESPN producer was on site Friday morning, while Bosley had spoken to Revsine - who was en route - on the phone. He reported the ESPN trucks would be pulling in and setting up around 9:30 p.m., following the Vermont high school girls Division I championship game. Inside the lobby, Aimee Canfield sat behind a long table heaped with white T-shirts that bore the legend "Patrick Power." Canfield and anoth- er student were handing out shirts to those fans that had purchased tickets for the sold-out event. "It's pretty exciting," said Canfield, who was doing a business as brisk as the weather outside. "Anyone who's got a ticket gets one of these shirts - I don't know how many that is but I know it's a lot." But that's only the tip of the iceberg of hysteria that has locked in this state. The rock group Phish will sing the National Anthem before the game. Members of the group were UVM students when they started the intensely-popular band. "We only host these things every 100 or so years, why not go big," said Bosley. "This is the big time." Matt Bourque of America East reported that over 50 sets of credentials were delivered to media, although several requests were denied due to space limitations. "It's crazy but not ridiculously crazy," said Bourque, who said that he handed out 200 credentials when the tournament was held at Hofstra University. Local radio stations have hyped the game, with a shock-jock frenzy normally reserved for some hot-button political issue. Even the normally staid Vermont Public Radio aired a report concerning the UVM team on its "Morning Edition," Friday. This past week, many ardent fans have been sleeping at the gym, with hopes of obtaining any unwanted tickets to the affair. Burlington police have also cautioned that counterfeit tickets are floating around and could be sold by scalpers on Saturday. Meanwhile, it was business as usual for the fourth-seeded Maine Black Bears (20-9), who went through a shoot-around prac- tice Friday morning. The Black Bears have never won a conference title or advanced to the NCAA tournament in their 84-year histo- ry. But Maine is making its fourth championship game appearance, second in three years. The second-seeded Catamounts held a light practice Friday afternoon. But before the Cats took the floor for the hour and a half session, head coach Tom Brennan faced a cluster of microphones and looked into an array of cameras at an impromptu courtside press conference. The hottest topic Brennan addressed was whether two-time Kevin Roberson America East Player of the Year Taylor Coppenrath would play. Coppenrath, who is the nation's fifth-leading scorer (23.8), broke a bone in his left hand on Feb 15 and has not played since. During that span of time Vermont went 5-2, but one of the losses came to the Black Bears, 72-67, on Feb. 29 at Patrick. Coppenrath, the 6-foot-9 interior presence for the Cats, has been cleared to play. The junior practiced yesterday but remained uncommitted about his status for today. "It will be a game-time decision and it's his," said Brennan, in his 18th year at the Catamount helm. "He understands the possibilities that he could get hurt. But there is such a relatively short window of time for our team." Brennan alluded to the fact that UVM has battled adversity caused by injury much of the season. Although guard T.J. Sorrentine returned after missing all of last year, Essex center Matt Sheftic went down for a long spell and then came the injury to Coppenrath, prompting Brennan to say they have had all three playing together for "something like 27 minutes this season." Another frontcourt player, Scotty Jones, has been hobbled by arthritic knees and spent most of practice riding a stationary bike and being stretched out by the training staff. Sheftic, though, played hard during Friday's scrimmage. The good news on Coppenrath is that there has been no swelling. He practiced with a light cast on his hand but it didn't stop him from slamming down a power dunk during the 20-minute scrimmage. Should he decide to wear the cast, it must be cleared by the game officials. At this point, Coppenrath's decision about wearing the cast is as uncertain as his decision to play. "If I had a request, I'd tell him to stick that thing in Epsom salts then go out and get me 30," Brennan quipped to reporters. Whether Coppenrath plays or not, the Cats have a tall order to fill to beat the Black Bears. The teams split, with UVM win- ning in Orono with Coppenrath, 71-62, on Jan 11. But the Black Bears - keyed by a trio of America East second-team all stars: Eric Dotson, Kevin Reed and Mark Flavin - have won 9 of their last 11, including three straight. Maine posted an overtime 79-77 victory over Binghamton in the quarterfinals and they waxed Stony Brook 78-54 in the semifinals. Vermont avenged a loss to neighboring rival New Hampshire (58-50) in the quarters and breezed past Hartford (61-47) in the semis to get to the title game. © Copyright 2004 The Rutland Herald

A simple plan

March 11, 2004 The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity, Free Press Staff Writer It was a perfectly good question, posed by a reporter after the University of Vermont's semifinal victory in the America East men's basketball tournament. What, the inquistor asked of Germain Njila, had he done to smother the University of Hartford's offense so thoroughly. The UVM junior looked around the room, as though the answer were written on one of the walls, and replied with a shrug. "I just try to play hard." Six simple words to sum up Germain Njila's game, personality and overall out- look on life. Of all the Catamounts preparing for Saturday's league championship against Maine, Njila might have the purest sense of purpose. "He's so, what's the term ... at peace," Cats coach Tom Brennan said. "He does things very simply, but he does them as hard as he possibly can." Njila's simple plan comes from his appreciation for opportunity. A native of Cameroon, he understands the doors his raw, god-given basketball ability has opened. "Without basketball, I wouldn't be going to school at UVM," Njila said, his voice soft, his French accent thick. "I cannot imagine trying to pay for school in the United States. So, just being able to go to school because of basketball, I feel that any time I step on the floor, I should just give everything for the school. "I feel like I cannot give enough back, but if I can help win games and make people proud, for me, that's what I can give back." He's given plenty. Since he arrived three years ago from a year at the Masters School in Simsbury, Conn., the Cats have won 63 games. Njila's contributions are meas- ured by his own floor burns and his opponents' frustrations. Not a guard, but not a forward, he is hard to find a place for on the floor and impossible to take off it. "What do I expect to get from him? A heart attack and the best effort you could ever ask for," Brennan said. "He's not the most skilled guy. When he bounces the ball more than three times, I get ready to call time out. But he just brings so much energy, you have to let him go do his thing." The Cats are preparing for another title game because Njila did his thing so well last weekend. He scored nine points and had a game-high 11 rebounds in a quarterfinal win over New Hampshire, then delivered 14 points and six rebounds in the semis against Hartford -- 12 of the points in the first half as his teammates labored. Meanwhile, his ceaseless harassing of whichever Wildcat or Hawk unlucky enough to draw his attention on defense was the leading reason for UVM's allowing just 50 and 48 points in the wins. It was a clutch performance in a key moment, one he vowed to give two years ago after Maine knocked off the top-seeded Cats in the 2002 semifinals. "When we lost to Maine in the semifinal, personally I felt very bad," he said. "That game, I remember, T.J. (Sorrentine) and Taylor (Coppenrath), they tried hard, but they just didn't make shots that day. "It was a close game, and I asked myself, 'How come I couldn't pick them up? How come I couldn't make two plays?' It was- n't like I had to score 20 or 30 points. Just one or two plays. So I felt terrible about it, and I promised myself when I go back there, I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror after and say 'I tried everything. I didn't let anybody down.'" © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Catamounts come home The Burlington Free Press March 8, 2004 By Patrick Garrity Free Press Staff Writer

BOSTON, Mass. -- Fate stole the superstar but it couldn't touch the University of Vermont men's basketball team's heart. That ticker belongs to a champion, for another week at least. The Catamounts are still alive, their season extended by another gritty effort and a 61-48 victory over the University of Hartford in the America East semifinals. The win, secured Sunday afternoon at Walter Brown Arena, sent them home with a title game in tow. UVM will play host to the conference final for the first time in school history, tangling with the University of Maine on Saturday at Patrick Gym. "With about eight minutes to go, I said to them 'Look, if ... (Hartford wins), they're going to Maine. If we win, we're going for the greatest week you have ever had in your life," said UVM coach Tom Brennan. "It ain't going to be easy, but we'll be there and at least we're playing. And we'll be playing in front of 3,200 people that are whacked. Let me say this right now -- 'I've got no tickets!'" He has a courtside seat, though, booked by a team that refused to fold when junior star Taylor Coppenrath was lost with a broken wrist seven games ago. The Cats wobbled to a 3-2 finish in the regular season, but determination kept them contenders -- and a dose of March Madness did the rest. Quarterfinal upsets of top-seeded Boston University and No. 3 Northeastern paved UVM's road to the Patrick. No semifinal war with the Huskies. No title-game return to BU. Just a 10-16 Hartford team the Cats had beaten twice in the past two weeks. Easy? No. Hartford led almost the entire first half Sunday, settling for a 28-27 halftime edge that should have been more. Each offen- sive possession was like molar extraction for UVM, and were it not for Germain Njila's 12 points and inspired play and the Hawks' fail- ure to convert gimmes, the margin would surely have been worse. "I just look to play hard," shrugged Njila, who finished the two-game weekend with 23 points and 17 rebounds. " W e started slow, we didn't have a lot of energy. I just step up and play hard." "There was a time where they really could've gotten away from us, and they had three or four roll in and out, in and out," Brennan said. "When that happens, you just thank your lucky stars and hope you can make some hay on the other end." Hartford's woes had just begun. The Hawks emerged from intermission in deep-freeze, chilled by a suffocating Catamounts defense. Hartford missed its first 11 shots of the half and didn't score for more than nine minutes. By then, the Catamounts had a 38-30 lead. "It hurt us, because it's really hard to come back on a good defensive team like them," Hartford coach Larry Harrison said. "The defense obviously was tremendous," Brennan said. "We don't score very easily, we ain't hardly going to be confused with the Lakers, but we can guard you, and we really did that." Aaron Cook scored nine points in a 2-minute surge to rally the sixth seed. His 3-pointer incited the Hartford crowd and seemed to have quenched the Hawks drought. UVM called on its other America East Player of the Year to help it hold on, and T.J. Sorrentine answered. The junior point guard spun off a defender for a basket, finished a drive, then buried a 3-pointer from the wing to swell the lead to 54-41 with 4:32 to play. As Brennan would say later, "Check please." "We knew he was going to try to take the game over, and he did," Harrison said of Sorrentine. "He made some tough shots; hand in his face, falling away. He's a good player, there's nothing you can do about that." "We were having trouble scoring," said Sorrentine, who had a game-high 18 points on 7-for-15 shooting. "I knew I needed to score more and put some pressure on their defense." Sorrentine added five assists and five rebounds in a 38-minute gem. David Hehn had 12 points, and Martin Klimes added eight points and six rebounds for the Catamounts (21-8), who can set a school record for victories with a win Saturday. Among other things. © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

T.J.’s Time

The Burlington Free Press March 5, 2004 By Patrick Garrity Free Press Staff Writer

Think it doesn't still burn? Think he has forgotten? Then you don't know Thomas John Sorrentine, not even a little. The young man who made winning part of the routine for the University of Vermont men's basketball program remains driv- en by a loss that has festered in his system for two years. Sorrentine has his chance to "make it right" Saturday when he leads the Catamounts into the America East Conference Championship in Boston. UVM faces the winner of tonight's New Hampshire-Albany game in the quarterfinals. "I didn't have a good tournament two years ago," the junior point guard said this week at practice. "I still think about that a lot. I think about the heartbreak I had and my teammates had. It's one of those things you don't forget. The only thing you can do is make it better and make it right, and the only way I can make it right is to go down there and win a couple games this weekend." What fuels him is a 4-for-22 shooting peformance in a 61-59 overtime loss to Maine in the 2002 semifinals. It was a rare off-day for Sorrentine, who claimed America East Player of the Year honors, and it came at the worst pos- sible moment. His teammates were able to avenge that defeat with last year's Boston U. strangling and a trip to the NCAAs, but Sorrentine missed the party. He sat out the season, recovering from broken wrists. His return to the lineup has been critical in the Cats' 19-8 success, but the role he assumed was different than the one he left. Taylor Coppenrath had emerged into the team's -- and the league's -- unquestioned top player. Sorrentine was a highly decorated Plan B. "I was lying on my couch, looking up as his picture, and I just thought about how well that kid has handled everything this year," UVM coach Tom Brennan said. "He went from being 'the man,' I mean the ultimate man in the league, to being another guy on his team, and he never got shook. "God bless him, he never got shook. He just kept working and work- ing." A crotchety jumpshot further hampered his comeback, but by the time the conference season began, Sorrentine had settled in. Coppenrath might have been the engine behind the Cats' record 13-game winning streak, but Sorrentine clearly was at the wheel. "Things haven't been the easiest for him, but he's one of the mentally toughest people I've ever met in my life," said fellow guard and roommate Alex Jensen. "He's stayed confident knowing he's got the talent to do what he needs to do to be successful. There have been some tough times, but he's fought through it and been able to come out on top." Now, Sorrentine is more important than ever. Coppenrath is lost for the year, his 23.8 points per game and double-team defenses gone with him. Sorrentine must be as much the player he was two years ago as the player he was asked to become this winter. That's cool with him. "I've got to lead this team and I've got to play well for us to win," he declares matter-of-factly. "If I don't play well, it's going to be tough for us to win. I know that and I'm happy with that." Such hefty responsibility wouldn't seem to require further inspiration, but Sorrentine is tapping into that lost semifinal two years ago for good measure. Brennan and the Catamounts can only benefit from his hunger. "When it doesn't go well for him, he's miserable," Brennan said. "It's not like he goes in, takes a shower and goes out danc- ing. I have great faith in a guy like that. If a guy like that is going to bat for me, then I'm giving him every swing, because he real- ly cares so much. "With that going for you, you just say 'Go down there and play well. We'll follow your lead.'" © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Sheftic's Cat tale no sad story

The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity, Free Press Columnist 2/29/04

This was supposed to be a column about Matt Sheftic's bum luck. About what might've been if his knee hadn't stolen his senior season. About how happy he could've been if tragedy hadn't taken his little sister. He will play today what probably is his last basketball game at Patrick Gym, and a column about the short change he has received seemed appropriate. Ten minutes with Sheftic scrapped those plans, because if there's one thing Matt Sheftic refuses to feel, it is sorry for him- self. "There's one thing we never do on this team, and that is look at the negatives," he said before practice late last week. "We always look at the positives and how we can use those positives to help us accomplish our goals." Sheftic showed up at UVM in 1999, freshly removed from a starring role at Essex High School and one of the most ardent collegiate courtships in Vermont high school history. His Catamounts career rode a teeter-totter almost from the beginning. Up during a promising freshman season. Down when his sister fell ill midway through his sophomore year. Up on his way to MVP honors in last year's conference tournament. Down when he tore a ligament in his knee last August. There was the year away to get his head on straight. There was the wait to see if the NCAA would grant him a rare, sixth year. There was the difficult decision to pass on that granted waiver to pursue his career in the U.S. Army. It is not the stuff of basketball storybooks, but maybe it should be. A lot could be learned from this 23-year-old giant. Ask him about the shiver he expects to run up his spine today and his answer sends one down yours. "It's not really the end, because we've still got a lot more to do, but during introductions, I think you've got to look around and soak it in. This place has been so good to us and we've had so much success here," he said. "This could be the last home game we play here, so you've got to take a look around and appreciate it." Ask him about his knee injury and his lost senior season and he shrugs it off like he would a point guard in the paint. "I came back last year and had a great, great run," he said. "I scored 23 in that last game, and if that's the game people remember me for, well, that's a great game to go out on. "It's tough coming back this year and having those memories of what you used to be able to do in your mind and you just can't get them done on the court now. That is kind of frustrating, but by the same token, you've got to count your blessings." Ask him about his decision to turn down another season and his answer couldn't be clearer. "I'm really looking forward to the different challenges," he said. "That's one of the reasons I chose the Army. There are so many challenges. When you go away to Airborne School or places like that, it's not the material things you miss. You miss the little things, like home-cooked food or taking long showers. There was one time in Georgia, we were running in 98 degrees and were on like Mile 5 and all I could think about was how much I wanted a vanilla milkshake. "You really come to appreciate those little things. It gives you a whole new perspective." Ask him about what he'll think of when he ponders his time as a Catamount, and the down times don't earn a mention. "We got to play Arizona. We played down in North Carolina. My first college game, I played the defending national champi- ons at UConn," he said. "When you look back over my whole career, yes, I have had some tough times, but I played with some unbe- lievable players; played on some unbelievable teams; played against guys who have gone on to play in the pros. You look at all that and it's like 'Wow! That's pretty good!' "I definitely don't think I've been cheated." So much for that column. © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press Tough Love

The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity Free Press Columnist www.burlingtonfreepress.com 2/23/04

Tough love. That was the theme Sunday at Patrick Gymnasium, where the University of Vermont men's basketball team was re-indoctri- nated in the finer points of box-outs, defense and running. Lots of running. Seven days earlier, the Catamounts were giddy schoolboys on a 13-game winning streak earning sweet nothings from Jay Bilas and wondering which NCAA tournament bracket would suit them best. All that changed within the life-span of your TVGuide, spoiled by an arsenic-laced alphabet soup of BU, an MRI and UNH. In the aftermath of the streak-snapping loss to Boston University last Sunday and the discovery of Taylor Coppenrath's season-end- ing wrist injury Tuesday, all the right things were said. We're tough. We're resilient. We've been through this before. We will over- come. A day later, the Catamounts followed with a 47-45 win at Hartford. It was a wretched performance candy-coated only by the Hawks' own ineptitude and David Hehn's buzzer-beating 3-pointer, but the offering seemed acceptable given the Cats' run of hard luck. Saturday in New Hampshire, UVM was exposed for what it really was -- a broken-hearted team with a first-place resume giv- ing a last-place effort. They were beaten down the floor. They were beaten to loose balls. They were beaten to rebounds. They were beaten by 21 points by a team that had not won on its home floor in three months. For 18 seasons, Tom Brennan's teams have had varying degrees of ability and success, but you could count on two hands how many times they were outworked. The last two games make that short, ignominious list. Hence, the tough love. The Catamounts coaches babied their boys for a week, and rightly so. The team's psyche was frag- ile, and the Cats had done nothing to earn the strap. Short practices and pats on the back were the rule. That honeymoon ended midway through the first half Saturday at UNH. The Catamounts' lack of energy and passion last week might be entirely understandable but it cannot continue. They owe it to Coppenrath. They owe it to the 3,000 fans who have turned Patrick into a mosh pit. They owe it to themselves not to let six weeks of hard work swirl down the drain in a pool of self-pity. No one is suggesting the team is as good as it was before Coppenrath's injury. You don't subtract 24 points, seven rebounds and a 6-foot-9 floor burn from the lineup and not feel an impact. You would be hard-pressed to find five players in the country more essential to a team's game plan than Coppenrath was to UVM's. That said, guard somebody. Box out. Dive on the floor. Show some grit. Show some heart. There are three games to go in the regular season, all three at home, starting with tonight's rematch with Hartford. The Catamounts need to forget about their fallen comrade, forget about their bad luck and most of all forget about the NCAAs, for heav- en's sake, and focus on 40 minutes of total effort. No one will blame them if they go down, just as long as they go down swinging. There. How's that for tough love? © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

No time to regroup Coppenrath’s injury a cruel NCAA twist

Monday, February 23, 2004 By Andy Katz, National Men's College Basketball ESPN.com

Taylor Coppenrath walked into T.J. Sorrentine's room last week and broke the news to his Vermont teammate. Coppenrath's season was over. Sorrentine thought Coppenrath was kidding. He wasn't. Coppenrath, last season's America East player of the year, had just scored 24 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the Catamounts' loss to Boston University -- Vermont's only America East blemish. But that soreness he was feeling for two games in his left wrist was indeed a broken bone. An X-ray on Feb. 16 confirmed the junior forward would miss the final three weeks of the sea- son. Just like that, Vermont had lost the nation's third-leading scorer (24.0 ppg). And just like that the Catamounts wouldn't be going to Washington or Colorado or Florida or North Carolina or New York or ... well, anywhere they thought they might travel to play a first-round NCAA Tournament game. Suddenly, thoughts of a second straight America East title were fading fast, likely gone with BU cruising along with 19 wins in its last 20 games. The Catamounts' chances of getting the conference's No. 1 seed, not to mention a first-ever appearance by ESPN at Patrick Gym for the America East final, are now highly unlikely. The bottom line: Getting back to the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive year is now a longshot. To dance again this year, Vermont will need T.J. Sorrentine to supply even more than his 15.5 ppg. Vermont coach Tom Brennan said the Catamounts played like a team feeling sorry for itself in their first game without Coppenrath. Vermont, winners of 12 of its 13 America East games with Coppenrath, trailed at Hartford (9-15) by seven at halftime before David Hehn's shot from the corner at the buzzer lifted the 'Cats to a 47-45 victory. Three days later, the Cats lost at New Hampshire (8-18) by 21. "For us, it is hard to believe that one guy has made such a difference, but it has," Brennan said. "It is more mental and emotional right now than any- thing else." Vermont (17-7), which trails first-place BU by a game, finishes with home games against Hartford (Monday), Albany and then Maine before the America East tournament. But Brennan said the combination of losing to BU at a sold out Patrick Gym, and then hearing the news of Coppenrath's injury the next day made the campus and the town of Burlington react as if "someone died.'' "Everyone was real down, starting with me,'' Brennan said. "I kept try- ing to pump everyone up, but in my heart I knew." Brennan isn't alone. Every coach at the low-major level lucky enough to have a player capable of raising his program's hopes understands how fragile that team can become when an injury like Coppenrath's strikes. "It's devastating," Manhattan coach Bobby Gonzalez said. "When you lose a guy like that at our level, it's a huge hit. It's much different at our level because you can compete in spots one through five, or maybe one through six. But you don't have the guy off the bench to help replace a player like Coppenrath." Gonzalez has someone like Coppenrath on his roster in perennial 20- point scorer Luis Flores. Take Flores off the Jaspers and suddenly they may not be on their way to either a 17-1 mark in the MAAC or a repeat berth in the NCAA Tournament. "It's like when Hofstra had Speedy Claxton, players like Flores and Coppenrath can take you to another level to compete at a higher level," Gonzalez said. It's just not the same for the major conferences. Oklahoma lost Kevin Bookout for the season to a shoulder injury, yet while the Sooners are strug- gling, they remain on the NCAA Tournament bubble. OU may not score as easily without Bookout, but at least the team has anoth- er big man, Larry Turner, to replace Bookout. And despite Bookout's absence, the Sooners could still make the tournament. When a player like Coppenrath goes down this late in the season, one senses the team's season is over. In fact, Gonzalez got nervous when questioned about how such an injury to Flores would affect Manhattan. Let's just say he didn't want to even think about life without Flores. But his anxiety shows the fragile nature of how one injury at the low, or even mid-major level, can ruin a season. Creighton lost point guard Tyler McKinney to a vision problem after he suffered an eye infection. The problem is so serious that McKinney might need a cornea transplant, according to Creighton coach Dana Altman. The thoughts are now more about McKinney's eye than even contemplating when he could play basketball again. McKinney wasn't the Bluejays' best player. But he might have been their most important player because he directed their offense. He gave the Jays rhythm, and without him the past month, Creighton has struggled to find their groove. They lost games to Valley leader Southern Illinois at home and at Kent State last Saturday. "It was such a big blow to us," Altman said. "That's a two-to-three year starter that's missing. Our offense hasn't flown smoothly since he's been out of the lineup. I knew it would affect us, just never knew how much." Wisconsin lost Alando Tucker for the season, shutting him down after just four games midway through the year with a foot injury. Wisconsin will still make the NCAAs, and could still win the Big Ten title. But not having Tucker might be the difference between the Badgers making a deep run and being gone by the first weekend. Arizona lost Isaiah Fox to a knee injury two games into the season. And while he was just a role player, the Wildcats were quick to find a replacement for his minutes with Ivan Radenovic, picking him up for the second semester. The only thing that could be considered possibly akin to the affect Coppenrath's injury is having on Vermont was Sean May's injury at North Carolina last season. With May, the Tar Heels were on their way to the NCAA Tournament. Without him, they wound up in the NIT. May came back after missing the ACC season to play in the ACC tournament against Duke, but it didn't affect the Tar Heels' postseason fate. But even the NIT could be in jeopardy for the Catamounts. Vermont has a shot to win 20 games with 17 wins heading into their final three regular-season games. But Brennan is worried that finishing second in the America East and not having Coppenrath would leave them home for the postseason. "I just hope it doesn't kill us with the NIT, too," Brennan said. That's how much one injury can affect a team and a program at this level. The Catamounts found a way to upset B.U. on its own court in last year's America East title game, doing so after losing Sorrentine for the entire season after he broke both of his wrists in a freak practice fall. It's now Sorrentine's turn to carry the Catamounts. The 2002 America East player of the year is averaging 14.5 points, and did score 23 in both the loss to Boston U. and win in Hartford. Vermont didn't have time to prepare for the loss of Coppenrath, and over the next two weeks, the life of a low or mid-major is stressful enough when it comes time to make a tournament run. Just imagine the distress call Brennan would call out if he could. "I don't know if you recover," Brennan said. Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

Cats face another obstacle The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity Free Press Columnist 2/18/04

T.J.Sorrentine was wide awake and stuck in a nightmare all at once. The Catamounts point guard awoke Tuesday morning to a knock at his bedroom door and a sickeningly succinct proclama- tion from his roommate. "I'm out," Taylor Coppenrath announced. The only way Coppenrath could have delivered worse news to the University of Vermont men's basketball team and its lovesick fans was if he had said, "I'm transferring to BU, effective immediately." Coppenrath has a broken scaphoid bone, an injury that in all likelihood will force him to miss the rest of the season. If that sentence has a ring to it, it is because the same despicable little piece of skeleton robbed the Catamounts of Sorrentine's services last winter. For those keeping score, that's Scaphoid 2, reigning America East Players of the Year 0. The injury, a hairline fracture of a bone the size of your thumbnail, is minuscule. Its impact, quite obviously, is massive. Coppenrath had gone a good distance toward posting one of the greatest seasons in Catamounts history. He was a sure thing to repeat as the league's player of the year and the main reason UVM is a solid week-and-a-half short of another 20-win season, its third in a row. "Losing a guy like that -- you can't describe how much of a loss it is," Sorrentine said. Were it the only bad luck the Catamounts have endured in this "blessed time," as Tom Brennan calls it, that would be plen- ty. But this setback is simply the latest in a steady diet of misery the Cats have been forced to swallow along with their prosperity. Things have gone badly almost since this team got good, and the Catamounts and their fans can tick off the misfortune like a fourth-grader recites state capitals: -- Matt Sheftic's little sister is stricken by a brain aneurysm, forcing Sheftic to leave the team. -- Scotty Jones (knee) and Corey Sullivan (shin) have to red-shirt the 2001-02 season. -- Sheftic returns, but Sorrentine is lost with two broken wrists. -- Sorrentine recovers, only to have Sheftic tear up his knee in an offseason, pickup game. -- Ten days ago, Sheftic makes an improbable, courageous return. Three days later, Coppenrath goes down in a heap at Stony Brook. Pop goes the scaphoid. History tells us how the Catamounts react to adversity. There are the 58 wins and the first-place finish. There are the con- ference title and school-record winning streaks. There is the trip to the NCAAs. Now here they are again, sucker-punched by fate and determined to hit back. "I couldn't want for a better group of guys to go through something like this, because they've all done it already," Brennan said. "I told the kids I saw a guy taking cans out of the gutter at 6 o'clock in the morning the other day. I'm thinking, 'Would he trade that for a broken arm and a scholarship?' Of course he would. "We've been so blessed here. I mean, we didn't lose for a month. Everything has been hunky-dory, and we all know that is not the way the real world works. So now, we're back to reality a little bit." The coach said as much to his players before practice Tuesday, but he knows as well as anyone that his audience didn't need to be told. "He's won so many games for us; I think we owe it to him to win for him," said Sorrentine. "We can't let the season go sour because he's out. He's won too many games for us to fold." The Cats are hurting again. God help their opponents. © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

UVM's Coppenrath out with a fractured wrist

The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity www.burlingtonfreepress.com 2/18/04

Two days after absorbing its first defeat in six weeks, the University of Vermont men's basketball team took a far more seri- ous blow Tuesday when it learned star Taylor Coppenrath was lost for the season. Coppenrath has been diagnosed with a fractured scaphoid bone in his left wrist. The injury -- similar to one that robbed the Catamounts of point guard T.J. Sorrentine last season -- will leave Coppenrath in a cast for four weeks and almost surely sideline him for the final five games of the regular season and the conference tournament. Coppenrath's absence cripples the Catamounts' hopes of returning to the NCAA tournament for a second consecutive year. The 6-foot-9 junior from West Barnet is the fourth-leading scorer in the nation and tops the team in 11 statistical categories. "I almost threw up when I heard," said Tom Brennan, who will coach his 500th game with the Catamounts tonight when they play at Hartford. "Five minutes later, I realized that this is the way it is. Life at its best is a series of ups and downs, and we have a down right now and we just have to deal with it." Coppenrath sustained the fracture last week during a victory at Stony Brook when he was knocked to the floor and braced his fall with an outstretched arm. He aggravated the injury in Sunday's loss to Boston University and his discomfort worsened Monday during a workout in the weight room. "I tried to lift and I couldn't even really grab the bar," he said. "We decided to get it checked out." Coppenrath underwent X-rays, magnetic-resonance imaging and a computed-tomography imaging scan Monday evening. Dr. Jon Porter, the school's head team physician, delivered the gloomy prognosis Tuesday morning. "I got a phone call and they asked me to come in," Coppenrath said. "Normally, they could just discuss something not too major over the phone, so I knew probably something was going on." Porter said the injury requires immobilization followed by a rehabilitation program to help restore strength and range of motion. Further impact without treatment could worsen the injury. "If he goes down on it again and he displaces it, then we're talking about surgery and possibly a wrist that doesn't work right," Porter said. "If it doesn't heal right, then you're looking at some long-term problems." "I could try to play and they'd tape it up and I'd have to try to prevent from landing on it," he said, "but the way I play, I end up on the floor a lot." Coppenrath's teammates and fans took the news hard. "He knocked on my door at about 9 o'clock this morning, came into my room and said, 'I'm out. I'm out,'" said Sorrentine, Coppenrath's roommate. "It just hurt me so much to hear. Everything happens for a reason. I don't know what this one is, but that's how the say- ing goes." Lauren Travis, who works at the West Barnet General Store, said the native son's injury was sure to rattle the little town. "He's a really good kid; really smart and down-to-earth," Travis said. "A lot of people in the community will be devastated by this." The injury is the latest in a series of setbacks that have shadowed the Catamounts throughout the most successful stretch in the program's 104-year history. Fifty-eight victories, an America East championship and a trip to the NCAAs have come despite great adversity, including the season-ending injuries and personal hardships of Sorrentine and center Matt Sheftic. "We've gone through one heckuva training program for this," Sheftic said. "If I was going to go through this adversity with anybody, this is the team I'd want." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Shifting gears The Burlington Free Press By Hillary Read 2/18/04

Question: How do you replace the nation's fourth-leading scorer? Answer: Forthcoming. Taylor Coppenrath's broken left scaphoid leaves the University of Vermont men's basketball team with a gaping hole in the paint and a tiny window of time to choose the filler. The Catamounts, 16-6 overall and 12-1 in the America East, visit Hartford at 7 p.m. to kick off a 12-day, five-game stretch that will determine the league's regular-season champion. "That's going to be hard to say," UVM coach Tom Brennan said of the adjustments his team will make, "especially this quick." Brennan cited Matt Hanson, Martin Klimes, Germain Njila and the just-returned Matt Sheftic as candidates to eat up Coppenrath's minutes. Brennan and associate head coach Jesse Agel acknowledge the issue is more complex than simply plugging in the right replacement. "Offensively, our guards are going to have to do a little bit more; our post guys who come in will have to do a little bit more," Agel said, adding that Coppenrath's loss is also a major blow to UVM's defense and rebounding. "A lot of stuff we run for Taylor, we won't run; we'll just run more sets for guards, but we're not going to change anything dramatically." "Everybody's going to have to contribute more. Everybody from me to T.J. (Sorrentine) to our freshmen," Sheftic said. "It's going to have to be a team thing." UVM and Boston University have one loss in league play. To assure themselves a share of at least the regular-season title and a coin flip to determine conference-tournament seeding, the Catamounts must go 5-0 against four teams -- Hartford (twice), New Hampshire, Albany and Maine -- with a combined 18-37 mark in league play. "We still have a chance to finish first in the regular season, because the teams we're playing, we can certainly compete against," Brennan said, adding that he expects to see different looks from each of the coming opponents. "Really, in one way, it's good to be playing. Let's go play and get it over with and see how we react." "We're either going to be a little down, or we're going to be really fired up to go out and play," Agel said. "As far as what we can and can't do, I don't know how much that first game is going to show. Over the next two or three games, I think we'll get a pretty good read." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Setback surprises supporters The Burlington Free Press By Hillary Read Free Press Staff Writer

Taylor Coppenrath's play this season has left the University of Vermont basketball team's fans and opponents in awe. News of the wrist injury that will likely end his season delivered the shock. "I'm devastated," Church Street Tavern proprietor Dave Logan said Tuesday afternoon. "They'd all been playing so well, and it had been such a team effort. I was just in shock when I heard." "I didn't like it at all," said Peter Sylvester, an 8-year-old third-grader at Mater Christi. "I like to watch him." West Barnet junior Coppenrath, the nation's fourth-leading scorer and the favorite to repeat as America East player of the year, hurt his left wrist in UVM's 67-60 win against Stony Brook last Wednesday. He racked up 24 points and nine rebounds in the Catamounts' loss to Boston University on Sunday before pain in the wrist led him to have MRI and CT-scan tests that revealed a bro- ken left scaphoid. "I was shocked just because the timing was so abrupt and I thought he had played very well against BU," Maine coach John Giannini said. "I just had that flashback to Sunday's game, watching the kid play every minute and make some spectacular plays," said Patrick Gym regular Joe Maley from St. Albans. While the injury is a sudden roadblock in a career that already ranks as one of the program's best, Coppenrath's misfortune is one of a series of hardships -- including injuries and family tragedy -- suffered by the Catamounts over the last three seasons. The team has responded each time, earning its first regular-season conference title in 2001-02, its first tournament cham- pionship and NCAA berth last season and a program-best 13-game winning streak this winter. "The amazing thing is that they're plagued with such bad luck, and they keep winning. What a team if they ever stayed healthy, huh?" said Kevin Martell of Essex. "That's a bummer. I was just disappointed they lost the BU game, but that's nothing com- pared to this. The rest of them aren't going to roll over, for sure, but what a setback." "He's probably the best player in the conference," said Chad Powlovich, a star senior on the Mount Mansfield Union boys basketball team, "and to see him go out while UVM is playing so good, 12-1, it's awful to see." Maley doesn't expect Coppenrath's injury to slow the groundswell of community support that has helped UVM sell out three of its last four home games. "You can't take away the success they've had, the fans they've brought," he said. "I'm still coming to the games, no ques- tion. I'll be there for all the rest of 'em." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Sheftic Returns Quietly, But At the Top

Hoopville.net February 11, 2004 by Phil Kasiecki

When Matt Sheftic got up to check into Sunday's game at Northeastern, a big section of the crowd erupted in applause. The Vermont fans were elated to see the 6'8" senior big man in his first action of the season. He played just six minutes, not scoring and picking up two rebounds, but that's just a small part of the story. The story begins in 1999, when Sheftic began his college career, but it's not until nearly two years later that it becomes a roller coaster ride. In January of 2001, his sister, Lauren, suffered a brain aneurysm. She went into intensive care for several months after it, while Matt was busy in the heat of the college basketball season. Her illness took a toll on the entire family, and especially on Matt as the season went along. He felt he needed to spend more time with them instead of playing basketball, and decided after the sea- son to take the next year off. The next academic year, things got more trying for him. Lauren passed away in December, and that came just three months after 9/11, which made for what he described as "a somber time" since he had been (and still is) in ROTC. He knew then that his military work would not just be at peace time. Inspired by what his sister went through, as well as how fortunate he was to play Division I basketball, he decided to return to the team for the 2002-03 season. Sheftic continued his improvement, boosting his numbers slightly over those of two seasons ago, but he saved the best for last. The Catamounts won the America East Tournament to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in their history, and Sheftic was the Most Outstanding Player with a career-high 23 points in the championship game, two games after a previous career high of 22 points on 10-10 shooting. But he didn't stop drawing from his sister there. After tearing the ACL in his right knee in August, the outlook was bleak for this season and it looked like another low point on the roller coaster. As much as before, he still looks at what she went through and how she persevered before passing. "I say a prayer and ask her to give me the strength that she showed when I play games, and especially now when I'm try- ing to get back from a knee injury," Sheftic said. "It's 7 in the morning, and we're going to do rehab; it definitely hasn't been an easy process to get through. But by the same token, I always think about how a knee injury is not even a comparison to the kind of rehab that she did." The injury came as he was looking forward to a big senior year, one where the Catamounts would be sure favorites to return to the NCAA Tournament. But like other things he's experienced, it helped him put his life into perspective, as he knew he had gone through more difficult times. It helped him move to get the surgery done and work as hard as he could on his rehabilitation, even though it looked like he would not play this season and return next year if the NCAA granted him a sixth year of eligibility. Sheftic's circumstances led the NCAA to grant him the sixth year in November, when another important life event occurred. He learned that he had been awarded his first request for assignment - military intelligence - and had to make a decision. He could defer his compensation and play next season, taking the risk of likely getting an assignment other than the one he wanted, or he could try to return for some of this season and take the assignment he got. It gave him some mixed emotions at the time. Working in the FBI or CIA being a lifelong dream of his, and it had a large impact on his decision to accept the assignment and attempt to return this season. He talked with many people, but in the end the assignment was one he couldn't pass up for the sake of his future. "I had always wanted to get into either the CIA or the FBI, and when I got military intelligence, it was an unbelievable stepping stone to get into one of those organizations," he said. "It was too good to turn down." Head coach Tom Brennan, who speaks very highly of Sheftic on and off the court, has played no small role in things as well. When Sheftic posed the decision he was faced with to Brennan, the coach figured there was only one decision to make. "When I told him I got my first choice and if I don't accept it, I probably won't get it next year, he said, 'Well, it sounds like it's not a choice, really,' " Sheftic recalls. "That kind of support really helped me and motivated me to get back this year." That support was one more example of what he has found throughout his time in Burlington. Like many who have played at Vermont, as well as Brennan, he speaks fondly of how tight-knit the community is, from the support he got while his sister strug- gled to survive to the everyday life of a college student. It's all helped transform him into a different young man than he was when he first arrived on campus. "The college life has been unbelievable, especially at Vermont, because we have so many people who care about us," he recalls. "I think I've learned a lot, and when you couple that with the life experiences with my family, staying at school and going to Vermont has been an unbelievable and rewarding experience for me." Sheftic realizes he has been blessed with many opportunities in life, from playing Division I basketball to his upcoming opportunity in the military. His days on the hardwood are drawing to a close, but he has a bigger calling ahead. In May, he will grad- uate from the university with a degree in Business Administration, then should be called to duty and begin on his path to helping others have the same freedom and opportunity that he has had. He's at one of the peaks on the roller coaster ride, but this time it may last a little longer.

Klimes Catches On

The Burlington Free Press February 11, 2004 By Patrick Garrity Free Press Staff Writer

When Martin Klimes toed the free-throw line with 16 seconds left in Sunday's game at Northeastern, just one thing went through his mind. Sprints. "Every day we do free throws after practice or we're running for sprints," said Klimes, a freshman on the streaking University of Vermont men's basketball team. "So I'm just telling myself, 'This is the same situation; you do this in practice every day.' I felt like I need to make the shots. Unfortunately, I made just one, but it ended up being enough." Enough to help cinch a 67-65 win and keep the Catamounts on top of the America East standings. The shot was one of the final acts in Klimes' season-high, 28-minute performance, a performance that yielded seven points and 10 big rebounds. Contributions like those from Klimes will be critical to UVM's conference title defense, particularly with senior Scotty Jones limping. Jones was limited to six minutes Sunday and might be forced to sit out tonight's game at Stony Brook because of chronic tendinitis in both knees. "Scotty is very responsible for us being where we are right now," said UVM coach Tom Brennan. "He's a big, big part of that and just to say, 'OK, were going to plug somebody else in' is not the way it works. But we have great confidence in Martin right now; he's really coming on." Jones -- who is two shy of the program's career games-played mark -- is hoping to receive a cortisone shot to his aching knees Thursday. His return to good health, plus the return to the lineup of Matt Sheftic, would give the Catamounts some beef inside to complement star scorer Taylor Coppenrath. But Klimes' frontcourt emergence might be the most important development for the stretch run. "Obviously, we're all feeling for Scotty and wishing him the best," Klimes said. "He has done tremendous work for us. Right now, I have to step into his position and do the best I can." The 6-foot-8, 230-pound center from Prague, Czech Republic, and Walsingham (Va.) Academy actually is in his second year with the Cats. Klimes spent last winter training and practicing with his teammates as a healthy "red-shirt." It was then, with Klimes waging daily wars with Coppenrath, Jones, Sheftic and Grant Anderson, that Brennan knew the youngster could make a difference. "Every day in practice last year, Sheftic just killed him. He beat him up and there was nothing he good do, but he'd just get up, dust himself off and keep going," Brennan said. "A kid that works that hard; is that committed; has that good of a disposition; is that bright -- it's almost hard for him not to be successful." The only question with Klimes was confidence. He scored 13, crucial points in a win at Maine and pulled down eight rebounds against New Hampshire, but overall his play in a back-up role to Jones was spotty. Then came his epiphany midway through the second half of last week's win over Binghamton. Standing 17 feet from the basket with the ball in his mitts and 3,000 fans begging him to shoot an open jumper, Klimes obliged. The resulting swish sparked the Catamounts on an 18-1 run. He followed by six more points and six rebounds over the final 10 minutes. Three days later, he doubled his average of 14 minutes-per-game in the win at Northeastern. "I definitely have gained a lot more confidence, and I have a reason: We've been practicing really hard and I'm practicing against great players," he said. "That helps me a lot developing from where I came from even last year to right now. "Now I just feel very comfortable in the game." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

Big dreams in small town

By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Columnist The Boston Globe February 9, 2004 Another win, another video for Paula's Place and the General Store in West Barnet, Vt. It's almost impossible to follow the University of Vermont men's basketball team on television, especially in Taylor Coppenrath's little hometown. Only half the games are televised and folks in West Barnet (pop. 1,400) aren't going to get anything without a satellite dish. That's why George Coppenrath brings videos back from the games. He loans them out to West Barnet's two stores, and if you get there early enough you might be able to check out the tape and see how the fellas did down there in Boston yesterday. The Catamounts beat the Northeastern Huskies, 67-65, on Solomon Court at the Cabot Gym. It was the 12th straight win for the 15-5 Catamounts, who are hoping to make it to the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season. Coppenrath, a junior and the nation's No. 3 scorer (23.9 ppg), was held to 18 points, but Vermont extended its perfect record (11-0) in the America East Conference. Coach Tom Brennan and his players know that the road to another NCAA berth goes through Boston (Northeastern and Boston University). This was one of the best athletic events of the year. Starting off with a stirring national anthem, delivered by talented young women from the Husky track team, Northeastern played host to an afternoon of athletic competition and entertainment that would match any in Greater Boston. It was 40 minutes of frenetic and fair play -- both teams playing as if an NCAA berth was on the line. The sellout crowd was totally entertained, and it was a good day for the city game. Unfortunately, Northeastern coach Ron Everhart was a little discouraged after the narrow loss. He'd successfully schemed to shut down Coppenrath (who scored 41 when the Huskies lost to Vermont in Burlington), but Catamounts backup guard Alex Jensen buried Everhart team under a hail of threes (Jensen was 6 for 8 from behind the arc). Oh well, there's always the conference tour- nament. Thus far, Boston's best have not been able to stop Vermont. And Coppenrath is the reason. He's 6 feet 9 inches, weighs 245 pounds, sports a Walton-esque (circa 1977) beard, plays a little like Larry Bird (without the long-range step-back shot) and grew up in a place that makes French Lick, Ind., look like Manhattan. "There's one paved road, and a mountain, and a lake," Coppenrath says of his tiny hometown. "We've got two stores and a church. I first played when my dad put a hoop behind our house, but then he raised money and they built a court by the church. Sometimes it was hard to find enough guys to play, so you tend to start off playing your family." Imagine. The kid goes from Green Acres to Pauley Pavilion. Coppenrath scored 38 points in a 68-67 loss to UCLA last November. It was one of the top five opponent point totals ever registered in the Sistine Chapel of college basketball. Coppenrath works for his points and never comes off the floor unless there's foul trouble. He moves well without the ball, sets monster picks, has soft hands, and picks up a lot of stray baskets in the paint. He's rarely out of position and tends to keep his cool when tempers flare around him. He is a coach's dream and an opponent's nightmare. Northeastern's Sylbrin Robinson, Javorie Wilson, Bennet Davis, and Cornellius Wright took turns guarding him yesterday. They were somewhat effective, but it made for daylight elsewhere. "We wanted to double-team him and keep the ball out of his hands," said Everhart. "In the second half, we didn't defend off the screens and he got Jensen some open looks and he hurt us." And George and Susan Coppenrath were right there, watching every play. "I love to watch Taylor play," said George. "I coached him when he was in the third grade and he soaks up information like a sponge. It's unbelievable the support the team is getting from the entire state." Don't be duped by the Lil' Abner image. The Catamounts get around. They played in the Dean Dome at North Carolina last year, took on Arizona in Salt Lake City in an NCAA Tournament subregional, this season played at UCLA, and next season will play at Kansas. And what does the humble Coppenrath want to be when he grows up? "I'd like to become a high school math teacher," he said. "He's majoring in secondary education," said his dad. "He could be a high school math teacher and basketball coach. But I hope the NBA looks at him." "Let's just see what happens after I graduate," said the young man. Plenty of time for that. Meanwhile, there's an NCAA berth to be won and the Catamounts will be back in Boston for the America East tournament March 5. If the Huskies or Terriers need a video for scouting, they always can check with Paula's Place or the General Store in West Barnet. No charge for rental. Just bring the tape back. A lot of folks want to watch the hometown team. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

Cozy in Vermont Look at what Tom Brennan has and learn a lesson about commitment

By JACK WILKINSON The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 02/07/04

Burlington, Vt. -- Three decades after the Jersey Guy graduated from Georgia, 18 seasons since his meanderings somehow landed him here, Tom Brennan finally has the world by the basketball, the FM radio dial and the funny bone. And he knows it. Tom Brennan lost 50 of his first 58 games at Vermont, which stuck with him and was rewarded last season with its first NCAA tournament berth in 103 years. So does everyone watching him walk the pregame walk one recent, frigid evening. As always, Brennan made his entrance with precisely 3:00 left on the scoreboard clock. As the P.A. system played the happy bop of Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said," Tom Brennan strode. If only he'd snapped his fingers to the beat while going baseline, then strolling down the sideline toward the Vermont bench, a Vegas headliner about to play the Big Room. Nearly everyone in Patrick Gymnasium - aka Little Lambeau, the 3,228-seat gym with pull-out bleachers - shadowed Brennan and began to politely applaud. His Catamount constituency included: A couple of thousand hardy fans who displayed sub-zero tolerance. The temperature at tipoff? Minus-10. Dozens of little kids, middle-aged men, little old ladies who, at Brennan's urg- ing, stuck adhesive bandages across their noses. A show of support for Vermont guard David Hehn, who wore a face mask to protect the nose broken by a forearm from Northeastern's Marcus Barnes. "If I'm going to make a fool of myself, I'm going to be color coordinated," said "Mama Gooch," Mary Anne Gucciardi, 70, her purple bandage complementing her purple sweater. "I'll wear it for Tom and these kids. He's our ambassador." The guys on Nicholson Row, courtside regulars who include Steve Cormier. He's "Corm," of "Corm and the Coach," the top-rated morning radio show in Vermont. It's co-hosted by Cormier and Brennan on "The Champ," 101.3 FM, the home of classic rock and occasional ribald repartee each weekday morning from 6-9. "We kick Howard Stern's [butt]," said Corm. "[Don] Imus, too." Taylor Coppenrath, the reigning America East Conference player of the year and the best college player you've never heard of. A 6-foot-9 Vermonter from West Barnet (pop. 300), the Jack Sikma shoot-a-like dropped 38 points on UCLA in a 68- 67 loss at Pauley Pavilion in December and is now third in Division I in scoring with a 24.3 average. Orchestrating it all in the basketball coldbed of Brrrrrrlington is Brennan. A one- time Georgia Bulldog who failed miserably trying to defend Pistol Pete Maravich of LSU, a once-young coach who lost 50 of his first 58 games at Vermont yet some- how got a vote of confidence >from the school president, Brennan is 54 now and the prince of the city on Lake Champlain. "This is my place," he said. "This is where I belong. How many guys in this transient business find peace?" Listen to your wife Last March, Hehn's late baseline jumper beat Boston University 56-55 to give Vermont its first America East title and first bid to the NCAA tournament in the 103-year history of UVM basketball. A snowstorm turned Vermont's trip to Salt Lake City into a 42-hour odyssey; they were whomped by No. 1 Arizona 80-51. No biggie. "I won the press conference," said Brennan, who was later rewarded with a new four-year contract, including a salary bump to $97,000. This, following some informal inquiries from Athens after Georgia had fired Jim Harrick. Brennan's still in his little paint- ed-cinderblock office that's always open, despite "The Wizard of Oz" admonition on the door: "Nobody Gets in to See the Wizard. Not Nobody, No How." His wizardry has helped Vermont to a 14-5 record, including an 11-game winning streak and a 10-0 America East mark. A second conference crown and a return to the NCAAs are distinct possibilities. Yet what most beguiles Brennan is his sense of belong- ing, the mutual love affair between coach and community, and the undeniable fact that life here's an Arctic blast. "Intrigued." That's how Brennan felt last spring when a go-between from Georgia called concerning its coaching vacancy. "They're going to need somebody to ride in here on a white horse, T.B.," the guy said. Brennan told his wife, "Baby, it makes some sense. This is $700,000, $800,000, $900,000." The woman WCPV radio listeners know as "Miss Lynnie" made better sense. "What do you want that you don't have?" Lynn Brennan asked. "Where do you want to go that you haven't been? "Look out the window," she said, gesturing to a picture window. "Look what you have." What the Brennans have is a breath- taking view of Lake Champlain from their gorgeous lakefront home. "You were able to give back to the state the greatest gift," Lynn said. "They hung with you so long, and you gave them a championship." That convinced Brennan that he belonged here. That, and Villanova coach Jay Wright's reminder of something the late Jim Valvano once told him: "You don't [mess] with happy." Of course, some folks in Athens might've scanned Brennan's r⁄sum⁄ and asked, "Huh?" Yes, he's won 231 games here. He's also lost 265. Brennan won 14 games in his first three seasons, going 5-23, 3-24 and 6-21 in 1989. He was so frustrated in '89, he told his wife, "There's no commitment to basketball here." "You're 14-68 and you still have a job," Lynn replied. "That's a pretty good commitment." Brennan persevered. The past two seasons, he's prospered: 21-8 and the America East regular season title in 2001, then last year's 21-12 NCAA breakthrough. Now, the Cats are clearly the class of the conference, and Brennan, now a grandfather, is still the king of early-morning drive time. A natural for radio In 1992, WCPV approached Brennan about doing twice-an-hour sports updates on Cormier's show. He jumped at it. He need- ed the money. Two days of sports updates and several jokes later, Brennan quickly became "Coach" to Cormier's "Corm." "I made more at the radio than coaching," said Brennan. "I'm good on the radio, better than I was [then] at basketball. I was getting paid fairly at both places." In the studio, Brennan occasionally calls opposing coaches at 6 a.m. on game days. He routinely adjusts the weekly college basketball polls: "Duke is number one, followed by Stanford, St. Joe's, Vermont at No. 5 and then Pitt." Brennan even writes and recites original poetry each Friday. Excerpts >from an ode to Howard Dean after his post-Iowa cau- cuses meltdown: Well, Dr. Dean went off on a rant, would've made Dennis Miller proud. It's not the first time he's been a crank; he actually got huffy with me when I asked him about Barney Frank. But he's one of us. . . . Sure, he was feisty, kinda like a Rottweiler pup. But how bad could it have been? They didn't T him up. Somewhere, Yeats and Keats ain't smiling. But anywhere Brennan goes, he leaves 'em laughing. This gangly kid from Phillipsburg, N.J., alighted in Athens in 1967, when Georgia basketball was lily-white and lousy. Brennan spent two winters futilely chasing Maravich. One night in a packed Stegeman Coliseum, an SEC referee named Lou Bello whistled Brennan for a foul on Pistol Pete. "That was an offensive foul," Brennan said. Walking toward the scorer's table, Bello wheeled toward Brennan and shouted, "Hey! They ain't here to see you!" A graduate assistant at Georgia after earning a physical education degree in 1971, Brennan apprenticed under Rollie Massimino at Villanova, became Bill Raftery's youngest aide at Seton Hall and is still close friends with Bruce Parkhill, his boss at William & Mary. Brennan was the head coach at Yale from 1982-86, went 46-58 but never felt comfortable in New Haven. When Brennan was offered the Vermont job in '86 and told Dr. Frank Ryan - the old Cleveland Browns quarterback-turned-Yale athletics director - Ryan quickly said, "I think you should take it." At home in Vermont So he went to Burlington, paying his own moving expenses. For years, UVM struggled. Brennan didn't have the full NCAA limit of 13 scholarships. Too, his home talent base was Vermont, the least-populous state in the continental U.S. But look now: Coppenrath is one of two Vermonters on the roster. The other, fifth-year senior center Matt Sheftic, the MVP of last year's conference tournament, is out for the year with a torn ACL. Although the NCAA granted Sheftic a medical-hardship sixth year of eli- gibility, he'll likely skip it and graduate, in hopes of becoming an Army Ranger. Coppenrath, meanwhile, could become the first native Vermonter to play in the NBA. "He's a great motivator, doesn't bad- mouth anybody," Coppenrath said of Brennan. "He doesn't B.S. you. He'll tell you what's what. He adds a little flavor to it, which is interesting. But he's real witty. Tells great stories." Like the one he told starting junior forward Germain Njila from Cameroon. "When I visited here [on a recruiting trip] in the fall," Njila said, "it was a nice day, 80 degrees." "I lied," Brennan said. "I told him it never gets cold here. If he gets a job in North America, I'm going to get him the nicest top coat." And Brennan will take Burlington over Yale or Georgia, the SEC or any other elite conference. "At Yale, I was young, a hand- ful," Brennan said. "I was an excitable boy, to quote Warren [Zevon]. Now, to have the success late, you appreciate it more. You know who the people are who stuck with you." People like Mama Gooch, who has received an honorary doctorate from UVM and who cooks her legendary Italian dishes for more than 700 at the team's annual preseason spaghetti dinner. It's $8 for adults, $5 for kids, and the players serve as waiters. The proceeds benefit the basketball team and the Kevin Roberson Scholarship Fund. Roberson, UVM class of '92 and the Cats' all-time leader in rebounds and blocked shots, and his sister were killed in May 1993 when their car was hit by a drunk driver. People like the fans who pack Little Lambeau and buy tickets for the on-court raffles held during timeouts. Like Jack and Eileen Fontaine, who own the Rusty Scuffer, Brennan's downtown hangout where the Catamounts eat their pregame meals, and where the coach has his own booth in the back corner. And Mike Antoniak, a National Guardsman from Winooski. He and his wife, Candy, spent Mike's last free weekend in Boston before he was activated and transported to Ft. Dix; his eventual destination: Iraq. While in Boston, the Antoniaks took in the Vermont-Boston University rematch. Before the game, Mike introduced himself to Brennan, saying that last year's conference final win was one of the happiest days of his life. Then Antoniak told Brennan what personal items he was taking to Baghdad: Photos of Candy and their daughters, and his ticket stub from last season's historic Vermont-B.U. game. Brennan, who'd just told his players how much they've come to mean to so many in this state, asked Antoniak to address the Catamounts. "Now?" Antoniak asked. Now. Five minutes before tipoff. Antoniak did. He cried. So did Brennan, then the players. UVM won. The following Thursday, when the Antoniaks and their family were having a last supper at the Rusty Scuffer before Mike's depar- ture the next day, several players came up and wished him well, and posed for photos with the Antoniaks. "Now, we've got a guy to root for, too," Brennan later told Patrick Garrity of the Burlington Free Press. "This is what it's all about. This is why you hope that you get good. So you can share it with other people." © 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A soldier's story

January 25, 2004 The Burlington Free Press www.burlingtonfreepress.com By Patrick Garrity Free Press Columnist

This is a story about a basketball team and a basketball fan but has very little to do with basketball at all. It is the story of the University of Vermont men's team and Winooski's Mike Antoniak. The Catamounts are on their way to another big season. Antoniak is on his way to Iraq. Their paths crossed last weekend in Boston. Tom Brennan's Cats were getting ready to face rival Boston University, and Antoniak was sharing a last weekend away with his wife, Candy, before shipping out with the 1st Battalion 86th Field Artillery of the Vermont National Guard. The unit left Friday morning for Fort Dix, N.J., the first stop of an 18-month tour of duty that is scheduled to reach the Middle East this spring. Big fans for the past couple years, the Antoniaks also were in Boston in March to see the Cats bump off BU and earn a trip to the NCAA tournament. They chose to spend Mike's final free Saturday for the next year-and-a-half watching the rematch at Case Gymnasium. "We got to the arena early and we were just sitting and talking, when Mike said 'I'm going to go wish Coach Brennan good luck,'" Candy Antoniak said. "He'd never met Coach Brennan before, but he wanted him to know he would be following the team as best as he could while he was away." Brennan was floored. "I had just finished telling the team that they meant a lot to lot of people when Mike comes up to me, tells me he's head- ing off to Iraq and that he just wanted me to know that the day we beat BU in last year's championship was one of the happiest days of his life. I mean, c'mon." Say what you will about Brennan, but there isn't a man on Earth who appreciates his good fortune more. "I'm the coach at the University of Vermont, and to me that's a big deal," Brennan said Saturday after his Cats clobbered New Hampshire. "There are 326 Hope diamonds in the world," he said, referring to the number of Division I men's basketball programs, "and I get to hold on to one of them." Brennan told Antoniak, hold that thought, there are 12 young men who need to hear your message. "He asked Mike to go talk to the team," Candy said, "and Mike was like 'Now?' It was five minutes before the game. We both went down to the locker room, and Coach Brennan said, 'Guys, this is Mike and Candy, the people I told you about.' Then he asked Mike to say a few words. It was, um, emotional." And inspirational, according to Brennan. "He started crying, then I started crying, then the guys started crying," Brennan said. "He said he was taking a picture of his wife and daughters and his ticket stub from last year's game with him. If that doesn't get to you ... ." "Mike was worried," said Candy of her husband's pre-game pep talk. "He was like 'I bummed them out really bad. They're going to lose and it's going to be all my fault!'" Antoniak needn't have worried. The Catamounts won, taking over first place with a 59-57 victory, then telling Antoniak after the game the win was for him. A few days later, Antoniak called Brennan to thank him for the opportunity to meet the players, and Brennan inquired about Antoniak's departure. The coach hoped to surprise Antoniak on Friday and show up with the team when the Guardsmen shoved off, but a limit on the number of well-wishers allowed in the exhibition hall of the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds shorted those plans. "We went out to dinner Thursday night, just me and Mike, my daughters and my mom and dad," said Candy. "We're sitting there, and in walk T.J. (Sorrentine) and Taylor (Coppenrath) and (Alex) Jensen. "And then David Hen came in and posed for pictures with my girls. Then Matt Sheftic came in and sat with us for a minute. One by one, every boy on the team came in to wish Mike the best. You have no idea what that meant to us. That touched us so much. It was ... perfect." Mike Antoniak spent 11 years in the Army before joining the Guard in 1997. He is a loving husband and father, a teacher, a volunteer fireman, coaches his daughters' Little League team and is an assistant coach with the Winooski High School boys bas- ketball team. He is one of 193 Vermont Guardsmen answering a call to duty. "He's a strong person and a great solider," said Candy. "It's scary, but I know he'll do great. "This last week has been such a whirlwind of emotions, but those boys ... . What they and Coach Brennan did for Mike ... . Well, it's hard to put into words." Brennan said it is Antoniak and his fellow Guardsmen who deserve all the credit. "This is what it's all about. This is why you hope you get good, so you can share it with other people," the coach said. "Now we've got a guy to root for, too.” © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

High scorers take different routes to Vermont By Andy Gardiner, USA TODAY Jan. 21, 2004

He is a native son, arguably the most gifted player the state has produced. She's a Canadian, the latest in all-star talent from north of the border. Together, Taylor Other tandems abound Coppenrath and Aaron Yantzi have given Vermont the most potent men's and women's Although their 19-point averages leave them scoring punch in Division I basketball. down the scoring list, Division I's premier Coppenrath ranks fourth nationally with a 24.6 average. Yantzi is 14th with a dual-gender duo is Connecticut's Emeka 20.7 mark. Their efforts have helped Vermont join Stanford, Duke, Texas, Connecticut Okafor and Diana Taurasi, who could be the and Creighton as schools with 20-win seasons for men and women each of the last two top picks in the NBA and WNBA drafts this years. year. Coppenrath, a junior, already has won rookie of the year and player of the year Stanford's Nicole Powell (20.8 points a game, honors in America East. Yantzi, a senior, twice has been second-team all-conference 13th nationally) and Josh Childress will rank and could finish No. 4 on the school's career scoring list. among the elite once Childress recovers from Local boy makes good the stress fracture that sidelined him for the first nine games. Coppenrath grew up in West Barnet (population 120), 70 miles east the UVM Duke's Alana Beard (19.7) can team with any- campus in Burlington. He arrived as a 6-8, 205-pound freshman long on potential but one in the men's starting lineup and make a short on polish. case for the A list. Vermont coach Tom Brennan decided to redshirt Coppenrath, virtually Minnesota Senior Lindsay Whalen has led the unprecedented at Vermont, which worked with only 101/2 scholarships at that time. Gophers (15-1) to a No. 9 ranking, averaging "Once we started practicing, we saw he was clearly a way better player than 21.9 points (fifth nationally). Freshman Kris we ever imagined," Brennan says. "There were times I thought it was crazy (to redshirt Humphries is ranked 13th with a 22.5 average him) because we needed to win games. But we stuck it out." for the men. The redshirt year provided Coppenrath time to mature mentally and physical- DePaul Khara Smith's 21.4 average (seventh ly while developing his varied offense of low-post moves and outside shooting touch. nationally) has led the Blue Demons (16-1) to "That was the only time I had to show my stuff, and it almost seemed like I a No. 17 ranking. Delonte Holland ranks 35th was working for nothing," he says. "But that year was so important in helping me with a 19.6 average. become stronger and to learn from what I saw." Coppenrath averaged 16.6 points and was the league's top rookie the next season as Vermont went 21-8, the school's first 20-win season. Last season Coppenrath averaged 20.1 points and was player of the year as the Catamounts earned their first NCAA berth in the program's 103-year history. Now 6-9 and 240, Coppenrath leads the league in field goal percentage (51%), is fourth in rebounding (7.0) and is shoot- ing 77% at the foul line. He dropped 38 points on UCLA in a one-point loss at Pauley Pavilion and scored a career-best 41 in a win against Northeastern. "He's skilled, he's tough and he really, really competes," UCLA coach Ben Howland says. "If he were at UCLA, there's no ques- tion he'd be starting for us." After starting 0-4, the Cats are 9-5 overall and 6-0 in the conference after winning 59-57 last weekend at Boston University. Coppenrath scored the winning points and blocked the potential game-tying shot. "This is a kid who didn't score 1,000 points in high school and then had that many 50 games into college," Brennan says. "Nobody knew Taylor would come on like this, and we still don't know how good he can be." Coppenrath has a chance to join Reggie Lewis of Northeastern as the only player to win rookie of the year and then claim three consecutive player of the year honors. That possibility astounds Coppenrath. "I never thought anything like this would happen. I thought I'd be an average player," he says. "I just try to work hard all the time because if you do that, you may not be great but you have a chance to be better." Border crossing Yantzi (YAWN-see) is the latest link in a Canadian recruiting chain at Vermont that has helped produce seven 20-win sea- sons since 1990 and delivered the top three scorers in school history. When Sharon Dawley was named Vermont's coach last spring, she knew Yantzi would be the centerpiece of her first Catamounts team. "I remember watching her during warm-ups and commenting to a colleague that I wanted a competitor like that," says Dawley, who spent six seasons as associate head coach at nearby Dartmouth. "It doesn't matter what the score is, what the situa- tion is or who the opponent is. She shows up to compete." On-court intensity is one of Yantzi's hallmarks. Another is her deadly shooting touch from the low post. "I try to play hard, be patient and let the game come to me," Yantzi says. "I try to make myself a presence inside and then get those two points." At 6-0, Yantzi can't overpower defenders, but her positioning and strong left hand have helped her shoot 62% from the field, tops in America East. She is second in foul shooting at 86%. "She is very difficult to defend because she finishes so well even when you double-team her," Maine coach Sharon Versyp says. "She gets people in foul trouble and then makes her free throws." Dawley says Yantzi's increased scoring has obscured her improved rebounding and defense. She had three career double-dou- bles before this season but has 10 in 12 games this season and leads the conference with a 10.8 rebounding average. "Aaron is an unbelievable defender in the post, and that goes hand in hand with her rebounding," Dawley says. "She goes after the ball with such tenacity, and when we leave our zone (defense) for man, her man doesn't score." Vermont has struggled with turnovers and an erratic backcourt this season and stands 7-5 overall and 1-3 in conference. If the Cats are going to get back to the 20-win level, Yantzi will have to lead the way. "I have never seen confidence like hers at this level before, and we have to have that," Dawley says. "It's not complicated — she has to be on the floor for us to succeed." © Copyright 2004 USA Today/Gannett

Vermont's Big Man From A Little Town

By Bruce Wood The Valley News January 21, 2004

Hanover -- Long car rides on frigid winter nights aren't as easy on Bernice Mackay as they were a few years back. It's why the elderly neighbor of former St. Johnsbury Academy basketball star Taylor Coppenrath hasn't been up for the ardu- ous trip across the state to see him play at the University of Vermont. It's why tonight’s game at Dartmouth College figures to be special both for her and the little boy she watched grow to 6-foot-9 and 250 or so pounds. Mackay and the Coppenraths live in the village of West Barnet, Vt., just 45 minutes up I-91 from Norwich. “Bernice has been sort of like a grandmother to our boys,” said Coppenrath's father, George. “We always invited her to their birthday parties. She turned 90 in December, and this is a wonderful chance for us to bring her to a game.” Mackay should feel right at home. According to Dartmouth ticket manager Miriam Durkee, her office has seen an unusual spike in sales and telephone inquiries for a midweek contest, news that didn't surprise George Coppenrath at all. “I went to the St. Jay Academy game last night, and practically every other person I ran into said they were coming down to the Dartmouth game,” he said yesterday. “Probably 40 or 50 people told me personally they were coming. So I'm guessing there will be a few hundred there.” That will mean a lot to Taylor Coppenrath, the nation's fourth-leading scorer at 24.6 points per game. The All-America hopeful takes great pride in the little hometown where they can't keep a tape of his 38-point performance at UCLA earlier this winter on the video shelves of the West Barnet General Store. It's been borrowed three times in the week since his father made it available, and wasn't due back again until today. “We may be small, but we have a bunch of people that really care about each other,” said Coppenrath, a red-shirt junior. “It's a pretty tight community with people who are always ready to help each other out. “It's going to be a school night, so who knows how many students will make it down from St. Jay. But I'm sure a few peo- ple will be there.” With the series between the Big Green and the Catamounts returning to Burlington next year, this will be Coppenrath's final game at Dartmouth, where he saw his first-ever college basketball game back when former St. Johnsbury star Tony Orciari was hoist- ing up 3-pointers for UVM. And where his roots run deep. Coppenrath's grandfather, George, graduated from the college and is honored on a plaque in the Hopkins Center along with other Dartmouth graduates who died in World War II. As a young boy, Taylor attended Dartmouth coach Dave Faucher's overnight basketball camp at his grandfather's alma mater for several years. “That was definitely fun,” he said. “It was far enough from home, but not too far away. The people down there were nice and I always liked coach Faucher.” Faucher well remembers the skinny towhead who came down from the southern fringe of the Northeast Kingdom. He didn't resemble at all the solid forward whose big night at UCLA not only got the Catamounts within a whisker of beating the Bruins, but went in the books as one of the five highest scoring games by an opposing player in the storied history of Pauley Pavilion. “As a camper he was a hard worker and a good kid, but he was thin,” said Faucher. “You had no idea what he would become. You never, ever could have envisioned this. “When he got to be a junior and senior I knew he was playing well, and then heard that he was going to go to Vermont. I remember we were up there for a game and Tom Crowley, who was on the staff then, was working a kid out. The kid is dunking and shooting and he's really wide and I go, ‘Who the heck is that?' He said, ‘It’s Coppenrath.’ I didn’t even recognize him. He had just blossomed.” After taking a redshirt season to bulk up as a freshman, Coppenrath earned America East Rookie of the Year honors the next winter. Last year he became just the fourth sophomore to be named the conference Player of the Year, helping the Catamounts to their first NCAA appearance and scoring 18 points in an opening-round loss at Arizona. He went 18-for-23 from the field while pouring in a career-high 41 points against Northeastern earlier this month and had 28 points in the 59-58 win at Boston University Sunday that raised Vermont's record to 9-5 overall and 6-0 in America East. Coppenrath is on pace to challenge Eddie Benton's UVM career record of 2,474 points. He has 1,430 points in his career and will move into fifth place on the school's all-time list with 35 more. As much as Faucher likes the UVM standout from just beyond the northern reaches of the Upper Valley, he'd just as soon that milestone come in Saturday's game with New Hampshire and not tonight. “Hopefully we can keep him from getting his average, but that's a tough matchup for us,” Faucher admitted. “We've got to go after him and make life miserable for him. That’s definitely a key to the game. We can't go into it saying he’s going to get 35 and we’ll be OK. That can’t happen.” The Big Green coach knows it won't be easy. “He's just a good player and a good kid,” Faucher said. “He's a marked man and he still gets it done. That's special.” As is tonight's game for the pride of West Barnet, who was Dick Vitale's co-national player of the week earlier this month and was recognized in last week's Sports Illustrated. That's only some of the attention that has been coming his way this winter. After surviving the upset bid in his first game at UCLA, Bruins' coach Ben Howland told a Los Angeles newspaper, “We had no answer for him. He's a hell of a player. He’s going to make some money playing basketball somewhere.” When Iona squeaked out a 56-53 win over UVM, coach Jeff Ruland was duly impressed by Coppenrath, saying, “He's defi- nitely an NBA prospect.” To be sure, there haven't been many of those from Vermont. But Coppenrath doesn't believe growing up in tiny West Barnet has held him back. Quite the contrary. “I don't really think it matters if you are really dedicated to what you want to do,” he said. “Just work hard at it and if you are surrounded by great people who want to help you succeed, anything is possible.” A lot of those people -- including one smiling 90-year-old -- will be at Leede Arena tonight. © Copyright 2004 The Valley News

Vermont's Hehn happy in any role

The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity, Free Press Columnist 1/17/04

He is a most unlikely villain, his cockeyed jumpshot and 3.9 points per game little to loathe. But this afternoon in Boston, the coolest reception from the Case Gymnasium crowd might be saved for David Hehn. Hehn's 10-foot jumper in the final seconds of the America East Conference championship game in March was the biggest shot in 103 years of University of Vermont men's basketball and a season-ending dagger to Boston University's title hopes. Today, he and the Catamounts return to Boston for a rematch 10 months in the making. "I'm just excited," Hehn said when asked if he expected a chilly welcome from the Commonwealth Avenue crowd. "I like playing at BU. It's just a good rivalry." It has become a one-sided rivalry of sorts, with UVM winning four of the last five meetings. The Terriers are 35-3 against the rest of America East in that span. Hehn, the 6-foot-5 junior from Sarnia, Ontario, has played a leading role in the Catamounts' success against the Terriers. His first career start came against BU two seasons ago, and he responded with eight points, four steals and a 40-minute harrassment of Terriers' star Chaz Carr. Last winter, a career-high, 17-point performance was capped with a last-minute 3-pointer in UVM's 65-62 victory at Patrick Gym. Three weeks later came his heroics in the conference final. Hehn might be the least popular Canadian in Boston since Guy Lafleur. "I've had some opportunities and I took advantage of them," he said with a shrug. The statement encapsulates a Catamounts career that has run the gamut from energetic sixth man to emergency point guard to defensive stopper. Hehn's job description has changed, but his 94-foot effort has not. "I just see myself as a basketball player," he said. "I've tried to help out anyway that I can and I'm just glad that I've been given a chance to do those things. "I do whatever they ask me to do, and I do it with a smile." That smile has seen better days. Hehn chipped a tooth and broke his nose last week when Northeastern guard Marcus Barnes drove his face into the floor after the players became entangled and fell. Barnes drew a two-game suspension from the league for the play. Hehn sat out four minutes. "We've had a lot of tough players come through this program, and if he's not the toughest, he's in the top two," said Catamounts coach Tom Brennan. "This is a very special group of guys, and one of the reason it's special is because of him." He has happily relinquished the point-guard duties to T.J. Sorrentine, and most of the big shots belong to Taylor Coppenrath. Hehn's current assignment is to make life as miserable as possible for the opponent's top scorer. As for his title-winning jumper ... "That'll be something, when my career here is over, something I can look back and remember forever," he said. "Right now, I think our team is just trying to work toward making moments like that happen again." © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press

These Catamounts can take a punch

The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity, Free Press Columnist 1/8/04

You know you've had yourself a basketball game when the opposing bench is guarded by a uniformed police officer and the final statistics include a column marked "lacerations." You know you've had yourself a basketball game when one side hits 13 3- pointers, snags 19 offensive rebounds and fumbles just eight turnovers -- and loses. You know you've had yourself a basketball game when a record-setting individual performance earns the description of, "Oh, yeah, and Coppenrath had 41." Vermont and Northeastern had themselves a basketball game Wednesday night. There will be more challenges to the Catamounts' reign over the America East, but none more brutal than the 40- minute assault (and battery?) the Huskies mounted at Patrick Gym. Northeastern is tough, it's talented and it's totally convinced it has championship stuff, from its all-Puerto Rico point guard to its 3-point-shooting Big East castaway. On this night, however, the Huskies were only the second-best team in town. "It was just a wonderful team win," said Catamounts coach Tom Brennan. "We're pretty darn good here, and this let's everybody know." Everybody should know by now. There evidently is no curveball these Cats can't hit. Take away their Player of the Year point guard? They answer with a Player of the Year forward. Take away their 6-foot-8, 260-pound paratrooper? They plug in a fifth-year senior. Send them on a 13,000-mile, four-game losing streak to open the season? They respond by winning six of seven. "You're going to war with guys that you love," Brennan said. "You're saying 'I know Hehn is going to kill somebody; he's going to dive on the floor. I know Coppenrath's going to get 30. I know T.J. ...' When you're coaching guys like that, guys you just appreciate and root for so much, it's just a very special thing." Northeastern should have realized these Cats don't spook easily, but the Huskies are as mean as a sack of scorpions and they tried their best to spook them just the same. They yapped. They shoved. They tackled. They yapped some more. In a 90-second span of the second half, they managed two-point takedowns on both of Vermont's starting guards, for pete's sake. And yet, in the end, it was the Huskies who lost their cool. "You've got to stay composed and not let the other team take you out of your game," said junior guard T.J. Sorrentine. "That's what they try to do, and that's fine; that's how they play, but we're not going to get sucked into that. We're just going to play the way we play." That's a game plan that has allowed Vermont to win 32 of their last 42 against America East rivals, and it's one that will come in handy at least 15 more times this winter. Boston University has won nine straight. Maine is 5-1 at home. There are more 40-minute wars on the schedule. "This is a dogfight league," said Northeastern coach Ron Everhart. "We're going to play again, and I'm sure it'll be another dogfight when we do." No question about it. But with NESN's cameras rolling, the Catamounts made it clear to the rest of the league Wednesday night that if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get. © Copyright 2004 The Burlington Free Press Sorrentine didn't have to go far from home to find hoop niche

By Bill Reynolds The Providence Journal www.projo.com December 30, 2003

He comes back tonight with the University of Vermont. Comes back home to Rhode Island. Comes back to play against the Rams in the Ryan Center. Comes back to play against another local school that didn't want him. T.J. Sorrentine, Rhode Island college basketball's prodigal son. For three years now, he's been one of this state's biggest basketball success stories. Right there with the incredible renais- sance at URI, and PC sitting there at 7-1 this season. Right there with anyone else you can name. Sorrentine. This local kid who already has had the kind of college career no one ever could have envisioned when he came out of St. Ray's four years ago. This kid who was the player of the year in the America East Conference two years ago. This kid who once scored 45 points against Northeastern. This kid who was an honorable-mention All-American two years ago. This kid no one wanted four years ago. At least neither PC nor URI. "I think every kid in Rhode Island has that dream to stay home and play," Sorrentine said. "But I knew early that the only way I was going to play here in Rhode Island was to play against them." This is said with no rancor, no bitterness. Sorrentine's no fool. He always could read the basketball tea leaves. He knew as a junior in high school that neither of the two local schools had any interest in him, that he was deemed too small, too slow, too something. In a basketball world that's all about recruiting the kind of players who are supposed to be able to heal the sick, raise the dead, and make little children go out of their heads, Sorrentine was just another 5-foot-11 Rhode Island high school player. Even if he was the state's Gatorade player of the year. "It only made me work harder," he said. "It fueled me." He also went to a place that wanted him, a place where he was given the opportunity to play right away. This is no small thing, not in a college game where so many kids go to the wrong place, either have to wait for their turn or else never get their turn. Sorrentine was a star almost from his first game at Vermont, as if he were able to do the same things in a college game he once did against La Salle. In fact, he was so successful so quickly that it eventually complicated things. So there he was two years ago, the toast of Burlington, Vt., when he started to ask himself the inevitable question: Why did he have to go all the way to Vermont for someone to give him his chance? Wouldn't it have been great to be able to play here in front of his family and friends? The questions that began haunting him. So began the inevitable rumors: Sorrentine's thinking of transferring. PC. URI. Boston College. Two years ago, the rumors were everywhere. "It was like the rumors were started by everyone else," he said. "Everyone had an opinion on what I should do." Sorrentine now says much of it was overblown, that he never had any real intention of leaving Vermont. As if he knew he was in a great situation for himself. Yet there was a night in June of 2002 when Sorrentine was playing in a summer league game at PC and there in the bleachers was his coach, Tom Brennan, having driven down from Vermont. "What are you doing here?" Brennan was asked. "Protecting my investment," he said with a smile. Then, last fall, Sorrentine fell in a preseason scrimmage and broke bones in both of his wrists. Welcome to his lost year. So when Vermont played PC in the Dunkin' Donuts Center a year ago, there was Sorrentine at the end of the bench with a cast on his wrist. A homecoming? Call it bittersweet. As was the entire year. Vermont went on to have a great year, making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the school's history. Sorrentine sat and watched. It was the first time basketball had been taken away from him and, in a sense, it only made him appreciate the game more, make him realize how important it is to him. Now he's back, and so far he's still trying to find the rhythm he had two years ago. Still, he's back playing, back in the mid- dle of a world he always yearned for, one in which it's his ball, his team, the best of all possible situations for any player. For he's come to terms with the fact that neither PC nor URI recruited him in high school. That's all in the past tense now, one more example that recruiting isn't a science, that it's all but impossible to measure heart and desire, will and basketball IQ. All the things Sorrentine has an abundance of. Maybe most of all, he's come to appreciate what he has, instead of lamenting what he doesn't have. The realization that while it would have been a childhood dream to play here in the state, who really knows how it would have turned out. The realiza- tion that none of this comes with any guarantees, the lesson last year taught him. "Vermont's been perfect for me," said T.J. Sorrentine. "There's no downside. It's been everything I could have wished for. I've exceeded all my expectations." Plus, everyone else's expectations, too. Coming home to play tonight is just icing. © Copyright 2003 The Providence Journal Bulletin Sheftic stands tall on and off the hardwood

December 22, 2003 By Ken McMillan Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald-Record

Poughkeepsie, N.Y. – Matt Sheftic would be hard to miss in any sort of lineup. He stands 6-foot-8 and weighs 260 pounds, sort of like a Vermont log cabin with sneakers. When the teams lined up for the playing of the National Anthem before yesterday's Marist-Vermont basketball game, Sheftic stood out a bit more, not because he was dressed in street clothes but for making a supreme sacrifice. Sheftic recently decided to pass up a sixth year of basketball eligibility to join the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant, thanks to his training with the Reserve Officer Training Corps. There are probably thousands of teen-agers who would kill to have a college scholarship, and here's a man who is setting aside one more year of college fun to put himself in the line of fire in Iraq or Afghanistan. "I am disappointed I don't get to finish my sixth year but you can't give up your life goal for one year of basketball," Sheftic said. Ever since he was a kid, when playing cops and robbers was just for fun, Sheftic has wanted to go into some form of federal law enforcement, whether that be the FBI, Secret Service or CIA. That dream became reality when the U.S. Army told him he could branch into military intelligence upon college graduation in five months time. The NCAA already granted Sheftic a redshirt year for skipping the 2001-02 season when his sister passed away and another for this season – a torn anterior cruciate ligament has sidelined him since August. However, the Army can't guarantee Sheftic a military intelligence assignment if he chose to play another season so he agreed to leave early and maybe pass up another run at the NCAA tournament. "It was too good of an opportunity to pass up," said Sheftic, a former Mr. Vermont Basketball who will exchange his Catamount greens for infantry greens in short time. Vermont coach Tom Brennan, hardly a man of few words, was moved when Sheftic told the team of his decision. "I am coaching a patriot, and I am very proud of that," Brennan said. "I don't want to be too melodramatic, but he feels it's a calling, almost like a vocation if you are a priest." A number of officers Sheftic has trained with are already serving in war zones, and no basketball season nor winter's chill is going to let him forget that. That's why Sheftic probably stood a little taller during the National Anthem yesterday. "It's a tremendous feeling to salute the flag, pause and think about what the veterans have done for our country," Sheftic said, "plus the firemen and policemen on 9/11. It feels good to stand there and think about that. "Realize we're playing a basketball game, and there are people who have died for our freedom. It's a great situation we have here in the country. People take it for granted." Ken McMillan's column appears regularly in the Times Herald-Record. He can be reached at 845-346-3126 and kmcmillan@th- record.com. Copyright Orange County Publications, a division of Ottaway Newspapers Inc., all rights reserved.

A Coach Becomes the Talk of Vermont

November 28, 2003 The New York Times By PETE THAMEL

BURLINGTON, Vt. — When Tom Brennan pulled into an old general store in the tiny town of Hancock, Vt., the man wearing bib overalls behind the counter blurted, "Whoa, hey, hey." "That was all he had to say," Brennan said. "I knew what he meant and he knew what he meant." That salute is one of thousands Brennan has received since he coached the University of Vermont to the N.C.A.A. men's bas- ketball tournament last season for the first time in the university's history. In Burlington, a town of 38,889 known best as the home of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and the birthplace of the jam band Phish, Vermont basketball is now chic. Despite getting thumped by Arizona in the first round of the men's Division I tournament, 80- 51, the trip thrust Brennan into the national spotlight and created an unlikely buzz around Vermont. "Given the economy and the situation in Iraq, there was much to be distressed about, and the Catamounts gave us some- thing to cheer about," Mayor Peter Clavelle of Burlington said. This fall, Vermont received a vote in the Associated Press top 25 poll and was invited to participate in the Preseason National Invitation Tournament, each for the first time. The Catamounts lost that game against Nevada, and a second game against Iona, but Brennan remains as effusive as ever. He claims that around town he is still better known for his other job: co-host of Vermont's most popular morning radio show. Brennan is on the classic rock station WCVP-FM with Steve Cormier from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. weekdays, unless basketball gets in the way. "Corm and the Coach" crack wise on the day's news, deliver early-morning prank calls to opposing coaches in the America East and crush Howard Stern and Don Imus in the local ratings. After the Yankees won Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, Brennan composed a poem that he read on the air, tweaking not only Red Sox fans but also one of Vermont's rivals: How about old Grady Little? You wonder how can he be so bad? And then you remember, "Oh yeah, he's a New Hampshire grad." But the show transcends sports, diving into politics, television and the happenings around town. Brennan has been delivering his trademark line, "Wake up, you sleepyhead," for 11 years, but it was not until last March that he made noise nationally. That happened when guard David Hehn hit a 10-foot jumper in the waning seconds of Vermont's America East tournament final against Boston University. Brennan, who has a career record of 269-337, instantly became a darling. Along with the attention came an outpouring of support from his fellow coaches, who had all pulled for Brennan and understood that he had limited scholarships (until this season) and that not hav- ing a local recruiting base had handcuffed his program. Boston University Coach Dennis Wolff called to congratulate Brennan the day after the confer- ence final. At the Final Four, Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim, who was preparing his Orangemen for the N.C.A.A. final, took the time to walk across the street and congratulate Brennan. "It's a great story," Boeheim said. "It's tough to make a run up there." Wolff said: "He's a throwback kind of guy and a good friend. After I got over the loss, I was very happy for him." This season, Vermont has two players who have won most valuable player honors in the America East and a schedule packed with major conference teams, including U.C.L.A. tomorrow in Los Angeles. There are expectations in Burlington, and Brennan has embraced them. "Nervous is when you're 3-24 and you know that you're not going to be any good next year," Brennan said. "That's when you get nervous. I really, really feel like we're playing with house money." To appreciate Vermont's success (it has won 20 games in consecutive seasons), it is first necessary to understand its depths. Vermont won nine games from 1987 through 1989, said the former Catamounts star Matt Johnson, who was watching a prac- tice recently. Back then, the university did not bother pulling out all the sections of bleachers in Patrick Gymnasium (a k a Little Lambeau), the 3,228-seat gymnasium, because so few people attended games. "We could thank all the fans individually for coming after the games," Johnson said. As he was speaking, Brennan walked past and said, "If it wasn't for him, I'd be selling insurance right now." Instead, by the mid-1990's Brennan, who was hired before the 1986-87 season, had established Vermont as a contender in the America East, helping his home-court advantage by taking coaches out in Burlington the night before games and then waking them up early to appear on his show. "My first year in the league, he fattened me up, loosened me up and then beat me," the former Delaware Coach Mike Brey, now at Notre Dame, said. "Every other year, he woke me up at 6 a.m. I was 1-4 in Burlington in my career." Vermont's final leap to the top of the league came after the recruitment of three key players: the juniors Taylor Coppenrath and T. J. Sorrentine and the senior Matt Sheftic, who will miss this season because of a knee injury. Coppenrath, a 6-foot-9 forward, and Sheftic, a burly 6-8 center, are both from Vermont. The serendipity of having two big and talented in-state players pushed Vermont over the top. In Coppenrath's hometown, West Barnet, which has a population of less than 100, his father lent game tapes to the two general stores for people around town to watch. "People were excited," Coppenrath said. "People you'd never think about were talking about Vermont basketball." Sorrentine, the America East player of the year two years ago, missed the magical N.C.A.A. season with two broken wrists. Sorrentine, Coppenrath and Sheftic will return next season. "It's awesome," Sorrentine said. "I don't know how to explain losing 11 straight my freshman year and then having the team go to the N.C.A.A. tournament." Fortunately, Sorrentine does not have to. His coach is paid to do the talking. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Back in the picture

The Burlington Free Press November 16, 2003 By Patrick Garrity, Free Press Staff Writer

A peek at the possibilities came 20 minutes into the first day of the University of Vermont men's basketball season. As players scrambled down the floor in a fast-break drill, T.J. Sorrentine snapped a where-is-that-thing-going pass through a crowd of Catamounts to an awaiting teammate. Taylor Coppenrath slam-dunked a noisy exclamation point onto the play. Every witness in Patrick Gymnasium came to the same, immediate verdict: This is going to be fun. When the Catamounts tip off the 2003-04 season Monday night in Reno, their stars will be aligned. Sorrentine and Coppenrath are together again, reunited on the basketball court after a momentous year apart. "I'm feeling anxious," Sorrentine said before practice last week. "I'm constantly thinking about the game. These last few days are the toughest with it being so close." He hasn't played a meaningful game for 20 months, sitting out last year after suffering two broken wrists in a intrasquad scrimmage. He spent his reign as America East Conference Player of the Year on the bench in khakis and a sweater. But my what a view he had. Sorrentine enjoyed the best seat in the house as Coppenrath blossomed into the King of Conference Present and the Cats trumped the magic of the previous 21-win season by taking their first America East title. The year culminated with a trip to the NCAA tournament and a meeting with mighty Arizona in Salt Lake City. As hard as it was for Sorrentine to sit and watch history be made without him, he admits the time away was well-spent. "In the past, I've always had trouble trusting my teammates," he said. "I've always felt, I've got to take the shot, I've got to make a play. Well, now, since I've watched these guys, I know what they're capable of and I know I don't have to always be the guy. "When you're playing, you don't realize the stuff that guys can do, but when you're watching -- especially me, I like to real- ly analyze every little thing -- you come to appreciate what they can do." That appreciation should quell any chemistry concerns regarding the city kid from Pawtucket, R.I., and the country boy from West Barnet. Catamounts coach Tom Brennan was asked repeatedly by reporters during the conference's media day whether his stars could play together effectively. "That's the least of my worries," Brennan said. "They just want to win. They're perfect for each other, they need each other, and they like each other. When your two studs are your two hardest workers, you've got no worries." Brennan believes the greatest beneficiary of Sorrentine's return will in fact be Coppenrath. Sorrentine's court vision and pass- ing ability are expected to get the ball to Coppenrath in places he can score easily, and the point guard's deft shooting touch should loosen collapsing defenses. "It's nice to have him back," said Coppenrath, who shares an Burlington apartment with Sorrentine and junior teammate Alex Jensen "He's a great, great player and he makes great decisions with the ball. That only helps me." For his part, Sorrentine calls the 6-foot-9 Coppenrath "probably the best thing that's every happened to me in a basketball sense," providing him with an all-league target for his passes and an all-league decoy to give him open shots. "I appreciate Tay more than anybody else does, because I've never played with a big guy in my life," Sorrentine said. "In AAU, the biggest guy was 6-4. In high school, the biggest guy was 6-5. So having a big guy, especially one who can shoot like him, I don't see teams that can stop us." There has been only one other instance in NCAA history where two conference players of the year were teammates for an entire season. Stefan Ciosici and Brian Ehlers played the 1999-2000 season at Lafayette after each won the award previously. That season, Ehlers repeated as the Patriot League's Player of the Year, Ciosici won the league tournament MVP award, and Lafayette went 24-7 to reach the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year. That would suit Catamounts fans just fine. © Copyright 2003 The Burlington Free Press

It's reigning Cats and dogs Terriers, Huskies chasing Vermont in America East

By Joe Burris, Globe Staff, The Boston Globe 11/18/2003

After Vermont returned home from its first NCAA Tournament last season, coach Tom Brennan counted the number of days on which he was congratulated by at least one person. "It was 85 straight days," said the effervescent coach. "It was so impor- tant to the community, the state, and it was so good to me to give back." Unfortunately for the defending America East champions, other league teams have been counting down to the start of this season from the moment UVM clinched its first tournament championship on a David Hehn jump shot with 5.6 seconds left that beat Boston University, 56-55. After 17 seasons of coming up short of a league title, Brennan is about to discover what it's like to be the hunted. The Catamounts are the preseason favorites to reclaim the America East crown, but by the slimmest of margins. On their heels are a BU team still eager to avenge last season's defeat and a Northeastern squad that should be improved. "I really feel like we're pulling together as a team and the team feels like it, too," said sharpshooting NU guard Jose Juan Barea. "We were supposed to do better last year. That's why we're practicing harder this year." This is expected to be a three-team race among those schools, with Hartford possibly making a run as well. UVM senior widebody center Matt Sheftic, one of the team's top scorers in the title run, suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury to his right knee during a sum- mer league game that will keep him out the entire season. He has received a medical redshirt for next season, but his leadership will be missed. Sheftic would have been a devastating loss, except that the Catamounts return T.J. Sorrentine, the league's 2002 Player of the Year, and Taylor Coppenrath, the 2003 Player of the Year. Sorrentine sat out last season after suffering injuries to both wrists. "Watching my teammates last season made me even hungrier to play this sea- son," said Sorrentine. Coppenrath is a 6-foot-9-inch forward whose shooting skills and ability to put the ball on the floor make him one of the most difficult players to guard in America East. UVM will be less imposing inside without Sheftic but has the potential to be better offensively with Sorrentine back. "It might be good," said Brennan. "We have two guys who can score, and they need the ball." Scotty Jones, who will replace Sheftic in the lineup, is more of a rebounder and defender. Also gone is Grant Anderson, UVM's rebound and assist leader. He was the team's third scoring option, and Brennan will replace him with backup Germain Njila. Though BU had its hopes dashed of repeating as league tournament champion by Vermont, Dennis Wolff's Terriers were the first New England-based America East team to gain a National Invitation Tournament bid since 1986. Gone are two mainstays: swingman Billy Collins, the only Terrier to start in all 31 games, and forward Paul Seymour. "We're still trying to decide what to do about that," said Wolff. "We're a little uncertain. There are guys who are playing well, and now we have to decide what our lineup is going to be." One player he won't have to worry about is forward Rashad Bell. The junior was a first-team all-conference selection after leading the Terriers in scoring (12 ppg) and finishing second in rebounding (5.2 rpg). With him alongside Ryan Butt and Jason Grochowalski, the Terriers have one of the league's most imposing frontcourts. Guard Kevin Fitzgerald will run the offense, and expect guards Matt Turner and Chaz Carr (a combined 68 treys last season) to provide solid outside shooting. Question is, will either of these teams keep Northeastern from making a charge back to the upper echelon? As a freshman, Barea proved prolific, becoming the first rookie in school history to score more than 400 points and dish out more than 100 assists. He is complemented by senior Javorie Wilson, a 14.6-ppg scorer and the only NU player to appear in all 31 games. The player who could vault the Huskies into title contention is newcomer Marcus Barnes, a University of Miami transfer who averaged 12.3 ppg for the Hurricanes two seasons ago. One thing is for certain: NU won't sneak up on anyone. In the preseason poll, the Huskies tied for second with BU and got as many first-place votes as Vermont. "It's a great compliment to be picked where we are," said NU coach Ron Everhart. "It's going to be a tough task living up to that expectation. I'm looking forward to lining them up and playing." America East outlook (In predicted order of finish) 1. Vermont -- What's most important about the Catamounts' dramatic run toward their first America East tournament title and NCAA bid is that they finally broke through and won the thing. And they did so with an injury-plagued team. Now they have that experience to build on, and this season's team is perhaps more talented. Last season's America East Player of the Year Taylor Coppenrath should have another stellar campaign. UVM will miss the leadership of Grant Anderson, and wide-body center Matt Sheftic will miss the entire season after tearing a knee ligament last summer. The good news is that T.J. Sorrentine, the 2001-02 Player of the Year who was expected to lead UVM to a title before suffering season-ending injuries to both wrists, is back. If he can play at his pre-injury level, the Catamounts could be scary. Coach Tom Brennan said Sheftic will be replaced in the starting lineup by qual- ity reserve Scotty Jones, and that the change may benefit the Catamounts because Jones is more of a rebounder/defender and less of a scorer -- meaning there is less concern over who takes the shots. Coppenrath and Sorrentine have two green lights and an on- ramp to shoot. Coppenrath, the coach said, has improved from last season and has "distanced himself from everyone on the team during workouts." Sorrentine said he is fully recovered from the wrist injuries. The schedule is tougher, but the Catamounts are arguably better. 2. Boston University --Wolff's teams always contend for the America East title. His programs reload rather than rebuild. Undoubtedly, the Terriers will miss the play and leadership of mainstays Billy Collins and Paul Seymour. But experience will not be a problem; BU's top six scorers are juniors and seniors. Bell leads the starters. Turner has been instant offense off the bench. After an impressive freshman campaign, Carr had his numbers drop last season, but he should improve. Someone will have to step up as a rebounder to fill Collins's shoes. This team is aiming to give BU its third consecutive 20-win season, which would be a first. The inte- rior of Bell, Butt, and Grochowalski will be among the league's best. The team has had the entire offseason to ponder last season's loss to Vermont in the America East title game. Suffice it to say, it will be motivated. 3. Northeastern -- This likely will be a breakout year for Northeastern. Barea is one of the top guards in the East, a player who could make a major impact on most major conference teams. Last season, he became the first rookie in school history to score more than 400 points (477) and hand out more than 100 assists (109). With him, Northeastern can play with any team in America East. His scoring average was the fifth-highest by a rookie in league history, and he played a major role in the team leading the America East in turnover differential (plus-3.16). Not to be outdone is the supporting cast. Wilson is another reliable scoring threat, and Robinson is one of the league's most productive all-around players and its leading returning rebounder. NU has nine players who started at last four games last season, and each averaged at least 10 minutes. NU could challenge for the top spot if newcomer Marcus Barnes, a University of Miami transfer who averaged 12.3 ppg in 2001-02, makes a significant impact. NU led the league last season in scoring (73.9 ppg). Expect that, and the steals numbers (a league-high 9.65 per game), to continue. The Huskies will have to improve their 3-point shooting (a league-worst .317 percent). If Barnes jells with an already cohesive unit, NU will be tough to beat. 4. Hartford -- The Hawks beat Vermont twice last season and finished third in the league. But duplicating that finish will be a challenge. Hartford lost three starters, meaning first-team All-America East pick Jerell Parker, a senior guard, will likely get dou- ble- and triple-teamed unless his supporting cast steps up. 5. Binghamton -- This is the Bearcats' first season of title eligibility in the league, but competing for one will be difficult, as they return just two starters from a team that was 3-11 on the road last season. 6. Maine -- Any hopes of contending for the crown will lie in the backcourt. Kevin Reed set a school record with 81 3-point- ers last year, while Eric Dobson led the America East in assists, averaging 4.9. 7. Stony Brook -- This could be the sleeper team of the league. Coach Nick Macarchuk has his top nine scorers returning, including all-conference second-team guard D.J. Munir (17.4 ppg). 8. Maryland-Baltimore County -- The league welcomes UMBC into its ranks this season, but it will be just as tough for the Retrievers to win here as it was in the Northeast Conference, where UMBC was 5-13 last season. 9. Albany -- Two players from last year's all-rookie team -- guard Jamar Wilson and forward Levi Levine -- lead a program working to reach respectability. 10. New Hampshire -- Four starters return for the Wildcats, but none was a double-figure scorer. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

ESPN.com: Men's College Basketball Hoops heating up Vermont Monday, October 27, 2003 By Andy Katz ESPN.com BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Keeping a man from walking into on-coming traffic is one hell of a way to meet. But that's how I met Tom Brennan. It was during a rainy night at the 2001 Final Four in Minneapolis. Waiting for a traffic light to change while walking back to the hotel just after 1 a.m., Brennan took what could have been his last step into a crosswalk as a car nearly sent him to the ground. Standing just to his left, I screamed to get his attention, grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back from the oncoming traf- fic. When he hopped up to the curb, he turned to me and didn't hesitate to put on what I've come to know as his familiar charm. When he's not leading Vermont to the NCAA Tournament, head coach Tom Brennan is entertaining fans on his morning radio show. "I'm Tom Brennan, the Vermont coach," he said without a thought about what just almost happened. I'm still not sure if he recognized me, but I do remember how he just laughed off a rather scary few moments so casually. Since then, checking in with Brennan has been well, let's just say, always entertaining. Take this past March for instance, when Brennan's Catamounts reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the school's 103 years of playing basketball. Vermont would miss its West Region news conference in Salt Lake City because an apocalyptic snow storm that forced them to stay in the Denver airport, bus down to Colorado Springs and then eventually get to Utah in the wee hours of the morning before its first-round game against Arizona. But along the way, Brennan did his own news conference via his cell phone, giving us at ESPN News updates on the Catamounts' progress, always doused with comedic flavor. Then again, Brennan's infectious personality is what makes him a cult hero back home in Burlington, Vt. Brennan being Brennan is why his drive-time radio show pulls in higher ratings than both Imus and Howard Stern in the local market, according to who else, Brennan. Local sports guy by morning, Division I basketball coach by day, Brennan has teammed Steve Cormier the past 11 years to form "Corm and the Coach," on WCPV, 101.3 FM. It's a typical morning-drive show with pranks, such as Brennan calling his fellow colleagues to wake them up (Brennan not above chanting the time of the day while screaming, "Wake up you sleepy heads, you've got 15 minutes to get to work."). On any given morning, Corm and the Coach talk to callers who were at a local spaghetti dinner the previous night to a UVM eye surgeon who repairs cataracts to hundreds of people in Nepal every year. Brennan's personality, however, could only create so much buzz once the show ended. It would take winning, not one-lin- ers, to make the hockey fans and those hitting the slopes to take notice of that sport being played in Patrick Gym. And the wins finally started to pile up in 2001-02 and the success has snowballed the past two seasons. Hired in 1986, Brennan's teams won a total of 14 games in his first three seasons. The 'Cats posted a high of 16 wins three times over his next 11 season -- losing more often than winning. But in case you don't follow America East basketball, Vermont has put together back-to-back 20-win seasons and have a total of 54 wins over the past three seasons. But last year, Vermont finally won the game that counted most -- beating Boston University on the Terriers' homecourt to win the conference tournament. "Most people don't get a 17-year window to win," said Brennan, whose box-like office atop Patrick Gym has one of his most prized possessions and butt of many jokes -- a picture of him trying to guard Pete Maravich when Brennan played for Georgia in the late '60s and early '70s. "Most people wouldn't be allowed to stick around and win 40 percent of their games. But we've built up a lot of goodwill, so when we won, so many people were happy for us." Happy? Try ecstatic. And, if there is such a thing as instant passion, Vermont fans have it for their 'Cats. Call it what you want, but this picture-perfect college town has gone crazy over its hoops. Amidst knockout foliage in the fall, bitter winds off Lake Champlaign in the winter, a student body that is traditionally earthy and outdoorsy, to say the least, has adopted those 'Cats who play in sneakers instead of skates. Just a lunchtime drive away from the Canadian border, hockey may still be the sport of choice among most of the student body. But the local's choice of entertainment isn't so clear cut when both teams are playing on given night. Oh, and the eclectic fan base includes a senator (Patrick Leahy), an independent congressman (Bernie Sanders), the lead singer of Phish (Trey Anastasio), a frontrunner for president (Howard Dean) and two guys in the area who make ice cream named Ben and Jerry. "Basketball wasn't the thing when I got here, it was hockey," said guard T.J. Sorrentine, a 5-11 point guard from Pawtucket, R.I., who was the America East player of the year as a sophomore before sitting out last season with two broken wrists. "But if you win, they come out. When I first came here, there was nobody in the stands and now the place is packed." So it shouldn't come as a surprise that earlier this month, Brennan, his staff and his players hosted a tipoff dinner with Mama Gooch's spaghetti and meatballs on campus to a record crowd. The banquet hall was packed with a few hundred people. Greeting every person who entered was Brennan, who played the roles of host, unofficial emcee calling out the arrivals, politician giving a kiss to babies and wives, and, of course, comedian. "Hey, Frank, check your shoes at the door," Brennan yelled to a Catamount fan who works security at Burlington's airport. "The guy just laughs when we come through at the airport. I thought we should give him the same business here." Brennan's trusted assistant Jesse Agel plays the straight man to Brennan, at this dinner and throughout the season. "We're like yin and yang," Brennan said before someone else pipes up that they were more like Andy Griffith and Barney Fife of Mayberry. "Coach knows basketball, but he likes being the head coach and doing all of the motivational stuff," said Vermont native and reigning America East player of the year Taylor Coppenrath. "Our assistant coaches do a lot." Brennan calls Coppenrath "Lil Abner," a country kid who wasn't on his high school varsity team as a junior -- "In Vermont! Can you believe that? This is Vermont." No, Vermont doesn't produce too many hoop finds. There have been just 17 Vermont natives to play for Brennan during his tenure. And only one Vermont native slipped through Brennan's state-wide net, instead choosing to go to Fairfield (He has since transferred back to Vermont). What it amounts to is an average of one in-state recruit a season, and winning in any Division I league with such sparse homegrown talent isn't easy. "Winning and getting to the tournament here is amazing," Brennan said. And as a result of last year's trip to the NCAAs, the excitement over basketball carries over to the Vermont administration. It's serious about putting Vermont's hockey and men's and women's basketball teams into a 6,500-seat arena adjacent to campus. The facility would replace Patrick Gym. "Tom accepts his limitations," said senior associate director of athletics and former UVM hockey player Jeff Schulman, who then proceeded to take his infant son over to a life-size cut out of Brennan and the America East trophy for a photo-op. "We're play- ing in a glorified high school gym, and he hasn't had full scholarships. But he figured out a way to be successful." Krista Balogh, UVM's athletic marketing director and a former Catamount swimmer, promised that Vermont's Green and Gold scrimmage -- which has struggled to get 100 fans to attend in the past -- is expecting 1,500 this season. Students are likely to flock to games this season after the university passed a student fee on their tuition so that they could attend games for free. "You can tell things are changing on campus," said Vermont native Matt Sheftic, who will sit out the season after tearing his ACL in a pickup game last month. He's hoping that the NCAA will grant him a medical redshirt to play in his sixth season. He missed a season after his sister died and is hopeful the NCAA will look at his extenuating circumstances. "There is so much more commitment here." But the 54-year-old Brennan isn't a "lifer." He's grateful for the extended stay, and while nobody wants him to leave, his plans are to coach Vermont for a total of 20 years. He's not looking for an upgrade, either. He'll simply retire from coaching after the 2005-06 season -- or at least that's his plan, which could easily change. "The entertainment side is where I'm better," said Brennan. "If I can do the radio and hook on for some TV games then that would be great. I don't need the coaching. Most coaches do need to coach. I don't need it." But the plan to hand the job over to Agel might be tougher than it was three years ago. "My dream is to do that because he's done tremendous things here," said Brennan who came to Vermont at the same time Jim Calhoun was getting started at Connecticut and Mike Montgomery was beginning his career at Stanford. "I don't worry about anything, and he worries about everything. But what scares me is that he has helped make this job too good for the Vermont assis- tant to get it. "For 16 years, nothing changed. It was business as usual. But we've got a new president, a new AD, and it was the perfect timing for us to be good." If high expectations are a problem, well Brennan has one this season. For the first time, Brennan may feel like he has to do well to keep his job. The expectations are higher. If he didn't get into trouble off the court (He was taken off the air for a year five years ago after making a few comments about a foreign player), and his players were in good standing, Brennan was pretty much untouchable. But, the school gave him the full allotment of scholarships (13) this season. And with Sorrentine and Coppenrath -- two former America East rookie and player of the year winners who are both juniors -- the Catamounts should be looked at as favorites in the league over BU and Northeastern. Agel also admitted Vermont is recruiting higher-profile players because of the recognition it received from being stuck in the snowstorm as much as playing in the NCAAs. Vermont also upgraded its 2003-04 schedule, tipping the season off at Nevada in the Preseason NIT (a win over the Wolfpack could mean a second-round matchup against preseason No. 1 Connecticut). The 'Cats also picked up a game at UCLA. Brennan said Agel was against the idea, but Brennan simply said, "Do you want to play a home game against Southern Vermont or go to Pauley? "Next year we're at Kansas and possibly Louisville. If we have another good year, we've got to do this. My recruiting pitch is that you can come here to play with champions, but after next year, you can play in this new place because our president has a vision and a plan." Any added pressure isn't apparent talking with Brennan. And one wouldn't even know Brennan is on the verge of back-to- back NCAA Tournaments by talking to him during his radio studio or at his home, which overlooks Lake Champlain. One minute he's delivering some sort of shtick and then the next he lets you know that he takes care of Chris DiJulia, the son of Saint Joseph's ath- letic director Don DiJulia. Brennan befriended "D-Jules," who suffers from cerebral palsy, years ago. Don DiJulia and Brennan were good friends dating back to when Brennan was an assistant at Villanova under Rollie Massimino. Brennan flies Chris DiJulia up for games and the wheelchair bound DiJulia stays at his house. In the team photo after the Catamounts beat the Terriers, DiJulia is front and center. Brennan isn't in the photo. He was still in the locker room, in shock, that Vermont was going to the NCAAs. Penn coach Fran Dunphy, a close friend of Brennan's and DiJulia's, said when he called Chris after Vermont made the tour- nament, he said Chris said, "I have no words." Brennan had trouble remembering his own two years ago. Brennan said he still gets a B12 shot monthly to improve his memory, because two years ago he couldn't remember a thing. But he feels great now, arriving at the radio station at 4:30 a.m., 15 minutes before Cormier, and an hour before they go on the air for their 31⁄2-hour gig. He's also the same coach who while at Division III Fairleigh-Dickinson-Madison used to introduce his players at their last home game, "where they'd like to be from instead of where they were from.'' "The running joke is that everyone always asks Tom what he wants to do when he grows up," Cormier said. It doesn't appear Brennan will ever answer that question. He's having too much fun in Vermont, coaching a basketball pro- gram in a state known more for maple syrup than as a hotbed of hoops. Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

Cats shoot for a sequel

The Burlington Free Press By Patrick Garrity, Free Press Columnist 10/19/03

Win program's first conference tournament title. Check. Make program's first NCAA tournament appearance. Check. Earn program a pile of plaudits and national media attention. Check. Now repeat. Check back in March. The University of Vermont men's basketball season is 24 hours old, and already the expectations are soaring. No Catamounts team in 103 years accomplished what the 2002-03 team did, and no team in the program's history has been expected to accomplish more than this year's edition. "The single hardest thing to do in sports is do it again," Tom Brennan said Saturday morning, moments before tipping off his 18th preseason as Catamounts coach at Patrick Gymnasium. "The expectations are astronomical, really, for a team from Vermont, and all that being said, I ain't worried about it one lit- tle bit. A guy said to me the other day, 'All the magazines are picking you first,' and I said, 'Ain't it great!?" Don't let the coach fool you. He has had to warm to the role of top Cat. After all, we're only seven months removed from his admission during a harrowing America East tournament run that "If I felt like this all the time, I'd quit." Brennan does understand and appreciate one thing, however: No matter what happens on a cold night in March, these are his program's finest days. "We're going to have so many great nights in this building," he said. "We're going to UCLA. We're in the Preseason NIT. When we come back, we're going to unfurl the banner. First time ever. Those are moments you're never going to recapture. With my suc- cess coming later in life, I have a far greater appreciation for it." Defending a title might be a new concept around here, but at least this defense will be made with armor plating. Graduation took the Andersons, and injury robbed the Cats of big man Matt Sheftic, but Vermont still boasts the best players in the conference, big and small. Thomas J. Sorrentine and Taylor B. Coppenrath form the best tandem ever to hit Roy L. Patrick. Sorrentine, who missed every magical minute of last winter because of broken wrists, is back. Coppenrath, who inherited Sorrentine's league player-of-the-year award, is even better. They constitute only the second match set of POYs to suit up for a full season in Division I college basketball history. Toss in eight more returning letterwinners, and the pressure to repeat seems far more manageable. "It's a different feeling from other years, for sure, but I think that's a good thing, not a bad thing," Sorrentine said. "You know every team's going to give you their best. That's a great challenge for us, and that's a great thing for Vermont." His point: Sure, what happens five months from now might be the measuring stick of a season's success, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself along the way. Sorrentine understands that. So does his coach. "What's going to happen is, one day in March, we're either going to be elated like we were last year or devastated like Boston was the other night," Brennan said. "Up until then, let's enjoy it, let's work hard and let's be as good as we can be when that day comes." dump it down in(to them). It's the first time I really watched them like that." © Copyright 2003 The Burlington Free Press

T.J. Sorrentine is 'jacked' to return to hardwood for UVM

The Pawtucket Times By DAVID BORGES, Times sports writer 10/17/2003

BURLINGTON, Vt. --- The hardest part for T.J. Sorrentine was the watching, the feeling of helplessness sitting on the bench in street clothes while his teammates were battling out on the court and doing remarkable things. He had to sit and watch while his University of Vermont teammates played at the Dunkin' Donuts Center last December against Providence College, the team he grew up following. He could only cheer on the Catamounts as they compiled a school-record- tying 21 wins, reduced to spectating as UVM (led by his replacement, David Hehn) pulled off a remarkable last-second win over Boston University to win the America East championship game. He was merely a passenger on the Catamounts' first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament --- a trip that took them all the way to Salt Lake City, through torrential snowstorms, to face No. 1-ranked Arizona in a first-round game. It was the most magical season in Vermont's 103 years of basketball history, but Sorrentine could only watch, a result of a freak injury during a preseason intrasquad game during which he broke bones in both of his wrists. After holding out hope for a while that he'd be able to return at some point during the season, Sorrentine finally decided to sit out the entire campaign as a medical redshirt. It wasn't easy for the Pawtucket native, who had only earned the conference's Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year in each of the two previous seasons. "It was extremely tough," Sorrentine was saying on Thursday. "Any time something you love is taken away from you, it's a tough thing to deal with. Not being able to play was the biggest thing. I knew the guys we had could play and could get the job done, but not being able to get out there and play was tough." So Sorrentine hopped on the comeback trail. He worked hard throughout all of last season, practicing with the team once he finally got the casts off his hands in January. He worked out with another ex-St. Raphael Academy star, Curtis McCants (who's now playing in Croatia) all summer, spending four hours a day in the gym "getting shots up, working on my game." He trained with strength and conditioning coach Doug Stone of Cranston, a former trainer for the URI men's hoops team, getting quicker and stronger through agility and jumping drills. He ran four nights a week at PC's Alumni Hall against most of the players who will comprise this year's Friar team. Now, T.J. Sorrentine is as healthy as ever, and he's ready to make up for lost time. "I can't wait to get going again," said Sorrentine. "I'm like a kid in a candy store." He won't have to wait long, as UVM officially kicks off its season on Saturday with a 10 a.m. practice. "Morning Madness," if you will. "He is jacked, my man," Vermont coach Tom Brennan said of Sorrentine. "The one thing he brings to the table is tremen- dous hunger. He wants it so, so bad. He's our unquestioned leader, and our hardest worker." You might say that Brennan is a bit "jacked" these days, too. Not only does he have 10 returning players from last year's 21-12 powerhourse, but he's in the enviable position of having the league's last two Player of the Year award winners in the fold. Sorrentine won it two years ago and 6-foot-8 center Taylor Coppenrath won it last season. How many coaches can say they've got back-to-back Players of the Year in their starting five? "It's exciting to me," said Brennan. "I think it will be the hardest thing we've ever done, trying to win again. We're not going to sneak up on anybody. Last year, everybody felt bad for us losing (Sorrentine). We've never been picked first in the pre-season, and this year, every magazine has picked us first. That's just neat. Fortunately, we are good enough to compete with that respect." They are, largely because of Sorrentine. Only a fool would suggest that the Catamounts' magical ride of a year ago wouldn't have been made a lot easier if Sorrentine had been manning the point. As a freshman, he led the America East in assists (5.5) and was the top scoring rookie at 14.8 ppg. Two years ago, Sorrentine led the league in scoring (18.8) and guided the Cats to a 21-8 record before they were unceremoniously bounced from the conference tournament in the semifinals. In many ways, Sorrentine is the engine that drives this team. "What he can do, hopefully, for us is to get us some easy baskets," said Brennan. "Last year we had no drive and dish. Hehn was doing it, admirably and honorably, but it was like taking a tackle and playing him at quarterback. Everybody will benefit from T.J. being back. It's not like a post guy coming back, where you've got to find ways to get him the ball." Sorrentine said he learned a lot by watching his teammates play last season. Most notably, he learned the value of trust. "I've had a lot of trouble trusting my teammates at times," he admitted. "I feel like I have to take the shot, drive to the hoop. But watching what they can do will give me so much more confidence in them, to let them shoot the three or to dump it down in(to them). It's the first time I really watched them like that." Although Sorrentine admits that at times last year he was "depressed," Brennan was thoroughly impressed by how well he handled the situation. "It had to be absolutely terrible for him, had to be tearing at his heart every night, even though he was happy for us," said Brennan. "But he didn't feel sorry for himself, and when he had the opportunity to come back and practice, he practiced hard and never had a problem." Vermont's trip to the "Big Dance" last year turned from the sublime to the ridiculous in a hurry. The Catamounts were stuck in Denver for hours due to snowstorms that whacked the region and only arrived in Salt Lake City about 10 hours before the tip-off! The result was a resounding loss to Arizona. Sorrentine accompanied the Catamounts on their trip (as he did all their road trips last year), and feels that the entire team, including himself, will benefit from the experience. "I just feel like the experience, it took the aura of it away," he said. "We all went into it not knowing what to expect. I soaked it in, and if we go back there, I'm going to have that experience and it's going to help me." Getting back there won't be easy. The Catamounts play a tough schedule, one that includes a Dec. 30 trip to the Ryan Center to face URI. "I'm looking forward to getting home and actually playing this time," he said. Sorrentine is a junior now and still has two years of eligibility left. He's in no rush to get out of college, so he'll soak every- thing in over the next couple of years and hope for the best this season. "We're looking to have a big year, win a lot of games and get back to the NCAA tourney." Brennan isn't about to make any predictions about his team's fortunes this year, even with Sorrentine and Coppenrath in tow ("we've got two MVP's, for God's sake!" he said). He doesn't know exactly what to expect from Sorrentine on the court, either. But, he added, "The one thing I'm not worried about is how hard he's worked." "If anything," Brennan continued, "I'm worried about him being too jazzed too early, to try to score 2,000 points in four games. He just needs to play in the system, because the system's built around him." Then Brennan allows a little forecast on what Sorrentine is capable of accomplishing this season. "I'm fully expecting to getting our MVP back." © Copyright 2003 The Pawtucket Times