W&M Men’s Basketball Falls at VCU, 71-60

Tribe’s Zeb Cope Records First Career Double-Double

12/06/03 11:40PM

RICHMOND, VA - William and Mary senior forward Zeb Cope (Hopkins, SC) recorded the first double-double of his career with 21 points and 11 rebounds, but it was not enough, as the Tribe men’s basketball team fell at Virginia Commonwealth, 71-60, this evening at the ALLTEL Pavilion.

W&M falls to 3-3 overall and 1-1 in the Colonial Athletic Association with the loss, while the Rams improve to 4-1 (1-0 CAA).

The Tribe offense was sluggish in the first half, scoring just 15 points and shooting .269 (7-26) from the field. Junior guard Reid Markham (Louisville, KY) tied the score at eight with 13:39 remaining in the first half, but VCU scored the next nine points to go up, 17-8. W&M cut the lead to six with 7:20 left on a dunk by freshman forward Corey Cofield (Wellesley, MA), but the Rams closed the half on a 10-2 run to head to the locker room ahead, 29-15.

Cope opened the second half for the Tribe with a layup and a three-pointer, to bring W&M within nine, 29-20. From there, VCU pulled ahead to lead by as many as 19, 54-35, with 7:43 to play, led by Michael Doles who had eight points in the stretch. W&M did not give up, closing to within eight points, 68-60, with 42 seconds remaining, but time ran out on the Tribe, falling 71-60.

Cope’s 21 points led all scorers in the game and he tied VCU’s Godwin with a game-high 11 rebounds. Senior forward Adam Hess (Grosse Pointe, MI) added 13 points and six rebounds to the Tribe’s cause. Scoring in double figures for VCU were Godwin with 20, Domonic Jones with 18 and Michael Doles with 13.

W&M now takes two weeks off for the College’s final exam period, returning to action on December 19 at home against Hampton.


Box Score



Quotes from W&M Head Coach Tony Shaver
“This is a tough place to play and we knew this would be a difficult ball game, VCU’s a very talented team. We’re in the process right of trying to make some steps as a basketball team to get to the top of this league. I thought Thursday night we made a big step in knocking off UNCW and I honestly think we made a big step tonight in the last 10 minutes of this game. I’m very proud of our effort, we continued to fight and we continued to battle and that’s something we really have to learn as a ball club and I thought we competed really hard down the stretch.”