Tribe Men’s Basketball Defeats St. Francis (NY), 80-60

Adam Hess and Zeb Cope Each Score Over 20 for W&M

11/28/03 10:13PM

WASHINGTON, DC - William and Mary senior forward Adam Hess (Grosse Pointe, MI) scored 22 and classmate Zeb Cope (Hopkins, SC) added 21, as the Tribe men’s basketball team defeated St. Francis College (NY), 80-60, in the first round of the Red Auerbach Colonial Classic, hosted by George Washington University this evening at the Smith Center.

W&M improves to 2-1 on the season with the victory, the first time since 1981 that the Tribe has won the first game of an in-season tournament. The Terriers drop to 0-2 with the loss.

The Tribe opened the game with a 15-7 lead at the 13:03 mark, led by six points from Cope on a pair of three-pointers. SFC gradually chipped away at the lead, taking a one-point advantage of its own at the 8:47 mark on a layup by Sean Dantzler. The two sides kept the score close for the next two minutes, but from there the Tribe started to pull away, with freshman forward Corey Cofield (Wellesley, MA) leading W&M to a 36-30 lead with six points in less than three minutes of action. With the Tribe leading, 37-32, the Terriers appeared to have an opportunity to take the final shot of the half, gaining control of a jump ball under their own basket with less than two seconds remaining. However, Hess stole the ball from SFC and banked in a halfcourt shot as time expired to give the Tribe a 40-32 lead at the break.

W&M opened an 11-point, 48-37, lead in the second half on a layup by redshirt-freshman center Brian Hutt (Denver, CO) with 15:25 on the clock, before extending its advantage to 58-44 with 9:25 to play on a layup by Hess. From there the Terriers mounted a comeback, scoring nine straight points to cut the Tribe’s lead to 58-53 with 5:41 left. However, it was all Green and Gold from that point on, as the College ended the game with a 22-7 run, including nine points down the stretch from Hess.

The Colonial Athletic Association Preseason Player of the Year, Hess led all scorers with 22 points in the game, to go with nine rebounds and four steals. For the second straight outing, Cope set a career high in scoring, finishing second on the Tribe with 21 points. Junior guard Reid Markham (Louisville, KY) also scored in double figures with 14 points, while junior point guard Nick D’Antoni (Myrtle Beach, SC) had five assists and six points against just one turnover. Hutt also had a solid game for W&M, pulling down nine rebounds to go with his four points. Eric Thompson led SFC with a double-double, scoring 12 points and 14 rebounds. The Tribe held the Terriers to just .397 shooting from the field, including just 20.0 percent (5-25) from the three-point line. W&M shot .418 (28-67) from the floor and made 19 of 27 free throws (.704) in the contest.

The game marked the first time since 1981 that the Tribe opened an in-season tournament with a win, the last time being the Iron Duke Classic in December of 1981, when W&M defeated Auburn and Davidson to win the event. W&M will return to action in the championship game of the Colonial Classic tomorrow night at 8:00 PM against the winner of tonight’s other first round game between host George Washington and Appalachian State.


Quotes from W&M Head Coach Tony Shaver
On the Tribe’s quality of play in the first half
[We played] “Pretty poorly actually. This team’s got to be sharp to beat good people and I thought we were a little sloppy early in the ball game. I didn’t like our defense—we gave up too many second shots.”

“Maybe this is great progress. Last Monday night at Radford we started out a little sloppy and we continued to play that way. We played a much better second half tonight and I’ll tip my hat two our two seniors, Zeb Cope and Adam Hess. I thought Zeb was outstanding tonight.”



On junior point guard Nick D’Antoni
“Nick gives you everything he has and we really did a good job in the second half of not turning the ball over. The guy was exhausted at the end of the game. He doesn’t always score a lot for us, but he doesn’t have to. If he continues with his assist-to-turnover ratio like he is [13-4 in three games] and ignites our defense with a little ball pressure, he’s doing a great job.”



On senior forward Zeb Cope
“He’s just playing fabulous. I’m just so happy and proud for him. He’s a guy that struggled a little bit in the last year or two, but he’s our man right now. He’s our best player every day in practice and probably our best player in the ball games too.”



On the Tribe winning the first game of an in-season tournament for the first time since December, 1981
“I didn’t know that, to be honest with you, and I hope we can break a lot of those records if that’s the case. The thing is, I told the players that we didn’t come up here to win one ballgame. We came up here to try to win a tournament and we have to clearly be better tomorrow than we were today. It is progress, we took a big step tonight and hopefully we can take a gigantic step out here tomorrow night.”