Coppola snags NEWMAC weekly honor after pushing Lyons to 2-0 mark

NORTON, MA- Wheaton College men's basketball junior Anthony Coppola (Watertown, MA/Watertown) was named New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Player of the Week for the week ending on Sunday, February 21.

Drawing the third such honor of his career, Coppola averaged 21.0 points and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 46.4 percent, including 63.6 percent from three (7-of-11), while going 9-of-10 at the charity stripe during a 2-0 week, which included upsetting nationally-ranked Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the second time this winter.

In the Lyons' 84-77 victory on Wednesday over the visiting Engineers, Coppola had 20 points and a team-high seven rebounds, going 3-of-6 from three and 5-of-6 on free throws. Wheaton finished 2-0 against the Engineers, who entered the game sixth in the nation in defensive average (57.6) and completed the regular season 22-0 against the rest of their Division III competition. Coppola topped that with 22 points on 7-of-12 shooting, including 4-of-5 from three, while hitting all four free-throw tries during a 77-63 win at the United States Coast Guard Academy on Saturday that clinched the Lyons a home NEWMAC Tournament game.

With 388 points, Coppola is closing in on becoming just the third Lyon with three 400-point seasons, and he would join Chris Sullivan '93 as the lone players to have recorded the feat each of their first three years in a Wheaton uniform. He stands second in the NEWMAC in three-point field goal percentage (.426), tied for second in three-pointers (49), third in free throw percentage (.806), fourth in scoring (17.6), eighth in field goal percentage (.485) and tied for eighth in steals (31). Coppola has at least tied for the team lead in scoring 15 times this year.

Coppola is sixth in program history in career scoring (1,371) as well as fifth in field goals (474) and three-pointers (175) and ninth in free throws (248).

After finishing the regular season 10-14 overall and 6-6 in the league, Wheaton heads into the NEWMAC Tournament this week. The fourth-seeded Lyons host number-five Clark University in the first round on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., while the semifinals and final occur over the weekend at top-seeded MIT. The Blue and White is the only team in league history to advance to the semifinals nine times.