Children of the corn rn
Huskers follow in footsteps of their teammate fathers
Just as there was 25 years ago, there’s a Copeland and Gill trying to lead their team to the NCAA Tournament.
In 1993, it was Ike and Anton Sr. at East Carolina. Now, it’s Isaac Copeland and Anton Gill at Nebraska.
“Me and Anton playing together in college is pretty crazy,” Copeland told the Big Ten Network recently. “I don’t think anybody saw it coming.”
With Ike and Anton Sr. in the starting lineup for East Carolina in 1993, the Pirates went 8-16 in the regular season before reeling off three straight wins in the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament to punch their ticket to the Big Dance.
On Friday, their sons will begin the same quest. Nebraska might need a similar run in the Big Ten Tournament at the Garden to get into the NCAA field, or at least one win to feel a little more comfortable on Selection Sunday.
The Cornhuskers own the No. 4 seed and will play at 2:30 p.m. Friday against No. 5 Michigan, a team they beat in the regular season. Win that and they would likely meet top-seeded Michigan State.
It’s a long way from being picked to finish second-to-last in the league in a preseason media poll.
“We’ve been playing [as underdogs] all year,” Gill said after the team’s regular-season finale. “What were we, picked last this year? Picked last, finished fourth. ... We knew going in we weren’t going to have that much respect.”
Nebraska still isn’t getting a whole lot of it. With a 22-9 overall record — the program’s highest win total since 1992-93 — and a 13-5 mark in the Big Ten, it entered March as one of the “first four out” in ESPN’s bracketology.
“We’re not going down to New York to just play around,” said Gill, now a senior. “We want to win that, too. We really feel like we have the best team in the Big Ten. More wins will obviously help, but if you ask me my opinion, I think we’ve proven throughout the year that we’re a tournament team.”
Much thanks to the dynamic duo of Gill and Copeland.
The two have played together before — they teamed up to lead Ravenscroft High School to the 2012 Class 3A North Carolina state championship.
But after that season Copeland reclassified, transferred to the Miller School in Virginia and then spent a prep year at Brewster Academy. The 6-foot-9 forward was a five-star recruit and landed at Georgetown, where he played two-plus seasons before deciding to transfer.
Meanwhile, Gill spent his senior year of high school at Hargrave Military Academy and then committed to Louisville. The 6-foot-3 guard played two seasons with the Cardinals before transferring to Nebraska in 2015.
Gill was in the midst of playing his first season with the Cornhuskers in December 2016 when Copeland announced he was leaving Georgetown.
“I remember he FaceTimed me and told me he was thinking of transferring,” Gill told Big Ten Network. “He just asked me seriously, ‘Would you consider wanting to play with me again?’in?’ I was likelike, ‘Ab-Absolutely, why wouldn’t I?’ ”
The two spent the spring of 2017 rehabbing injuries — Copeland underwent back surgery in February and a ruptured patellar tendon cut Gill’s season short — before taking the court together in the fall.
Copeland, now a redshirt junior, has started all 31 games, averaging 13.2 points and 6.3 rebounds. Gill, averaging 8.2 points with a teamhigh 53 3-pointers, joined the starting five Jan. 15 and Nebraska is 10-2 since.
Now, one more win Friday against Michigan could help Copeland and Gill go where their fathers first did 25 years ago this March.