Vermont: Taylor Coppenrath
In the same ilk that Vermont’s maple syrup is not as good as its Canadian neighbors Quebec’s sirop d’érable, and how Montreal, Quebec has produced eight NBA players to Vermont’s zero. In the history of Vermont Catamount basketball, Matt Johnson has played Vermont to Taylor Coppenrath’s Quebec, good but just not good enough.
Johnson’s four-year totals while playing at Vermont are lowered by his two first seasons, but in his two last seasons, he averaged a healthy 17.5 points and four rebounds per game, as he led the North Atlantic Conference twice in three-point field goals made and in scoring once. Nobody can question the contribution Matt Johnson made to the Catamounts’ program during his 103 games in the late 1980s. For approximately a decade he was not only one of the best to be born in Vermont, but play for Vermont,
The end of those ten years came when Taylor Coppenrath began his 114 games over four years for the Catamounts. At 6-foot-9 Coppenrath averaged 21 points and over 7 rebounds per game. His tournament performances place him four times in the top 15 single-game scoring totals in Catamounts history, including a 16 point performance in a 70-67 upset win as a No.13 seed over No.4 seed Syracuse.
To secure his place as best Vermont born college player Coppenrath is currently the second all-time scorer in American East Conference history. Despite leading the nation in points scored and trailed the leader in points per game by less than a point in the 2004-05 season, he did not become Vermont Basketball’s first All-American.