By Dustin Dow
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Two days ago, the college basketball season began with a pair of sloppy games at Madison Square Garden court less than one month into preseason practice.

Don't be surprised to see more of the same tonight when Xavier University opens its season against Coppin State in the first round of the Black Coaches Association Classic at Cintas Center.

Each team will have its finer moments, but bad passes, poor shot selection and mental errors undoubtedly will be sprinkled throughout the game. Such is the nature of early-season, fan-friendly tournaments that cram so much basketball into so few days.

Three games, three days. That's the agenda for the eight teams playing in the BCA Classic. The host, Xavier, is the favorite, but there are no promises the basketball will sparkle.

"There's going to be some sloppy play," Xavier coach Thad Matta said. "It's just so early to be playing. There's things we don't have in that we should have and all that stuff. The main thing for us is to do what we're going to do as well as we can, because your turnaround time could be 18 hours from playing another game, and you don't have a lot of time to make major adjustments. So we're a lot more concerned about Xavier than anybody else at this stage."

Tonight, the Musketeers face Coppin State, which is hampered by preseason injuries but still is expected to play its traditional slow-down style anchored by a zone defense.

Xavier, by contrast, has pushed the tempo in the preseason with its veteran guards and will try to force Coppin State to keep pace.

"Pressure them like crazy," sophomore point guard Dedrick Finn said. "Try to get them to speed their game up and get them out of control."

Coppin State coach Fang Mitchell said his team has had trouble scrimmaging in practice because of a lack of available bodies. That, combined with the fact Coppin State went 11-17 last season, might make it easy for Xavier to look past the Eagles to a potential second-round matchup with Mercer or Ohio University.

"We're focused on Coppin State right now," junior swingman Keith Jackson said. "You lose that game, the whole tournament is pointless, basically. We're going to take it one game at a time, but hopefully on Monday, we'll be playing at 8 o'clock in the championship game."

Xavier vs. Coppin State

Tipoff: 8 p.m. today, Cintas Center (10,250).

Records: Xavier 0-0, Coppin State 0-0.

Radio: WLW-AM (700).

XAVIER

Player	Yr.	Ht.	PPG*
Romain Sato	Sr.	6-5	18.1
Anthony Myles	Sr.	6-9	10.2
Lionel Chalmers	Sr.	6-0	12.0
Keith Jackson	Jr.	6-6	5.0
Will Caudle	So.	6-8	3.7

*-2002-03

Coach: Thad Matta (52-12, third season; 76-20 overall).

COPPIN STATE

Player	Yr.	Ht.	PPG*
Raheem Scott	So.	6-2	5.8
Darron Bradley	So.	6-5	3.1
Darryl Jones	Jr.	6-2	4.6
Henry Colter	Jr.	6-11	4.0
Nicholas King	So.	6-7	0.0

*-2002-03

Coach: Fang Mitchell (286-214, 18th season; 286-214 overall)

Today's BCA Classic games

Oakland (0-0) vs. San Diego (0-0), noon

Ohio (0-0) vs. Mercer (0-0), 2 p.m.

Illinois-Chicago (0-0) vs. UC Irvine (0-0), 6 p.m.

Xavier (0-0) vs. Coppin State (0-0), 8 p.m.

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E-mail ddow@enquirer.com