Courtesy Vermont Sports Information
BURLINGTON — The University of Vermont men’s basketball team will retire Taylor Coppenrath’s No. 22 and T.J. Sorrentine’s No. 11 on Saturday, October 26 as the Catamounts host Brown University in an exhibition game at 7 p.m. The athletic department made the announcement today.
The 2005 University of Vermont graduates helped Vermont earn its first-ever NCAA Tournament win over No. 4 seed Syracuse in the 2005 NCAA Tournament and were inducted into the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame a decade later.
Coppenrath led Vermont to three straight America East Conference titles during his four-year career and was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. He ranks second among UVM’s all-time leading scorers with 2,442 career points and graduated just 32 points from Eddie Benton’s school record. Coppenrath also ranks among the program’s all-time leaders in field goals made and was fifth in rebounding (839) and blocks (83) upon graduation. He won the America East Player of the Year honor three times and was the Reggie Lewis Most Outstanding Player in both 2004 and 2005. Coppenrath was a three-time Associated Press All-American Honorable Mention and a finalist for the John Wooden Award as a senior in 2005. He was also the runner-up for the Bayer Advantage Senior CLASS Award that year as the nation’s top senior.
Sorrentine, currently an assistant coach at Brown, was an America East Rookie of the Year, America East Player of the Year, and a three-time America East All-Conference First Team performer. He ranks third among the all-time leading scorers at UVM with 2,013 points and graduated second with 548 assists and third with 164 steals. Sorrentine established a new school and conference career record with 354 three-pointers to rank 11th all-time in NCAA history. He finished fourth in the country as a senior with an average of 3.7 three-pointers per game and set a Vermont and America East single-season record with 116 triples. He hit a key three-pointer in overtime to help seal the historic win over Syracuse. The Catamounts posted a 51-9 record against America East schools during his last three seasons as the starting point guard.
Vermont and Brown received a NCAA waiver to host a Division I exhibition as a fundraiser for the Vermont Disaster Recovery Fund (VDRF). All proceeds from the game will be donated to the VDRF. The VDRF was created to support Vermont’s long-term recovery process by providing grants to those individuals and families statewide who have unmet disaster caused needs which cannot be met by their own resources. For more information visit their website at https://www.vdrf.org.
The exhibition contest with Brown will be included in the season ticket package for the 2019-20 campaign. Single game tickets will go on-sale on Tuesday, October 1.