Drexel Basketball: Dragons stun Charleston on last-second play

Drexel basketball overcame a 13-point second half deficit to snap defending CAA champion Charleston’s lengthy home-court winning streak.

When I looked over Thursday’s schedule and saw that the Dragons were visiting Charleston, I immediately began preparing to write a piece on Drexel basketball going 1-4 to start conference play. Nobody in the CAA had a more difficult five games to open the season, as Drexel went on the road to play the three teams tapped to finish at the top of the Colonial standings. Their conference season started at Matthews Arena at Northeastern, and Drexel headed straight to Long Island to take on Hofstra a few days later. They went home for two against Elon and William & Mary before the toughest few weeks on the CAA schedule came to a close on Thursday night in Charleston. And all of this was after closing out non-conference play against UConn and Temple.

And the game went about according to the script for the first 33 minutes; Drexel kept it close for much of the first half before Charleston, the preseason No. 2 team in the CAA and the defending conference champions, began pulling away. They had an eight-point lead at the half and extended it to as much as 13, an advantage they would hold twice, as late as the 8:20 mark.

The swing that brought Drexel back into the ballgame came on a few plays out of a Dragons’ timeout after Charleston opened up that last 13-point lead. Three consecutive three-pointers – hit first by Trevor John before Ali Demir sank two of his own – cut the Charleston advantage to four just 90 seconds later. The Cougars would build their lead back to nine but hit their final field goal of the game at the 3:44 mark. Their next and last point would come from the foul line with five seconds on the clock.

When Marquise Pointer missed the second of that set of foul shots, Troy Harper grabbed the rebound for Drexel down 78-76. With a second left on the clock, he was fouled by Jarrell Brantley, and after a lengthy discussion between the officiating crew, it was determined Harper was in the act of shooting and was awarded three shots with a chance to give Drexel the win. He sank the first two before Earl Grant called a 30-second timeout, but his attempt to ice the shooter didn’t have the same effect Doug Pederson’s did last weekend. Harper hit the third to give Drexel the shocking victory. Harper scored seven of his 17 points in the final 27 seconds of the game, Ali Demir added 20 on 9-for-14 shooting, and Trevor John led all scorers with 22.

This huge win for the Dragons, which snapped a 22-game home winning streak for Charleston, brings Drexel to 2-3 in CAA play. While the struggles on the defensive side of the ball will continue to be a liability for Striker’s squad, coming through the toughest stretch of the CAA season with that kind of record is promising. They’re well on their way to surpassing anyone’s expectations in a season they were picked to finish 9th out of 10 in the league, and with this statement win, have certainly put themselves on the conference’s radar. I doubt anyone is going to want to play this Dragons team come tournament time.