Drexel basketball: Dragons rolling ahead of rivalry match-up with Delaware
By Pan Karalis
Drexel basketball has won three of its last four heading into a big clash with rival Delaware on Saturday.
Drexel basketball is off to their best start in CAA play since the 2012-13 season, now sitting at 4-4 after winning three of its last four. The Dragons were picked to finish ninth in the ten team Colonial in the coaches’ preseason poll, but when Zach Spiker’s squad managed to go 1-2 in the three toughest buildings in the league early in the season, dropping their first two CAA games away at Northeastern and Hofstra before stunning Charleston a few games later, it started to look like Drexel could climb their way into the middle of the Colonial pack.
Drexel is rolling right now, and have overcome big deficits in their last two wins; they overcame an 11-point second half hole against Towson last week, before erasing an 18-point James Madison lead over the weekend. And the Dragons have been spreading the offense, too; three different players have led the scoring effort for Drexel over their last three wins, with Troy Harper, Ali Demir, and Trevor John each putting in a 22-point performance over that stretch.
Confidence should be sky-high for the Dragons, not only for overcoming major deficits and holding a .500 record in league play, but also for the improvement on the defensive side of the ball they’ve seen over their last two games. It might not be a huge sample size, but for one of the worst defensive teams in the country to consecutively hold teams under 70 points, as they did in the JMU and Towson victories, is certainly encouraging. They held the Dukes and Tigers to under 40% from the field combined.
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A big test is coming up for the Dragons away from home at the Bob Carpenter Center against rival Delaware on Saturday. The last time the two teams met, Drexel scored a historic come-from-behind win, beating the Blue Hens in front of their home fans at the Daskalakis Athletic Center after trailing by as much as 34. It was the biggest comeback in division one men’s basketball history.
Delaware has had an inconsistent year, but has been a surprise team at 5-3 in the CAA after the departure of leading scorer Ryan Daly. Daly scored exactly a thousand points in just two years at Delaware before leaving the program for Saint Joe’s, the school where his father played and his grandfather both played and coached. Delaware was earning some talk of becoming a CAA favorite before he left, and was picked to finish seventh this preseason now without their leading scorer. They gave now-13th ranked Maryland a scare to open the season, beat conference favorites Northeastern on the road in double overtime, and currently sit at 13-8 on the season, but they have lost a few questionable games on the year. They handed Towson their first win in seven games this past weekend, losing to the Tigers by a point, and managed to drop a game to one of the worst teams in the country, in-state rival Delaware State. Both of those losses were at home in Newark.
What might prove problematic for Drexel on Saturday is their weakness defending the three-point line. Even in their recent 3-1 stretch, Drexel struggled to contain the three-point game. Only once during the CAA season has Drexel held an opponent to under 36% from three-point territory. Delaware shoots more threes than anyone in the conference, and buries them at a 37.8% clip, good for 36th in the country. The Blue Hens have an astounding four players that shoot better than 40% from three-point range, and Martin Inglesby will certainly be ready to exploit the Dragons’ weakness on the perimeter. Spiker will have to focus his defense on containing both Ryan Allen and Ithiel Horton, who combine to attempt 13 three-pointers a game.
Drexel’s attempt to improve their record to over .500 after nine conference games, a position no one predicted them to be in this year without Tremaine Isabell, will be a challenging one. Saturday’s game from the Carpenter Center, one of only a few Drexel games to be televised all season, will certainly be worth the watch. And one thing will definitely be for certain; no lead Delaware can open up on Drexel will be safe, and be sure that the Blue Hens will have that on the back of their minds until the final buzzer sounds.