I know I'm skipping ahead of Rider, but I wanted to share some thoughts about this upcoming game on Sunday..

Kean is a decent sized school located in Union NJ near Newark. They have 16,000 students, and a nice size campus with decent facilities. I had never heard of the school so I assumed that it was a really tiny school, but it's not. Their basketball arena is 11 years old and it's about the same size at the DAC, seating around 2,500.

Now for the basketball details....
They are a division III school so they do not give out scholarships. They play in the New Jersey Athletic Conference.
The are currently 0-8 and have a game tonight at Delaware Valley College before facing the Dragons on Sunday. They were 4-20 last year. Their last win was against Rowan on February 6th, and are in the midst of an 11 game losing streak going back to last year.
They lost by over 20 points to a few national powerhouses such as Stevens Institute of Technology, Hamilton College, and Ramapo College.
Their coach, Rob Kurzinsky is in his 10th season as head coach and has won just 88 games in 9+ seasons. Any many of us thought that Drexel was too loyal to their coaches. I guess winning isn't a job requirement to be a coach at Kean.

Players:
9 of the 10 players on the roster are freshman or sophomores. Nobody is over 6'5" and 4 players are 6' or less.

So I don't have to be a basketball expert to conclude that this is the worst team that Drexel has faced in at least the past 26 years. It's the first DIII team they've played since beating Widener 90-38 to start the 93-94 season.

So does anybody know why Drexel is playing this team and what do they expect to accomplish from this game? I understand that they want to have an extra home game, but aren't there any better options?

Practice the fundamentals game? Also, probably no other choices/last minute scheduling?? I am guessing because of firing/hiring the time to schedule games were limited.

I'd venture a guess that its more of a schedule filler because they could not get anything else.

Regardless, its another chance for this team to run through its paces and experiment with its depth. One thing I've felt so far in the OOC schedule is that every game is an opportunity to learn. They've used 11 different players so far in competitive situations, and with Major reappearing on the bench, I'm sure that we will see 12 by the end of it all. Everybody is getting a chance to show their chops before the CAA schedule starts.

And to expand on that point for a moment: one thing that Spiker preached from the beginning is conditioning. He didnt want to see kids with their hands on their knees. Hands on your knees means that you're tired. I've been watching for that and I havent seen that yet. Everyone on the court looks fresh. Subs are within the rotation and non-punitive. Nobody is asking "out" of the game. This team is ready to run. From a conditioning stand point, Spiker and his gang have done a great job.

I would also add that this game needs to have 1 single focus: Work on not turning the ball over. We need to really take the time to think about what we are doing and focus on not giving the ball away. This game should be simple enough for us to score points and win that we can take the extra fraction of a second to think about the plays we are about to make and whether they are smart plays or not.

My prediction for today's game is that they're not going to focus much on defense, and put emphasis on "Think Big, Play Fast". Focus will be on controlling the ball on fast breaks, and turning fast possessions into points. Kean will play zone most of the game and will really struggle to contain Drexel's bigs. There will be many open looks from 3 and Drexel will take advantage.

My prediction:
Drexel 109
Kean 79

Interesting game tonight. You could clearly notice the difference in talent level between the 2 teams, but I do give Kean credit for playing this game and battling it out the best they could.

This looked like an opportunity for Drexel to get open and take 3 point shots. From an attempt standpoint, they not only beat...but completely shattered the Drexel record for 3 point attempts in a game with 41 attempts. The previous record was 32 attempts done twice, both in 2006. Problem is Drexel only made 12 of those attempts, and so many of there were wide open.

Zach gave opportunities for EVERYBODY to play tonight (minus Bah and O who are dealing with injuries). 13 different players played tonight and everybody except Moran scored at least 1 point. That includes, Alford, Ford Jr, and Cartwright. I found myself pulling out the program just to figure out who some of these guys were. Major Canady was back on the court tonight and that was great to see. He made just 1 of 4 FT attempts but received a standing ovation from his teammates after scoring his 1st point in 3 years.

Earlier in this post, I questioned why this game was even played. But since it gave the walk-ons and seldom used players some significant minutes, I'm OK with playing this game.

One other interesting note: Kean had 9 different players score so combined, the 132 points scored by both teams were scored by 21 different players. You don't see that every day.

I am glad they played and no injuries occurred. However, lets not schedule these games anymore unless its the first game of the year to get the rust off.

Seeing Major back on the court was a great moment... Here's my take..

http://alwaysadragon.com/welcome-back-major/