We played tough for our opener and fell apart in the second game after halftime. Here is our season opener at home against a DIII foe. They are part of the CSAC (Colonial States Athletic Conference). They were picked 6th in the preseason after a 9-16 finish last season. Their web site lists this as an exhibition game with their season opener coming on November 16th against Lebanon Valley College.

They have only played against 3 DI schools in the past couple of seasons, all big losses (30+) including last season to NJIT who also beat us. The Bryn Athyn lost 99-53 to NJIT where we lost 65-53. This game needs to be one that we put away early and rotate our players through so we can see what skillsets we have and how each mesh with the others. If this game stays within 30, that would be embarrassing, but also likely tells us our defense is still in for a long road ahead.

Total dart throw here:

Bryn Athyn- 52
Drexel- 90

Agree. There's no reason they shouldn't win by 40. Hopefully there will be a nice student turnout for the home opener. But of course, there might be a bunch of students don't understand the different talent levels of college basketball who are going to be ill informed into thinking that Drexel is going to be really good this year.

Bryn Athyn is the little church community that neighbored the township where I grew up. It's home to the world famous Bryn Athyn Cathedral. I'd pass Bryn Athyn College every day on the way to high school, and barely even knew that there was a college there. And if there was, I figured that it had maybe 300 students or so. I still can't fathom that they are able to put together a basketball team that could even share the court with a Division I team. I noticed that the roster has a bunch of players who are about the same height as Kurk Lee.

Drexel 99
Bryn Athyn 59

Do you know Bryn Athyn associated with the Acadamy of the New Church high school that Samme Givens went to? I believe it was in Bryn Athyn.

(11-13-2018 04:46 PM)Water Boy Wrote:  Do you know Bryn Athyn associated with the Acadamy of the New Church high school that Samme Givens went to? I believe it was in Bryn Athyn.

Academy of the New Church is the private grade school/high school in the district. I believe that Sammy's dad was the coach of ANC when Sammy attended the school?

The town of about 1,300 people does not have a public school system. If a resident in the town wants to go to public school, then the town must pay for the student to attend school at Lower Moreland. However, 90% of the kids in the town attend ANC or another private school. I know that's more information than anybody on this message board needs are cares to know.

Thanks. I appreciate the info, even if my original question was missing some words.

Like many I'm not a fan of games against small schools like this. I understand there is benefit to them for trying stuff out and giving a hopefully good show to the home fans. I guess what I don't see if why not just do them as exhibitions. What really is the difference between this and the Clarion game other than the season has officially started. The argument is often that you need more home games, but the Clarion game was at home and almost invisible on the Drexel Men's basketball webpage. Why not just promote the exhibitions like regular games. Then instead of a secret scrimmage with Albany just make that a home and home series. Then every other year each school gets and extra home game.

It is not like Drexel is the only school doing it though, it seems like more and more schools are doing it and the competition is getting less and less. Maybe I'm just noticing it more since we rarely played these until the end of Bruiser's tenure, but it just seems a little silly to me.

Agreed. They do not help in any way. I would rather play a crappy DI team at home that nobody has heard of than a lower division school, especially multiple divisions lower. In football it can be different, but there are 350ish DI basketball schools. There is no excuse.

There are a lot of other things that piss me off about college basketball, like more specifically the unfair tournament selection process...but that's for another day.

Here's my take on it. It doesn't make sense, but it is what it is. Everyone's doing it. It's a game on the schedule that will help make their win/loss record look a bit better on paper. The coaches must see some value in these games so I guess that's why they do it.

I read that CAA reduced or eliminated their policy against non-Division I games. Hofstra plays one per season. I don't complain about that because of how many teams do it. I hate teams that play three or more, and I hate looking at the scoreboard for all of Division I and seeing how many games had a non-Division I opponent. Yesterday 28 percent of the Division I games had a non-Division I opponent, and Division I teams won by an average of 42.3. In addition to making your record look better, it makes your point differential look better. Winthrop beat Pfeiffer 134-99, and Pfeiffer made 20 threes.

Last season the average Division I team played 1.32 non-Division I opponents.

Not much to take from this game. It was nice to see them put them away early and run our sets including on the break. It is amazing the drop off in talent in different divisions. I really wanted Tadas to be something for us. It just isnt there.

Cheesesteaks! Oh wait they killed that.

Highest point total ever, though not sure that should count since its not even against a D1 team.

118-41 final.

It was a fun night at the DAC. I know people complain about these games, but everyone’s doing it...I mean even Michigan played blew out a Division III team tonight...some team, Villa something.

I did think that the streamers were necessary, but I guess Drexel decided that they wanted to run their postgame win procedures exactly as they would for a win against any other team.

They should still count this game as the record for most points scored and biggest margin of victory. Back in the 70’s, much of their schedule was against teams like Bryn Athyn. As I said before, it is what it is.

I was glad that Spiker decided to bench John after he got his 8th 3 pointer. He was one short of tying Mike Wisler’s record. While I have no problem with them breaking the team scoring record...if John did break the 3 point record, Wisler should have been really pissed.

Nothing like a lopsided game early in the season to change your stats.
Drexel will go from last to first in the CAA in scoring offense and from eighth to tied for second in scoring defense.

(11-14-2018 10:52 PM)Water Boy Wrote:  Nothing like a lopsided game early in the season to change your stats.
Drexel will go from last to first in the CAA in scoring offense and from eighth to tied for second in scoring defense.

Note that every team in the CAA except Northeastern has at least 1 non-Division I game on their schedule this year. And every team has the opportunity to pad their stats. Some teams already have done that.

(11-15-2018 07:34 AM)J.B. Wrote:  

(11-14-2018 10:52 PM)Water Boy Wrote:  Nothing like a lopsided game early in the season to change your stats.
Drexel will go from last to first in the CAA in scoring offense and from eighth to tied for second in scoring defense.

Note that every team in the CAA except Northeastern has at least 1 non-Division I game on their schedule this year. And every team has the opportunity to pad their stats. Some teams already have done that.

Not all non-DI teams are created equally. Ours in fact is about as bad as it can be since it was a DIII team picked middling/low in their own conference

(11-15-2018 09:46 AM)dan10 Wrote:  

(11-15-2018 07:34 AM)J.B. Wrote:  

(11-14-2018 10:52 PM)Water Boy Wrote:  Nothing like a lopsided game early in the season to change your stats.
Drexel will go from last to first in the CAA in scoring offense and from eighth to tied for second in scoring defense.

Note that every team in the CAA except Northeastern has at least 1 non-Division I game on their schedule this year. And every team has the opportunity to pad their stats. Some teams already have done that.

Not all non-DI teams are created equally. Ours in fact is about as bad as it can be since it was a DIII team picked middling/low in their own conference

Agree. I read in the Inquirer today that Bryn Athyn has just 283 students, and they're the smallest DIII school. So I'll assume that they're the smallest NCAA school in the country altogether. Somehow that school manages to produce 14 sports teams, including men's and women's lacrosse. I would think that just about every student must be a student/athlete as well.

Kean, who Drexel played 2 years ago, and the team that NJIT beat last night, was equally as bad.

I also disagree that this should count as the scoring record. I think it should be noted with an asterisk as the highest scoring game, but when considering highest scoring game it should only be against like opponents. So if you are DII it should only be against DII teams even if you move up to DI or drop down to DIII. So regardless who we played in the 70's it was like teams at the time. Currently our records should only be able to be set against DI teams in my opinion

(11-15-2018 07:34 AM)J.B. Wrote:  

(11-14-2018 10:52 PM)Water Boy Wrote:  Nothing like a lopsided game early in the season to change your stats.
Drexel will go from last to first in the CAA in scoring offense and from eighth to tied for second in scoring defense.

Note that every team in the CAA except Northeastern has at least 1 non-Division I game on their schedule this year. And every team has the opportunity to pad their stats. Some teams already have done that.

Indeed the teams that Drexel passed at the top are Delaware and JMU who already played against lower division teams (JMU twice).

Based on Spiker's interview with Rob Brooks last night where he said we were kind of forced into this game, I looked into it a bit to see why. It has to do with the exempt tournaments. You can play an extra game if you are a part of one of these. Ours this year is the Hub City Classic - which is where Rutgers, EMU, and BU are on our schedule. Drexel and those three teams all play each other. Rutgers plays all at home and the others get 1 at home and 2 away (including at Rutgers). But you are allowed four games as part of this. Somehow Rutgers plays Farleigh Dickinson as part of this, but FD doesn't play EMU, BU, or Drexel. To get their fourth game those three teams can schedule non-D1 teams. FD plays two non-D1 schools, I guess as part of this but have one less regular season game.

I guess as the big-shot high major team Rutgers is able to insist on 4 home games. If Farleigh Dickinson fully participated, then only 2 of the 4 mid-major teams would get 2 home games instead of all of them having 2 by involving non-D1 teams. Farleigh Dickinson is really getting the short end of the deal with both their home games against nonD1 schools and 1 less away game.

At least that is my understanding of it. I can't promise it is totally right.

(11-15-2018 10:14 AM)dan10 Wrote:  I also disagree that this should count as the scoring record. I think it should be noted with an asterisk as the highest scoring game, but when considering highest scoring game it should only be against like opponents. So if you are DII it should only be against DII teams even if you move up to DI or drop down to DIII. So regardless who we played in the 70's it was like teams at the time. Currently our records should only be able to be set against DI teams in my opinion

But if you look at their records, they include games from before they were a Division I team and even in the 70's most of their schedule was against non-Division I teams.

The purpose of an asterisk is to clarify inconsistencies in statistics. Based on the way that college basketball has evolved over history (peach baskets, changes in defenses, shot clock, 3-point line), the record books are full of inconsistencies. just about every stat would probably need to have an asterisk next to it explaining why the record was broken. It's not necessary.

When it comes down to it, Drexel played an official NCAA basketball game last night. The team they played was really bad. Drexel won the game and scored a lot of points. There's really nothing more to it.

In my opinion it doesnt count as an official game, since all metrics that lead to the tournament do not count games against non-DI opponents. It is definitely a blurry line.

As far as Water Boy's comments. That does make sense and I did know that exempt tournaments that are round robin and not bracketed allow all teams to play a 4th game, if they choose. That game cant be against a DI opponent. So you either choose to play a non DI or you forfeit the game and just get your 3 exempt tournament games. For Rutgers it makes plenty of sense to just forfeit playing a non DI where your mid majors are going to want as many games as possible. How we chose a middling at best DIII team is still curious.