It is now our turn for the short week of games, aka 1 road game and Thursday off. That means extra days of practice and recovery heading into our road matchup against Delaware. Our Dragons took care of business this past weekend and went 2-0 putting them in 4th place. A win over Delaware would go a long way to securing a first round bye. In case anyone needs a reminder or to get pumped up for this one, this happened last year.
And if JB or another admin can update the title to @Delaware that would be appreciated.
(This post was last modified: 01-22-2019 09:23 AM by dan10.)
Suprised no comments yet on the game thread. AAD had a wonderful piece for this rivalry. Both teams are improved. This game matters. A crowd at the BOB encouraging our dragons is important. With last nights game a win here can really muddy the waters of the CAA behind Hofstra.
We're in. Claire will be at her first Drexel game at 2 months and 2 days.
The one thing missing from this rivalry has been good basketball...at least since I've been following Drexel. The close games were slug fests that you felt like we should've won easily. A lot of that had to do with the coaches on either side. I'm curious to see what UD-DU in the 21st century will look like.
I also always felt like the rivalry was one sided. They definitely don't hate us enough to say sucks every time somebody says Drexel. Sometimes they don't even have a student section. I'm hoping that has changed a bit and maybe some of our students will wander down there as well. If I lived closer and didn't have kids I'd give some of them a ride.
Their older fans definitely dont like us. It is mutual, the problem with their basketball is they just generally dont care, which does make it less fun of a rivalry. It could be a lot of fun. Also a reason Penn needs back on the schedule every year. When there is a general dislike for each other, it makes for fun times. I am still not sold or impressed with this Delaware team. We struggle on the road, but this is a team I just feel like we should beat. Also thats awesome she gets to experience her first game!
DU- 84
UD- 76
(This post was last modified: 01-25-2019 03:49 PM by dan10.)
It's pathetic, but this will be my first road trip (not Hawk Hill/CAATrich edition). Their numbers really aren't all that great, so seems their record should fall back down to earth a bit. Believe I've read where their not deep at all, which probably explains their slow pace of play. Guessing that'll be the difference, can we get them running or are they able to slog things down.
(This post was last modified: 01-25-2019 04:34 PM by DrachenFire.)
(01-25-2019 04:33 PM)DrachenFire Wrote: Believe I've read where their not deep at all, which probably explains their slow pace of play. Guessing that'll be the difference, can we get them running or are they able to slog things down.
Delaware uses 8 players. That includes Ryan Allen, who missed 11 games. It excludes Jacob Cushing, who has played in 14 of 21 games, but had a 3 minute appearance and 6 DNPs in the last 7 games. After the 8 players they have been using and Cushing, Davis Long scored 8 points in 37 minutes, and Connor Rufo scored 4 in 11 minutes. If you include Allen, who will finish having played fewer than 75 percent of Delaware's games and therefore not qualifying for statistics leaders, they have 5 players averaging at least 31.5 minutes.
They shoot threes .378. Their three players with the most threes attempted are Ithiel Horton at .414, Matt Veretto at .403, and Allen at .387.
As big as this game feels because of our 2-0 weekend last week and the rivalry, we can't put too much on this game just yet. I'm looking a 3 game road swing starting here, with W&M and Elon following next weekend. If we can go 2-1 on that swing we'd hit 6-5 and still be in good shape for a bye.
Ok, but that said, lets win this game and start to break the mirage that Delaware has going right now. I've watched the highlights from last year which motivated me to go find JB's post showing the comeback we made in Newark back in 1996 (I posted it on my site). Pumped for this game, we're down by 4 games over this 158 game series. Hoping we can get to 78-81 in this 159th meeting today.
10-8 Delaware at the first media timeout. Came out strong after the timeout. Lots of jump shots for Delaware which is a good thing once they stop falling.
Delaware has been impressive early on with their passing. We have to have active hands and get some deflections. John has three 3's now. 17-16 Delaware
U12 timeout, same score. Thankfully they have missed a couple of bunnies at the rim. John is getting open and feeling it which is nice to see. Hens still in their zone defense as a method to slow pace.