Our boys come into this game on Saturday well rested after a blowout over low DIII Rosemont. Cam did get hurt in that game som hopefully he is alright for this one. By the time we tip on Saturday it will have been 10 days since our last DI competition. UMBC has taken the easy way out this year. They are 4-3 however 3 of those wins are against non DI teams. Their only DI win was over Florida Gulf Coast. They have gotten beat bad by everyone else (27 @LSU and 17 to Eastern Michigan and 10 to Nicholls State both in the Jamaica Classic). Nicholls will be a top tier team in the Southland fighting with SFA. I suspect UMBC will be favored by a couple at home, but this is not a strong team and this needs to be a road victory for our squad. We all know how miserable our road record is, this is one we have to have if we want to rid ourselves of the past.

UMBC does not look like they do anything particularly well, but they did thrash us last season. Darnell Rogers is their best player, but they have used much of their roster thus far. Rogers scores 14 points game at a 44% clip. As a team UMBC is shooting 61% from the free throw line, 44% from the field, 32% from 3. We should have a size advantage most places. This will be a game that if we play strong defense we should win comfortably. I will be disappointed if we lose this one, but I also need proof we can win on the road.

Drexel- 82
UMBC- 86

Today's game is on ESPN3.

Not sure if he regularly does color for UMBC, but I'm really enjoying listening to John Feinstein today.

They got off to a good start 22-14 with some good outside shooting. Then TJ came into the game and turned the ball over a bunch of times, he got replaced b. UMBC on a 9-0 run at the under 8 timeout and they're shooting free throws after the break.

UMBC on an 18-4 run at the under 4 timeout and leads 32-26. Drexel with just 1 basket over a very long stretch of play.

Pitiful last 11:13 of the half. Drexel trails 38-29 at halftime, as they scored just 2 baskets (2 Green 3's) in the final 11:13. UMBC outscores them 24-7 in that span. Butler had 2 fouls early and they had to play most of the half without him. Okros missed a much needed first of a 1 and 1 late in the half. 12 turnovers to UMBC's 3 is totally unacceptable.

Game has gotten out of hand. 43-29. UMBC's win probability at 94%.

And it's now 51-29. Another disastrous road loss for the Dragons, who are about to fall to 9-41 on the road under Spiker.

I tuned in after halftime, watched until the under 12 and turned it back off. Not a good performance. Even the announcers were commenting how surprised they were of this result, with UMBC struggling with 3 non DI with us giving Temple and Rutgers a run for their money. And I have to agree. This was a team we should beat 9 out of 10 times. We stunk it up. Again. On the road. We now draw a bad Princeton team and a La Salle team that just gave Villanova a tough run.

I consider myself a pro-Spiker guy, but his downfall will be inconsistent performances on the road. You cannot make the next step without winning those games. Granted, the team is relatively young, but I have seen enough from this season at this point that my concern about road games is growing. We'll see if they can do anything against USF.

I would like to know why the road is so troubling. Watching that game you would have thought we were the walking dead. No energy, lethargic, etc. Guys walking around. Not sure why they never seem prepared for the road or seem to play like they care on the road. Something needs to change in our players mentality, just not sure what it is. Spiker seems to do well and hit the right chords with players, media, fans, so not sure what changes when on the road, but it is very apparent something does.

I did my reflecting today (slow work day) on my preseason realistic take on the season. Hard to be upset since we are close to where i had us and further instills my lack of confidence in our ability to win on the road. I dont think my confidence has waivered from this. Losing to Temple was a missed chance. La Salle looks like that could go poorly. Doubtful we go undefeated at home, so even my preseason picks seem to be a bit on the hopeful side

OOC: 8-4 (losses to Rutgers, SFA, UMBC, USF)
CAA: 9-9 (losses at home to CofC, Hofstra and Northeastern, road losses to CofC, HU, UD, W&M, Elon, UNCW)
Overall: 17-13 (9-9)
Home: 12-3
Road: 3-10
Neutral: 2-0

I believe that the talent level has increased significantly. I'm not so concerned with the losses to SFA or UMBC. But I'm concerned with just how awful they played in those games. Now the SFA game may have turned out to be an acceptable loss as they're a team that was strong enough to knock off the #1 team in the country in the toughest venue for a road team to win in. But UMBC had about 4 key injuries and they're really just an above average America East team. If Drexel lost by 5 or less, I'd say that they should just move on. But they were humiliated. Now they have to face an always tough Princeton team who came within seconds of knocking off a Pac 12 team. And then LaSalle has been playing much better this season. If they don't figure it out, we could be looking at a losing streak.

Agreed. The talent is there on this team and we have seen flashes of it. It is on the coaching staff to pull it all together. The way we perform on the road matters. It needs figured out