Dragons played OK in the first half trailing by just 2, but Hofstra dominating early in the 2nd half to take a 9 point lead, their largest lead in the series. Drexel was dominated by Hofstra on the offensive boards yesterday and now Hofstra has a 6-1 advantage today.

you guys were talking about butler's minutes. he's another spiker recruit who i'm hoping is a nice kid. ultimately he has a ceiling though. not all that big...not all that athletic...not all that skilled. he just got roughed up pretty bad for an offensive rebound and put back. williams is more the body type we need. he never plays for some reason.

Drexel trails by 10 at the U12, 58-48. Butler and Perry both frustrated by Hofstra's bigs. Pride with a 9-4 O-Board advantage. Lately it seems like every time Hofstra goes inside, it's a 2 for 1 opportunity for them to score.

I keep expecting Hofstra to totally run away with the game so I can go outside and shovel, but Drexel now on a 6-0 run, still trailing by 10 66-56 at the U8.

Bell has been impressive for Drexel today with 13 so far. TJ and Cam each have 14.

(02-07-2021 03:15 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  you guys were talking about butler's minutes. he's another spiker recruit who i'm hoping is a nice kid. ultimately he has a ceiling though. not all that big...not all that athletic...not all that skilled. he just got roughed up pretty bad for an offensive rebound and put back. williams is more the body type we need. he never plays for some reason.

Butler is a good scorer and rebounder against average mid-major competition, however defensively he appears slow. Hofstra's bigs are a step above. Evan mentioned that Cramer was recruited by high majors but had injury problems. Butler looks weak against high major type players.

Drexel doesn't quit. They're on a 13-2 run at the U4, trailing 68-63. Frustrating part about it is that Drexel, who is normally a good FT team is just 10-17 from the line while Hofstra is 8-9.

Lots of offense in the final minutes. Drexel trails 76-71 with 50 seconds left. Butler is red hot now, he's made about 4 baskets in a row down the stretch. Difference is still the free throws. Drexel 10-17, while Hofstra is 12-13.

Hofstra is about to ice it in the final seconds. Drexel now falls to 6-36 in CAA road games under Spiker.

I said the losing team could score 71 for the second consecutive day, but Bell made a three at the buzzer to lose 79-74. Both teams had balanced scoring, with nine players in double-digits, and Bickerstaff leading all players with 18. Bickerstaff made all 6 free throws, and the rest of the team made 4 of 11 with nobody making more than half. Bickerstaff and Bell combined to shoot field goals 12-15 and score 34. Bell didn't have more than 1 assist before this weekend, but he had 2 yesterday and 5 today. Butler scored 16, with 13 in the last 7:57, and had 13 rebounds. Wynter had 14 points and 6 assists. Oden Jr. scored 9, so each team had five guys score at least 9. Walton had 1 point and 1 field goal attempt in 13 minutes. Perry Jr. had 4 rebounds in 3 minutes, which tied Bickerstaff for the second most for you. None of him, House, Juric, or Williams scored. Hofstra had five double-digit scorers, and none of them were Jalen Ray, who shot field goals 1-11 and got up to 5 points with 2 free throws with 1:39 left. Tareq Coburn shot field goals 6-8 and free throws 3-3 to lead Hofstra with 17. Isaac Kante had 16 points and 16 rebounds. Kvonn Cramer scored 15 and shot field goals 7-8, but he had only 1 rebound, and he entered averaging 6.9. Caleb Burgess had 11 points, led all players with 8 assists, had 4 steals which were more than the 3 steals by everyone else on both teams combined, and his 5 rebounds were the most by anybody other than Kante and Butler. He entered averaging 3.1 rebounds. He passed Wynter for the assists lead with 5.474 to Wynter's 5.467. On the Analytics tab, Kante led in Efficiency, Bickerstaff led in Game Score, and Coburn led in Net Points (which is different from the +/- while a player is on the court).

Bell definitely played his best game today. Butler picked it up after an awful game yesterday doing a lot of damage late to keep Drexel in the game and he finished with another double double. Turnovers were a huge improvement from yesterday allowing them to get off a lot more shots. Shooting wasn't as good, but still decent as they shot over 50% again. FT shooting may have been the difference. 7 misses at the line against a really good team can really hurt.

Bickerstaff passed Walton for third in points per game.

Ray was vomiting before the game, so maybe he shouldn't have played or should have played less.

Not surprised we lost yesterday. I was surprised to see a close score. To read what truly happened here makes a lot of sense. However big spells of letting teams run away or climb back into games is maddening. If only we could find some consistency we might actually have something. We also need to use Bickerstaff way more on offense. He is a really good player and could be more impactful if we focused more on using him.

As far as Butler, I think we are well aware of what we have. He is a good player, a good offensive player. He is not a physical player. So any team that wants to post up and boxed out hard and be physical, will give him fits. He has good instincts which help him for rebounding, but he isnt going to win many fights for grabbing rebounds. He isnt going to box out hard. He isnt going to block shots. His game is just different than what many are used to seeing from a center (truly a PF playing C)