ODU comes to the DAC tomorrow (Friday). ODU is 1-0 on the young season with a win over Maryland...Eastern Shore. I can already feel the nostalgia. We have not played ODU since they were a conference mate. The season was 2012-2013 and we fell at home by 12. It was ODU's worst season ever. It was not a result we wanted to end the "rivalry" on. We had some great battles back in the hey day. We are 9-12 against ODU overall. However, Blaine Taylor nor Bruiser Flint are walking through the DAC doors tomorrow. Basketball isnt (hopefully) going to be set back to the stone age, either.

Last year we finished with a Kenpom ranking of 153. ODU was 194. Both teams had a similar defensive ranking. ODU was not good on offense. Mekhi Long was their do everything type of player last season. He led their team in steals and blocks while scoring 8 points and grabbing nearly 7 rebounds per game. He started off this campaign strong scoring 25 and grabbing 11 boards. He is a 6'7" combo guard. He will likely be a problem for us. ODU is not a super tall team, so this could be a massive Amari game. We likely have more athleticism than they do, but they will be improved from last season and we have some serious question marks. Also of note, Tre Brown will not play for ODU as he has to reapply for his transfer waiver.

I think they game will come down to turnovers. We have a new point guard running the show. How he plays probably determines whether we win or lose. Keep the turnovers low, I like our chances. If we get sloppy with the ball, I see us losing this one. Hopefully our focus on defense shows us continued improvement.

Prediction: The video board shines so brightly it distracts our own players as they try to watch Amari's dunk highlights during the game and forget to get back on defense. A back and forth game ends on a defensive lapse. Our offense will be tough to watch will a new point guard at this level.

ODU- 62
DU- 59

I wonder if any old time ODU fans will be making the trip to the DAC tomorrow night, thinking, "WOW....this is far from the DAC that we remember".

Drexel fans have seen the upgrades little by little over the past 10 years. For somebody who hasn't been there in 10+ years, the changes can be quite shocking.

Agreed. I was quite shocked at the CAAT this past March and it was my first time seeing those changes in person. I now have visions of that place being packed and loud like it used to be and how much of a crazy advantage it could be. ODU would be a great game for that to happen for the men.

Is there a radio link? I don't want to pay for Flo

No radio. ODU had some espn radio but I think its local to them. up 60-47 at U8. First half was foul haven. No pace. ugly basketball. We are hitting some shots in the 2nd half

63-51 at the under 4. 18 fouls on Drexel, 16 on ODU. (14 to 10 in the first half, ODU had 14).

We are currently 1.15 points per possession with this solid second half. ODU at a dreadful 0.895 points per possession

Cant have a 4 minute scoreless drought at end of games. Thankfully ODU isnt good

Whew a couple free throws. But we are going to end this game on just over a 5 minute drought of no made field goals. That cant happen. Especially at home.

Final 71-59.

Free throw shooting was bad. ODU was awful. Like page out of Blaine Taylor awful. We were 67%-20-30 (did well late to get this up, which iced the game), they were 48%- 10-21

There were a combined 45 fouls.

We shot 47% overall to ODU's 35%. ODU took 18 more shots than us. Equal on rebounds. We had 13 turnovers to their 9.

Nice to get a win to open the season. Pretty ugly game overall

Balanced scoring for us. Coletrane led the way with 15. Amari had 14 (11 boards and 3 blocks)
Moore was efficient scoring and played well. He did have 4 turnovers and 4 fouls. Looked good for a freshman overall

Long for ODU was not the problem I thought he might be. He went 0-5. Had 6 boards, 4 fouls and 0 blocks with 1 steal. ODU will be in for a long season if they play like this

I was really impressed with what I saw tonight, and to be honest it was a pleasant surprise. I'll admit that with the Phillies in the World Series, I was not prepare for the start of basketball season, so I really didn't do my research. But I saw ODU on the schedule and just assumed that they would be better than a Drexel team made up of so many newbies.

The question that I had looking at this roster, Are the new guys here because Coach Spiker and his staff sold the program on a group of top level Division I prospects who can compete in the CAA? Or will this be a repeat of 2017 where he found a bunch of fringe D1 players to fill out the roster?

It was a very impressive showing tonight. Not sure if Justin Moore will be the next Cam Wynter, but he looked the part tonight and even wears Cam's number #11. He did make some freshman mistakes down the stretch that helped ODU close the gap, but I was impressed. The retruning players, Williams, Okros, Washington, Oden all contributed. ODU's free throw shooting helped Drexel out a lot.....maybe the cartoon dragon with the hallucination eyes on the video screens distracted them.

I was a bit concerned when Drexel had their double digit lead that they didn't have the experience to close out the game. My fears almost came true as ODU made a run in the final 2 minutes, but credit the young Dragons for holding on for the win.

(11-11-2022 08:52 PM)dan10 Wrote:  No radio. ODU had some espn radio but I think its local to them.

Interesting that they're no longer providing a free audio feed for home games. During commercial breaks of yesterday's game, they were promoting "The Varsity Network" app. I downloaded it, and searched for "Drexel" and only upcoming road games were listed. Still I look forward to using this app to listen to games in the car, which I really wasn't able to do the past several years. Hopefully it works better than trying to connect my car to the Drexel website, which was a failure.

For a team I expected would be a work in progress early in the season, I was pleasantly surprised to see them able to maintain a lead through the second half. ODU I think is better than what they showed, and I give some credit on that to the defense. Good signs overall, enjoyed the win, we're not suddenly conference contenders or anything but I'm optimistic that we'll keep pace with the middle of the CAA pack.

last night was a success for a lot of reasons. i wasn't there the last first game we had after major renovations so for me this felt like a "rebirth" in a sense of the program. it makes a difference when you make a product look good. even if it loses you leave with a good impression...and we won so that can only help things.

basic things are happening that never happened before. the video board at a bare minimum gives us things like dance cam that you see everywhere else. i actually thought the lights made the biggest difference. it felt like I was at more than a high school game. a student was leading the promos at the media timeouts. they did a nice job honoring vets at halftime. concession prices are reasonable and i got my tickets as part of a promo pack.

great job by a lot of people. it's not necessary that they talk with us on the podcast...but hopefully if you've listened you feel as comfortable with some of the new faces as i do.

as far as the team...it's very early but i felt like we played with more toughness and cohesiveness than most of last year. odu tried to punch us in the mouth. we stood there, took it, and delivered some punches of our own. I wouldn't call our guards dynamic...yet...but they made more plays than their odu counterparts.

I'm in the small minority in being ready to move on from wynter. I already feel like Justin moore did a better job making other guys better. we never really came together as a team and I'm hoping somebody like him can make that happen.

(11-12-2022 12:15 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  as far as the team...it's very early but i felt like we played with more toughness and cohesiveness than most of last year. odu tried to punch us in the mouth. we stood there, took it, and delivered some punches of our own. I wouldn't call our guards dynamic...yet...but they made more plays than their odu counterparts.

I'm in the small minority in being ready to move on from wynter. I already feel like Justin moore did a better job making other guys better. we never really came together as a team and I'm hoping somebody like him can make that happen.

I agree. That was a physical game and Drexel did a surprisingly good job dealing with it.

Moore is solid. We've had a pretty good history of finding freshmen who can step into the point guard position. He fits right in with that. Love that he's a Philly kid.

A summary of some of our other 1st year starters at point guard.
Note: Wynter didn't start until game 3, Mason until game 2, Harris wasn't starting at the end of the season
Freshman Year Stats:
Bashir Mason 26/29 games started, 6.7 ppg, 4.4 apg, 2.3 stl, 2.4 TO, 37% FG, 19% 3pt%
Jaime Harris 18/32 GS, 2.5 ppg, 1.6 apg, 0.6 stl, 1.2 TO, 34% FG, 36% 3pt
Frantz Massenat 31/31 GS, 5.5 ppg, 3.3 apg, 0.7 stl, 2.7 TO, 42% FG, 26% 3pt
Rashann London 30/30 GS, 7 ppg, 1.6 apg, 0.7 stl, 1.8 TO, 38% fg, 27% 3pt
Terrell Allen 28/31 GS, 9.8 ppg, 3.2 apg, 1.6 stl, 1.9 TO, 41% fg, 32% 3pt
Kurk Lee 30/32 GS, 14.9 ppg, 5.0 apg, 1.6 stl, 2.9 TO, 42% fg, 40% 3pt
Cam Wynter 30/32 GS 11.3 ppg, 5.4 apg, 1.4 stl, 2.4 TO, 43% fg, 33% 3pt

First Games
Bashir 12 min 0 pts, 2 assists, 0 TO 0-0 FG lost 79-73 to Penn off bench
Jamie 23 min, 2 pts, 3 assists, 2 TO, 1-1 FG, won 89-84 Colgate started
Frantz 20 min, 8 pts, 0 assists, 2 TO, 3-5 FG, won 75-72 Loyola Md started
Rashann 27 min, 4 pts, 0 assists, 1 TO, 1-5 FG, lost 65-48 to Colorado started
Terrell 36 min, 18 pts, 4 assists, 1 TO, 7-13 FG, lost 82-81 to St Joes started
Kurk 27 min, 17 pts, 3 assists, 2 TO, 6-12 FG, lost 78-65 to Monmouth started
Cam 20 min, 6 pts, 6 assists, 2 TO, 2-4 FG, lost 66-62 to Eastern Michigan bench
Justin 24 min, 9 pts, 5 assists, 4 TO, 4-5 FG, won 71-59 ODU started