We have another game at home Saturday. Based on the past couple of games this one will be a tough game. Rider has played decent teams with good success so far this season. These games have bee pretty balanced but I do not see us keeping this one close

Rider- 75
Drexel- 58

Drexel 78
Rider 70

It would be nice if Lee can get out of his early season funk a bit in this one. Pretty much all his numbers other than freethrow shooting are down compared to last year.

In my mind we should never lose to Rider although it seems like we often do. ESPN gives us a 55% matchup predictor rating, Vegas has Rider as a three point favorite. Perhaps more from heart than head I'll say Drexel 81 Rider 75.

Yup I see Rider as a 3 point favorite. A bit surprised it is that low.

A banged up, unable to shoot Drexel team. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If Rider were smart, they'd do what Lafayette did and zone the crap out of us. KenPom shows their defense as "inconclusive" so that would seem to be a possibility. We played pretty decent defense in the closing minutes against the Leopards while we full courted them a bit. Wouldn't mind seeing us try that a bit more even though we're undermanned. Hope we break quadruple figures in the attendance category today, guessing we will since they're right up 95.

Quite a few positives in first half, but offense bogged down last 5 minutes and the D gave up a bunch of and 1s and then a three at the buzzer and we’re down 41-39 at the half. Interested to see how they respond coming out of the locker room.

A good start, not so good finish leaves the Dragons down by 2 at half.

They need to get back to moving the ball around like they did at the start. They looked like a totally different team. Hope we don't implode in the second half.

Nice win for Drexel 89-77. Once again we win the rebounding battle and limit turnovers. Stretch was 4-4 from the line. It is nice to see some improvements. Now we just need to get Lee hitting some shots and get some guys healthy.

Next up LasSalle hopefully still jet-lagged from their trip to Ireland.

(12-02-2017 06:19 PM)Water Boy Wrote:  Nice win for Drexel 89-77. Once again we win the rebounding battle and limit turnovers. Stretch was 4-4 from the line. It is nice to see some improvements. Now we just need to get Lee hitting some shots and get some guys healthy.

Next up LasSalle hopefully still jet-lagged from their trip to Ireland.

No shout out to Isabell? 35 points 13 rebounds?

(12-02-2017 10:51 PM)Dragon For Life Wrote:  

(12-02-2017 06:19 PM)Water Boy Wrote:  Nice win for Drexel 89-77. Once again we win the rebounding battle and limit turnovers. Stretch was 4-4 from the line. It is nice to see some improvements. Now we just need to get Lee hitting some shots and get some guys healthy.

Next up LasSalle hopefully still jet-lagged from their trip to Ireland.

No shout out to Isabell? 35 points 13 rebounds?

I suppose I should have. When I wrote that I was just focusing on things that have turned around since the beginning of the season. Tramaine rebounding and scoring has not been a problem.

A note on Tramaine, today with 154 points in seven games, he moved passed Tyshawn Myles on Drexel's career scoring list. Tyshawn made it up to 139 points today in his 81st game.

I continue to be impressed with Isabell's rebounding and Lee's for that matter. Today the two of them combined for 20 rebounds - the rest of the team combined for 15.

Isabell is up to just under 40% on three point attempts. He took at least one ill advised one, but if he can keep that rate up, it should really help the offense having a deep threat.

Kurk didn’t necessarily fill up the basket, but he was playing with the swagger we saw from him last year that has seemed missing this year. Hopefully that can start to translate to his shooting, but can’t complain with a 6:1 A/TO ratio to go along with 7 boards.

Stretch seems to have found his FT shooting touch. I’d like to see him stay involved as he wasn’t utilized much in the 2nd half.

The defense looked pretty good today for the most part.

All in all, today was a good performance. Hope it carries over in Olney and coach can grab his first city win.

(12-03-2017 12:05 AM)Water Boy Wrote:  A note on Tramaine, today with 154 points in seven games

Also on this, Adam Hermann on Twitter mentioned Tramaine is on a single season scoring record pace. Michael Anderson has record at 670. Tramaine’s 154 in 7 stretched to 31 would equal 682.

Isabell is REALLY talented. This is going to be a fun stat to watch. He's going to have to do it in 30 games instead of 31. At this pace, he'll come up about 10 points short. It makes you wonder where he'd be if he hadnt missed the Bowling Green game.

This team is like jekyl and hyde. We really dont know what we are going to get from game to game. The past 2 games we looked like one of the worst teams in the country, then you see this effort which reminded us of the Houston game (even though a lesser opponent) and we have reason to believe. Will be a frustrating season if this keeps up due to the drastic inconsistencies. With Isabell this team would be in a lot of trouble.

I thought it was a very impressive win by the Dragons against what I thought was a very talented Rider team. Based on how Rider has performed so far this year, and what I've seen out of Drexel lately, I was expecting a 20 point loss. It was probably the best game that I've seen Drexel play since they beat W&M when their entire team had the flu.

Isabell surely is a beast and hopefully he can play a full season and do some special things this year.

I want to point out one play that stood out yesterday. Drexel had several steals and breakaways in the 2nd half. But there was one play early in the 2nd half where Isabel stole the ball and dribbled toward the basket on a 2 on 1 with a defender after him. Lee was following Isabell down court. While it seemed to make total sense for Isabell to pass it to Lee for the bucket, he took the shot himself and missed. Now I don't want to make something out of nothing, but I was wondering if there are any issues going on between #1 and #2. The two will be spending a lot of time on the court together this year, so I was wondering if they're having any issues playing with each other.

Isabell gets co-player of the week with Connor Burchfield who went crazy from 3 this week.

In another impressive Tramaine stat, he is among the CAA leaders in all the categories listed at caasports.com except for blocked shots and 3pt shooting percentage. He is getting close with the 3pt%. He has zero blocks, so I guess he won't make the sweep though.

(12-03-2017 01:00 PM)J.B. Wrote:  I want to point out one play that stood out yesterday. Drexel had several steals and breakaways in the 2nd half. But there was one play early in the 2nd half where Isabel stole the ball and dribbled toward the basket on a 2 on 1 with a defender after him. Lee was following Isabell down court. While it seemed to make total sense for Isabell to pass it to Lee for the bucket, he took the shot himself and missed. Now I don't want to make something out of nothing, but I was wondering if there are any issues going on between #1 and #2. The two will be spending a lot of time on the court together this year, so I was wondering if they're having any issues playing with each other.

I saw something different that made me think the same thing. In the second half, Sammy was fouled on a three point attempt and Isabell and Lee had a lengthy conversation where Lee walked away and Isabell followed all the while Coach Jennings tries to get their attention to discuss things at the bench. Both eventually made their way over to the bench, and after some discussion the game continued. Found myself wondering if there was any friction. Sequence can be seen here around the 1:35:00 mark.
https://portal.stretchinternet.com/drexe...Type=video

I don't see that video quite like you do Drachen. And I do think additional coaching is needed for the two of them, as they've taken Kurk off the ball at times (<cough cough>I was called crazy for floating that idea last year, <cough cough> Scott) and have Tramaine bring it up. Given the back and forth nature of their roles, especially as it pertains to the pg spot, certainly the coaches will need to have additional in game discussions with them.

Having said all of that... where there's smoke there can be fire. Worth keeping an eye on.

Yeah yeah, Dan, you were right.. Blah blah blah

But in all seriousness, one thing we need to remember about Isabell is he does one heck of a job at drawing fouls. He currently ranks 102nd in the nation in that statistic, drawing 6.5 fouls per game. Its also something that Harper is EXCELLENT at.

In that scenario, Isabell keeping the ball and taking it himself is the right move in my opinion. Lee compensates for his size with shielding the ball with his body on those draws making it tougher to get a call, as evident by his 3.5 fouls drawn per game. Also, Isabell was by far the hot hand. Let's put some points on the board.

As for Lee's play, I agree with Dan that its a relationship worth keeping a closer eye on and at least personally, I intend to do so. Still though, points or lack of, I really liked Lee's stat line from the Rider game. He contributed in a number of different ways, possession control being the most noticeable. If he can keep playing like that, the points will come.

As I said, just a thought. Was going to mention it after the game, but decided not to as I’m really not in any position to speculate deeply about player dynamics. Also held back because, excepting that moment, Kurk seemed more like Kurk. He even cracked up about being righteously blocked not long after this on a drive to the hoop. Seeing someone else wonder the same, [removed], figured I’d share.