The tournament is over....time to celebrate with a new thread.
Congratulations to all of us. We've waited a long time for this, Most of our fans have never experienced this, except with women's basketball. It figures that it happens in the year that we can't attend games.
I'm thrilled that H-Carp and his family somehow made it into the arena tonight. Littlest Carp won't remember, but I hope it's a lasting memory for bigger Carp.
Dan10, I hope you can score NCAA Tournament tickets, since you're local. I haven't been vaccinated, so I'm not going to attempt to make any trips next week.
Showing my age since I've seen them all...
Maybe all our home games next year will be at JMU. we obviously like the shooting background. Hopefully this will help put to bed the can't win away from the DAC.
It is concerning to me that we did this in a year I only worked the 3 out of conference home games.
One person who I'm thinking about tonight, is our Athletic Director, Dr. Eric Zillmer. I've been posting on Drexel message board for a LONG TIME (Timer and I were chatting on Prodigy 28 years ago), and there was never a good thing said about this guy...it's all been bad and in some cases, quite nasty. Even when I started a thread about his retirement, the comments were far from kind, even if he does deserve the criticism. We criticized him for never winning a MBB Championship in his very long tenure....UNTIL TONIGHT!!!! Dr. Z hired Coach Spiker, and the hiring was controversial to say the least. But their goal was to win a CAA Championship, and even though the first four years were rough, they got it done in year 5. Congrats to Dr. Zillmer for leaving the athletic department as a champion.
I will be there (As long as its not at Purdue who is hosting the play in games and isnt allowing fans in). I had been trying to grab early tickets from ncaa but they go in minutes. But there will be a steep secondary market because with reduced crowds its an easy flip for big gains of money.
Still hard to believe that we actually won. The twitter-verse truly showed the importance of successful basketball. We have amazing past players/alums who are all still dedicated. Every single one of them deserved this.
(03-09-2021 10:22 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]Still hard to believe that we actually won. The twitter-verse truly showed the importance of successful basketball. We have amazing past players/alums who are all still dedicated. Every single one of them deserved this.
I'm shocked that a Drexel basketball team as won because they haven't won it in such a long time, and so many of the younger fans like yourself haven't got to experience it at all.
But I'm not shocked that THIS team won it. I watched every game and I really felt that this was a very good team, despite their record. You saw me posting about this a lot. I REALLY felt that if they could get by JMU last week and get the 6 seed, things had a chance to fall in place for them, which it did. I also felt that if they could have played a full season, they could have gone 12-6 or 11-7 in the CAA instead of 4-5.
You were on them for sure. Most had us winning over JMU without Lewis. My stick was always the team finally taking the leap. The talent was there. We all agree there. But this was a team that realistically should have been a top 2 team this season after the league lost so much from last year and we returned all. Splitting every road game was frustrating because we couldnt beat anyone twice. Now getting any road wins was progress, and yes all we did was play the top teams, but it was still frustrating. The method of losing games didnt help. They put most of that behind them this tournament and looked like the team full of potential we mostly thought we had. It showed itself at the perfect time.
Bell as a freshman looks to be a nice steal as well. He was never phased by the moment. TJ is a beast, we need to unleash him some more. The balance and depth of this team was always there and I am so glad we used it. This team is definitely close and that helps.
Congratulations to all the Drexel fans on your first CAA title! Go shock the world with an NCAA victory.
Congrats Drexel, I know you'll do the CAA proud in the tourney. Looking forward to some good battles between our teams next season.
Are we still champs? has the results be reversed yet? Still seems almost unfathomable that we actually won
If anyone has a chance I would recommend listening to the replay of the audio broadcast on Drexeldragons.tv with Rob Brooks and Tubes.
Here's the link.
https://portal.stretchinternet.com/drexe...Type=audio
About 2:03 is about the point where they realize that they're about to win it all. Rob's call is relatively mild, because he's a mild mannered announcer. However, around the 2:09 point, he started to cry, as he mentioned that he's been announcing Drexel games since 1997, mostly as the color guy for Dan Baker.
One thing that Drexel's athletic program has been criticized for his their loyalty. But that also means that there are a lot of hard working people in this program who have been with the program for a LONG TIME, and this is their ultimate goal. So I really want to give a shout out to all of of the great people in the organization who have worked so hard behind the scenes to help us become champions.
Rob Brooks announced that he and Tubes will be announcing Drexel's first NCAA Tournament game. However, they're not permitted to be on line so they are making arrangements with a local radio station to broadcast the game. It will be nice for a chance to have the Dragons back on the radio for the first time in about 10 years.
(03-09-2021 10:22 PM)J.B. Wrote: [ -> ]One person who I'm thinking about tonight, is our Athletic Director, Dr. Eric Zillmer. I've been posting on Drexel message board for a LONG TIME (Timer and I were chatting on Prodigy 28 years ago), and there was never a good thing said about this guy...it's all been bad and in some cases, quite nasty. Even when I started a thread about his retirement, the comments were far from kind, even if he does deserve the criticism. We criticized him for never winning a MBB Championship in his very long tenure....UNTIL TONIGHT!!!! Dr. Z hired Coach Spiker, and the hiring was controversial to say the least. But their goal was to win a CAA Championship, and even though the first four years were rough, they got it done in year 5. Congrats to Dr. Zillmer for leaving the athletic department as a champion.
you and i had a lot of discussions over the years about what success means. some of them weren't particularly friendly. i'll try to be a man of my word since i said all i wanted was one caa championship. everyone in the athletic department deserves credit for what happened last night. dr. zillmer included.
i'm also not going to apologize for giving people a hard time. i used the word horrifying to describe some of our past caa tournament experiences and i think that's an appropriate word to use. there needed to be accountability for that. it took too long for it to come...but at least now we can say "better late than never" and zillmer brought in the right guy in coach spiker.
hopefully we'll see a lot of people trickle back in to support the team. it's been hard to stay interested. i was talking to someone from the dac pack last night and he basically had nothing to sell to the students until last night. if it was going to the game vs studying or doing just about anything else...they weren't going to the game. that changes now...and it's up to whoever come in with the next administration to keep it that way.
(03-10-2021 12:10 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]Are we still champs? has the results be reversed yet? Still seems almost unfathomable that we actually won
Yesterday morning, I had this fear that the CAA screwed up their Covid protocols and allowed a Northeastern player to participate while testing positive for Covid, forcing Drexel to forfeit and giving the championship to Elon.
Based on what Drexel has dealt with over the years and especially this year, I don't think this thought in my head was so far fetched.
Yes Dan10....Your DREXEL DRAGONS are STILL 2021 CAA CHAMPIONS!!!!!
(03-09-2021 10:39 PM)J.B. Wrote: [ -> ] (03-09-2021 10:22 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]Still hard to believe that we actually won. The twitter-verse truly showed the importance of successful basketball. We have amazing past players/alums who are all still dedicated. Every single one of them deserved this.
I'm shocked that a Drexel basketball team as won because they haven't won it in such a long time, and so many of the younger fans like yourself haven't got to experience it at all.
But I'm not shocked that THIS team won it. I watched every game and I really felt that this was a very good team, despite their record. You saw me posting about this a lot. I REALLY felt that if they could get by JMU last week and get the 6 seed, things had a chance to fall in place for them, which it did. I also felt that if they could have played a full season, they could have gone 12-6 or 11-7 in the CAA instead of 4-5.
my wife and i were talking about how quickly everything seemed to come together when the eagles won. same thing with this team. years of suffering and then all of a sudden they were ready to seize the moment.
the best compliment i can give spiker is he got the best out of all of his players. perry and jurich were the stars last night imo. i hammered jurich and okros...but jurich showed his defense down the stretch and okros hit key three pointers.
everybody who played did 1 or 2 things and the sum of the parts won the game. that's exactly the kind of coach drexel has needed to have. sometimes i felt like bruiser quit on certain guys so when you needed them to do something small like grab a rebound or "make a layup"...they were nowhere to be found.
(03-10-2021 12:27 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote: [ -> ] (03-09-2021 10:39 PM)J.B. Wrote: [ -> ] (03-09-2021 10:22 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]Still hard to believe that we actually won. The twitter-verse truly showed the importance of successful basketball. We have amazing past players/alums who are all still dedicated. Every single one of them deserved this.
I'm shocked that a Drexel basketball team as won because they haven't won it in such a long time, and so many of the younger fans like yourself haven't got to experience it at all.
But I'm not shocked that THIS team won it. I watched every game and I really felt that this was a very good team, despite their record. You saw me posting about this a lot. I REALLY felt that if they could get by JMU last week and get the 6 seed, things had a chance to fall in place for them, which it did. I also felt that if they could have played a full season, they could have gone 12-6 or 11-7 in the CAA instead of 4-5.
my wife and i were talking about how quickly everything seemed to come together when the eagles won. same thing with this team. years of suffering and then all of a sudden they were ready to seize the moment.
Your point about the Eagles is the perfect Segway to something I wanted to mention about luck and winning championships. I had said for years that even though you need to be really good to put yourself in that position, you need lucky breaks to win championships.
I look back at some teams who I have followed that have won championships....
2008 Phillies - They were the probably the 6th or 7th best team in MLB but starting in mid-September had so many things out of their control that fell into place, and it kept going with the Cubs and Red Sox getting upset before facing the Phillies in the playoffs.
2013 Drexel WNIT - Drexel had no control over playing that final at home, but it took an upset in the semi-finals to make that happen.
2016 Eagles - You know better than me that there were a bunch of weird things that went their way to make it happen.
On the other hand....
Bruiser's Drexel teams never seemed to get that lucky break to help them out. Lots of fluky things went against them over the years, but they never got that big break in their favor. The only good breaks that they got were in the 2005 NIT Season Tip Off and the 2012 NIT where upsets allowed Drexel to play some home games they weren't expected to play.
Congrats Guys! Good luck in the NCAAs. Drexel was the most talented team the Tribe played this year. It was a well earned victory given the team's commitment to staying together and well. In addition, Drexel basically lived on the road this season making the run more impressive. No shortcuts in winning either as you won at JMU the last week of the regular season, defeated all the top teams including Northeastern in the semis and took down Elon who was playing very well at the end of the year.
Your win leaves my Tribe, Towson and Elon as the only schools not to win the league title since 2010. Elon looks like they might be close as well at this point to getting off that list.