First place Northeastern comes to town on Saturday. Hopefully the Dragons can build on Thursday night's game and knock them off.

Although Trill and Stuckey Mosley from JMU score more, there has perhaps been no more impactful (and surprising) transfer in the CAA this year. In my opinion, he is the reason the Northeastern is at the top right now. He averages argound 16 points and 5 assists per game shooting 52% for field goals and 44% on threes and has stepped it up further in the conference play. A weakness is that he turns the ball over a lot. He averages 3.6 per game for the year and had 8 in his last game against Hofstra.

One thing Drexel has going for them that no other CAA did is that they have played against him before. He shot 3-3 to score 7 points in 13 minutes up in the Alaska Shootout two years ago. Actually I'm sure it isn't much of an advantage since he only played sparingly and only Mojica and Myles played in the game (I suppose Miles and Stretch watched from the bench).

Overall the Huskies are a well-balanced team that can beat you in many ways. That being said, I think we have the ability to beat them, it is all in what team shows up.

NE 85 DU 65

Unless I get mesmerized by independence hall/liberty bell tour and miss the game...

DU 81 NE 80

Momentum will be the key for this afternoon's game. Hopefully there's a turnout from the crowd for homecoming. Hopefully they play with the intensity that they played with on Thursday. Hopefully Myles is able to throw on a jersey and give Stretch a few possessions off.

Trill had one HELL of a game. I wont expect that every night, and I hope that he does not try to do too much. That's when he gets himself in trouble. One thing that impressed me with this team on Thursday was how crisp their passing was. They got a lot of open looks because of their ball movement. THAT is something they need to build upon.

5.5 point favorite for the Huskies. They have surprised me quite a bit. I didnt think NU was going to be very good this year and they have been the clear top team thus far. We tend to have close games with then home and away. We really need to build off of our Elon win, but not sure we have the horses to beat this balanced NU team.

NU- 84
DU- 76

So I just sat down and did a little digging about Pusica.. Here's some interesting facts:

1. He's an EXCELLENT 3 point shooter. He hits at roughly 44% from downtown.

2. At 6'5, he presents a match up issue for Drexel. He's a big point guard.

3. He's prone to turnovers. Just the other night against Hofstra, he had a conference high 8 turnovers on the night. Earlier this year he turned the ball over 6 times against JMU. He has a turnover rate of 24.2%. So one out of every four times down the court when he's out there the Huskies are coughing up the ball.

4. He also has shown up on the conference assist totals with 10 vs. Hofstra, 9 vs. JMU and 9 vs. W&M, so the guy can move the ball.

Countering him could present a challenge. My guess is he will draw Mojica for pretty much all of the game. Donnell Gresham will most likely run the point and he's pretty good at it. He loves the perimeter game. He's only attempted 45 2 pointers vs. 94 threes. He's also drawing just 2.8 fouls per 40 so he's not a driving threat.

The interesting thing about their depth chart is him and Begley have been switched around quite a bit. Pusica is listed at the point about a 3rd of the time with Begley shifting to either the 2 or 3.

If Drexel goes man, which you'd expect them to, here's my personal matchups:

Gresham - Lee
Occeus - Isabell
Pusica - Mojica
Brace - Demir (LOVE This matchup by the way...)
Green - Williams

Personally though, I'd debate the 3/2. Cover them tight on the perimeter with that, and make them drive the lane.

Congratulations. You were down 6 with 2 minutes left but did not allow a point in the last 2:19 and won 68-67. You made 1 out of 2 free throws your last four times. With 2.5 seconds left and Drexel down 1, Isabell had what looked like a basket and a foul, but the foul was called before the shot. He made a free throw to tie it, missed the second, got his own rebound, was fouled with 1.0 second left, made the winning free throw that was on the rim a while before going in, and missed the second free throw. Time expired, but two horns sounded instead of 1, and 0.7 was put on the clock. Northeastern completed a long pass and attempted a shot at the three-point line that missed.

Isabell led all scorers with 21. Pusica scored 20 but made only 7 out of 18 field goals. The only double-double on either team was 13 points and 11 rebounds by Williams. Northeastern was averaging 9.1 three-pointers made and made only 5.

Absolutely incredible. It was not a pretty win, but a win is a win. Stretch with 6 blocks.. Mojica with 4 steals... Trill with another 21.

I'll take two wins in a row, especially against these two teams! Now to extract revenge from JMU on Thursday...

I'm going to repeat my quote from the women's basketball thread from last night.....WOW....WOW.....WOW.

I don't know what is in the air at the DAC the last few days but it's poisoning Drexel's opponents at the end of the games.

Last night in the women's game, Drexel trailed 50-40 with 8:12 to go and finished the game on an 18-6 run, right after Elon had an 18-4 run of their own.

This afternoon, Drexel Men trailed 67-61 with 2:20 to play and finished the game on a 7-0 run. Northeastern missed the front end of their 1-1 on all three chances at the end. Usually when that happens, the results are deadly, as it was for them today.

Drexel missed 1 of 2 from the line on all of their late trips to the line, but still managed to pull it out.

Drexel/Northeastern games at the DAC are always crazy. The last 6 were decided by 5 points or less, and three of them went into OT. This game didn't disappoint either.

Great win and much needed. The grit our team is showing in never giving up is a very nice change of pace. Hopefully we can keep this momentum going against one of the few teams we should beat.

Agreed. I really felt Elon was a winable game and after the way we looked at Elon I thought we'd have a shot against Northeastern, and the team produced.

We have now matched our win total from last year both in and out of conference. This is also the first time that Spiker has won two in a row against CAA teams. That's something to build on.

Also, in case anyone missed the radio postgame, Trill said he's playing at about 70% due to his injured groin. A lighter week of practice and a strong performance against JMU where they can maybe get him off the court for a bit would go a LONG way as this team moves down the stretch.

Although we are 3-7, we have beaten two of the top teams in the conference. The CAA is TIGHT right now. I am thinking more and more that the conference tournament might come down to who's hottest, despite C of C's home court advantage.

(01-27-2018 08:01 PM)bmf25 Wrote:  Participating in a conference without VCU, GMU, and Old Dominion makes every game winnable. Northeastern does not have a quality win, and already has losses to Furman, Utah State, Hofstra, and Charleston.

Next on the schedule is James Madison (5-17)
Losses against: Weber State, UTSA, Radford, George Mason, The Citadel, FIU, Delaware, UNCW

I'm not sure what your point is here. When those teams were in the conference, every game was winnable. The teams you mention were 3-2 against CAA teams this year, two of those winds being against JMU which you show above isn't too impressive.

The CAA is currently the 12th ranked conference in the country. This is not far off from where it was before the defections. The top teams are lower than they were some years, but currently there are 3 top 100 RPI teams and two more at 104 and 107.

If you look at the conferences in the top 10 - the top 6 are the elite conferences - nobody should expect us to be like them. As bad as we have been this year, we beat the third place team in the #7 conference (AAC also lost to Temple by 3) and went to double overtime (without Demir and Harper getting hurt in the game) against the third place team in the #8 conference (MVC). We also won out game against the #10 conference (A10) foe we played.

Have we lost to same bad teams from bad conferences, yes. We are inconsistent whether due to all the injuries and lack of continuity of the guys available or just ineptitude, but I happy to have us in the CAA as opposed to the #27 Patriot League that you advocated for.

What do you suggest we do other than hire the unproven Ashley Howard?

I wasn’t sure how we won until I saw that northeastern missed the front end of three straight one and ones. I didn’t realize it was that many.

I really liked our defense. It was refreshing do see bodies on bodies instead of wide open jumpers when they were swinging the ball around. Second chance points are still an issue but at least we learned to close out on shooter.

In my excitement I ran my mouth at their women’s team who sat behind us. Told them to wait until tomorrow. I hope will take responsibility if they beat us today but I
Am confident in women’s team.

Some other thoughts about yesterday's game. I was thrilled to see an almost packed house yesterday for homecoming. The student section was nearly packed. Early in the game though, I was thinking about how there were still only about 7-10 students in the DAC Pack, which hundreds of students surrounding them. I was wondering why more students weren't thinking like "they seem to be having a lot of fun down there, maybe I should join them". However, toward the end of the game, the entire center section of the student section, and then the entire student section was on their feet. They were REALLY LOUD, and may have played a factor in Northeastern's three misses on their front ends of 1 and 1's that paved the way for Drexel's comeback. I also loved how after the foul on Maine at buzzer, Troy Harper ran over to the student section and started waiving his arms at the student section to get them even louder. Hopefully many of the hundreds of students at the game yesterday realized how much fun the games can be and it will help the DAC Pack grow.

My next observation has to do with the streamers. I know that it's a nice touch to add a little Big Five tradition at the DAC. However, I thought that they could have led to a disaster yesterday. As you know that earlier in the season, the streamers flooded the floor too early in a women's basketball blowout against Delaware that resulted in a technical foul for Drexel. I thought that it could have happened yesterday with the buzzer snafu at the end. The band was fooled as they started playing "Celebrate" before the game had ended. But what if some streamer accidentally got thrown on the floor by overzealous fans who thought that the game was over? It could have been a disastrous ending.

the athletic director was the one who threw the streamers early at that womens game

was he even at the game yesterday? might have been the reason no streamer technicals were needed

I want to congratulate Alan Boston of alwaysadragon.com and Hiroshimacarp (well sort of, since he was at the game), for both predicting 1 point victories for the Dragons against the first place Huskies.

I agree in jb with the atmosphere and hope the students who came will come back after getting a taste of what drexel basketball could be.

I will stop being disingenuous now.

I have remembered this homecoming weekend though...where the bookstore is closed and I got locked out of the parking garage last night with no willingness on public safety’s part to help us get in...that Philly is what makes Drexel’s campus great. We will always have to compete with all the other things you can see or do.

(01-28-2018 11:33 AM)fredsavage Wrote:  the athletic director was the one who threw the streamers early at that womens game

was he even at the game yesterday? might have been the reason no streamer technicals were needed

In regards to the streamers, you'll now notice that there is a delay between the end of the game and the streamers being thrown out. I was told that the streamers will not be in the hands of the fans in the President's Suite in a close game until after the game is officially over. The administration is well aware that in Saturday's game, the streamers would have been prematurely thrown onto the court due to the issue with the buzzer.

"Spiker has already proven he can't recruit at Drexel."

Spiker was hired after many of the recruits had already signed. He's had exactly one full year of recruiting and despite that short time, he's brought in quality transfers in Isabell and Demir. Lee is not scoring at the rate he was last year but he's still contributing in other ways. Harper is even starting to get things together.

Coletrane Washington has shown promise, despite many recruiting outlets thinking he was going to be a class of 2019 guy.

Tim Perry Jr is redshirting this year so we will have four years of him.

It is WAY to early to judge the recruiting job done by Spiker and company.

what students want to watch lafayette bucknell and lehigh?

At this point I believe Spiker deserves one more year of recruiting and seeing how he does with "his" guys. After this year, pretty much all of Bruisers guys will have completed their time here. One more year is fair to build chemistry and show that their is stability. If we fire coaches too quickly no one with talent will come here.