By Kyle Kandetzki – Assistant Sports Editor Originally published 1/21/15
The Hofstra Pride men’s basketball team has gone from undefeated in conference play to quickly trying to stop the bleeding. After back-to-back losses to Northeastern and UNC-W, Hofstra finds themselves at 4-2 with their first meeting with the Drexel Dragons coming up. Drexel’s struggles this season might mean they are just the opponent Hofstra needs to get back on their feet.
THE BASIC INFORMATION: Drexel University is a 25,000+-student school (20,000 if you remove online students) located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel also sports blue and gold jerseys with a Dragon as their mascot.
HISTORY:The Dragons joined DI competition in 1973, while becoming part of the CAA in 2001. Drexel has never won a CAA tournament, though were regular season champions in 2012. They have four NCAA Tournament bids, with one first round victory in 1996 against 5th-seeded Memphis.
LAST YEAR: Drexel submitted a very average effort last season, going 8-8 in conference and 16-14 overall. They also defeated the Pride in both meetings. The Dragons ultimately fell in the tournament quarterfinals to Northeastern.
THIS YEAR: It has been a huge drop off for Drexel this season, as they would need to win all of their remaining games to even match their record from last season. The Dragons sit at 4-13, and 2-4 in the CAA, with their wins coming against Cornell (8-9), Southern Miss (5-11), Towson, and the only team struggling more in the CAA in Delaware.
Aiding their dip in quality this season was six players graduating, and one transferring. Three of those players combined to average nearly 41 points and 13 boards per game alone.
THE COACH: Drexel’s head coach is James “Bruiser” Flint, who is in his 14th season with the program, making him the longest tenured coach in the CAA. Flint was also born in Philly, and played for Saint Joseph’s during his playing career. Flint was previously an assistant at UMass with current coach of the top-ranked Kentucky Wildcats, John Calipari. He was then the head coach for five seasons after Calipari left.
Flint has won 4 CAA Coach of the Year awards with Drexel.
CURRENT ROSTER: The obvious leader of this offensively weak team is junior guard Damion Lee, who has effectively come back with a vengeance after missing most of last season with a knee injury. Lee leads the CAA in points per game with 20.2, and does it efficiently at 43%. Lee also uses his 6’6” stature to grab 6.2 boards per game. Lee is accountable to have huge offensive explosions, as he has put up 32 points twice this season, and scored 20+ seven times. Lee plays Juan’ya Green-esque minutes, tending to appear in most of the game, with 37.5 on average. Finally, Lee is the only viable option to go toe-to-toe with Hofstra’s 3-point shooting, as he shoots at 39%, while no one else on the Dragons is over 26%.
The drop off is huge in production to the next best scorer, fellow junior guard Tavon Allen. Allen is also the final player on this team to score in double figures at 10.7 PPG, but lacks shot efficiency at 31%. His liability for taking bad shots includes a 3-for-11 effort v. JMU, 1-for-14 v. William & Mary, and 4-for-17 v. Miami. He is also the most turnover prone on the Dragons at 2.6 per game.
The lone (consistent) contributor at the forward spot is 6’7” sophomore Rodney Williams. Williams adds efficient supplementary scoring at 7.7 PPG, and is prolific under the hoop with 8.1 RPG. Williams is a similar liability at the free throw line to Ameen Tanksley, with a 55% mark from there.
The final player to add more than 4.5 PPG is guard Rashann London, who puts up 8 PPG on 44% scoring.
From there, Drexel has five players that average 10+ minutes on the floor, but 4.3 PPG or fewer, including final member of the starting five, forward Mohamed Bah (3.6 PPG, 4.6 RPG)
WEAKNESSES: As mentioned above, the lack of depth absolutely kills this Drexel team. Their fifth best scorer barely even averages two buckets per game, while three players who do play somewhat formidable minutes don’t even go above 1.5 PPG. If Lee and/or Allen don’t show up, this team has no chance. Even with good efforts, it might not be enough anyway.
Teams stats to back up their poor offensive play include 56 PPG as a squad, among the ten worst teams in the nation. A 38% field goal percentage is good for the bottom twenty teams in DI. And this team has no true passing leader, as 2.3 is good enough for best on the team.
Continuing the assault on this team’s poor offensive efforts, they have scored 70 just twice (both times in losses), something that Hofstra has done in all but four games. Lastly, Drexel is only two games removed from scoring just 35 points v. JMU. Ouch.
THE MATCHUP: Hofstra came up very short of expectations in their second game against UNC-Wilmington, but this game falls below a potential trap game. This should hopefully be a breeze for the Pride. Delaware isn’t particularly impressive in any category across the board, and has little offensive to counter Hofstra’s 18th best- in-scoring roster. Hofstra has allowed some weaker offenses to score more than typical several times, but even a season-high probably won’t be enough for the Dragons here (71 points, by the way, would do that).
Fresh off a great performance, Moussa Kone could have a field day against an unimpressive front court set, while all guards like Green and Brian Bernardi need to do is keep Lee under 35, and a mediocre offensive performance should be enough to capture the win.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Juan’ya Green to respond from a lackluster game against UNC-W. He has these inaccurate shooting nights every few games, but he always bounces back. Hopefully that will be the case again here.
I’d also look for Hofstra to calm down their defense that has been shaky these past two games. Delaware should be easy to limit, but if Hofstra continues to make mistakes, that isn’t a good sign for improving for upcoming better opponents.
PROJECTED STARTING LINEUPS Pride Green (17.7 PPG, 5 RPG, 6.2 APG, 2-for-11 v. UNC-W) Bernardi (12 PPG, 1-for-6 v. UNC-W) Nichols (6.1 PPG, 4.8 RPG, Last game: First double figure scoring game since 12/20) Tanksley (18.9 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 50% FG,) Kone (7.4 PPG, 4.5 RPG, Last game: season-high 14 pts)
Dragons Lee (20.2 PPG, 6.2 RPG, double-double in last game) Allen (10.4 PPG, 31% FG) London (8 PPG, 44% FG) Williams (7.7 PPG, 8.1 RPG, 1.3 BPG) Bah (3.6 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 24 MPG)
NEXT UP: 1/24 v. James Madison