City of Basketball Love

Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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When Delaware and Drexel finished up their 2014-15 campaigns, it’s not likely either of them thought they’d be sitting at the very bottom of the Colonial Athletic Association standings the following February.

The media agreed, ranking Delaware fifth and Drexel eighth--even after the departure of former Dragon, now Louisville Cardinal Damion Lee--out of ten CAA teams in the league’s preseason poll.

Nonetheless, that’s exactly where the Blue Hens and Dragons found themselves, at the conference cellar, with just one league win between the two of them when they met on February 12 at UD’s Bob Carpenter Center.

Delaware, whose worst start in league play under head coach Monte Ross to this point was 0-5--seven games better than this season’s start--decided it was tired of sitting alone in the cellar, and finally earned its first win, taking down Drexel in front of the home crowd by a final score of 69-60.

“It’s very easy, when you’re going through what we’re going through, to get down and have a woe is me type of attitude, and they didn’t have that at all,” said Ross. “They just kept going play by play by play, and when we started off the second half, able to get some momentum and get some place, and in typical Drexel-Delaware fashion they come back and tie it...I was really proud of the win, happy to finally get one, and we’ll see what happens from here.”

The case could be made that both of these teams have been given a “raw deal.” For the Hens, season-ending injuries to the likes of Chivarsky Corbett, as well as the brief absences of Devonne Pinkard and Barnett Harris, put them in a tough spot with little depth.

“One of the things that was said about our team was that when you come to practice, you can’t tell what our record is,” Ross added. “That’s a testament to our guys and their passion and the love for being here at the University of Delaware and playing basketball. But with that being said, it was very important for us to finally get a win...it’s important for them to experience good things from the hard work that they’ve put in.”

As for Drexel, Lee’s transfer, as head coach Bruiser Flint would put it, forced several of his players into roles for which they weren’t yet prepared.

More specifically, without Lee, it’s becoming apparent that Flint’s team lacks the one player who can step up in pressure situations and make a clutch basket.

“You’ve got to make a plan when it’s time to make a play, we came down three straight times in a two-point game and missed every shot,” said Flint. “We need a guy to be able to step up and make a couple of those. Two four minute periods without scoring, somebody’s got to say ‘alright I got to get us a bucket,’ or ‘I got to get us to the foul line.’ Somebody’s got to say that.”

While all that is true, not many excuses can be made for two teams whose combined records sit at 9-39. Drexel and Delaware aren’t just the two worst teams in the CAA, they now each sit three full games behind the next worst team, Northeastern, in terms of conference record.

That said, when they met Thursday night in Newark, it ended up making for an exciting game. Drexel held an early lead, but a 16-2 UD run between the end of the first half and the beginning of the second allowed the Hens to take a quick 39-32 lead.

“For us, we go on scoring droughts, and a lot of times when we go on those droughts, the other team is scoring, so they can get away from us because we don’t have the firepower,” said Ross. “I think the same thing happens for Drexel sometimes, they go on scoring droughts and if they can’t hold the other team at bay, I think that’s what happened for us, we were able to score while they were going through a scoring drought and we were able to score the basketball. I would love to tell you that it was our defense stopping them, but it was probably more of a product of them missing shots.”

The Dragons weren’t ready to move into a tie for last place just yet following that period of limited success; they clawed back to have things tied up at 51 with 7:48 to play. Delaware responded with a quick 10-3 spurt, but after a timeout at the 5:11 mark, Drexel swiftly pulled back within two in the next eighty-five seconds.

However, that was about as close as the Dragons could get, as Delaware--whether it came from their conference standing, winless CAA record, or just sheer will to win--seemed to have just a little bit more more in their tanks to close out the win.

Leading the way for Delaware the whole way was senior forward Marvin King-Davis. He was just one rebound away from a double-double, dropping 23 points while snatching nine boards.

“I thought Marvin was terrific in terms of getting off to a good start to the game and in the second half he really got us going and got himself going,” Ross said of his big man. “when you see the ball go in the basket for one of your teammates, it sort of gives you confidence as well, and I thought we played like a confident team in the second half.”

As for Drexel, the Dragons' lead scorer was Sammy Mojica, who scored the first nine points of the game and finished with 16 on the night; all five of his made field goals were three-pointers.

While this win ended a dismal 15-game losing streak, the challenges for Delaware don’t end here by any means. In order to build a head of steam and create some late-season success, the Hens, according to Ross, will have to continue doing what they’ve been doing all year, while building confidence from finally seeing the fruit of their labor.

“Each game is its own separate entity, but I think we can draw some confidence and say, ‘hey, if we do the right things, then it won’t be a close loss, maybe it’ll be a win for us,’” Ross concluded. “We’ve done some good things, we’ve had a number of close losses or some games where we were in a two-point game with three minutes and we didn’t finish the game. Our challenges are not over...but knowing that if we do the right things we can come out with a victory, I think is very, very important for this group.”