City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Zach Spiker couldn’t have cared much less about his first Colonial Athletic Association win as head coach at Drexel.

Though his team’s 76-60 win on Saturday afternoon against archrival Delaware was the team’s first win since Dec. 26, Spiker was much happier about the days leading up to the weekend.

“I’m more excited that three of our last practices were pretty good,” he said. “We can’t get caught up in the result right now, we need to stay with what our focus is.”

Spiker has said all season long that his focus for Year One of his tenure in University City is about progress, and not much else.

But the Dragons hadn’t shown much of that their first four CAA games, giving up 90-plus points in their last two losses to UNC-Wilmington and Northeastern. It was after the Northeastern loss, a 92-75 defeat on Thursday, that the team might have taken a step forward.

“In practice, a couple of guys were very vocal after the Northeastern game, and I think it kind of sparked something in us that we needed from each other as a group and as a team,” junior guard Sammy Mojica said. “Yesterday’s practice was basically a lot about defense, just focusing and getting down and being able to guard your man, and I think we did a lot of that today.”

Drexel (7-11, 1-4 CAA) certainly frustrated its biggest rival on the defensive end. Delaware (7-12, 0-6) shot just 20-of-59 (33.9 percent) overall and 5-of-26 (19.2 percent) from beyond the arc.

Combined with 14 forced turnovers, it was one of the top overall defensive efforts of the season for the Dragons, setting a new season best in opponents’ field-goal percentage.

“They were an aggressive team, they were in the passing lanes, they were trying to take us out of our offense, bring the offense out 30 feet and beyond,” Delaware freshman Ryan Daly said. “So the easy baskets were very few, and when we got them we didn’t capitalize early.”

Conversely, Drexel only turned it over eight times against 20 assists, the second game in a row  and fourth time this season they’ve kept that number in single-digits.

“That’s a big deal, especially if we’re playing at a tempo that’s top 50 in the country,” said Spiker, whose Dragons were 48th in the country in tempo according to KenPom.“ If you can have under 10 turnovers, you’re getting a whole lot more opportunities and cracks at the rim. It allows you to shoot 25 percent from 3 and still come out on the top end because you’re getting more shots and playing at a better pace.”

Mojica had a big hand in that, coming up with a career-high 10 assists against one turnover. The 6-3 guard also came just a solitary point away from his first career triple-double, collecting a career-high 15 rebounds to go along with his nine points.

He had that many points at halftime, but went 0-for-5 from the floor in the second half.

“Towards the end, a little bit, I did hear from some of my teammates when I shot the ball, come on, you need one more,” he said. “I shot it, just wasn’t falling for me. But I’m happy with the win.”

Leading by just three with under four minutes to go in the first half, Drexel outscored its opponent 18-3 to span the half, going up by 19 points four minutes into the second.

Delaware got no closer than 13 points the rest of the way.

"The margin of this doesn’t tell the whole story, I thought that was a couple of possessions away from becoming a very, very tight game," Spiker said. "We made a couple foul shots, got a couple of rebounds and made some plays to keep some separation, but credit goes to them, I thought they fought hard and competed."

Senior forward Rodney Williams paced Drexel with 15 points to finish in double figures for the seventh consecutive game and 15th time this season. Fellow starting forward Austin Williams (no relation) had 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting and junior wing Miles Overton chipped in 13; freshman point guard Kurk Lee Jr. added 12 points and six assists against one tunover.

Delaware was led by senior guard Anthony "Champ" Mosley's 18 points. Daly, a 6-4 guard from Archbishop Carroll, added 13, nine rebounds and four assists.

Drexel will try to make it two wins in a row on Thursday with a trip to Elon (10-9, 2-4 CAA). Delaware will be in the friendly confines of the Bob Carpenter Center that night when it hosts Northeastern (12-6, 5-1).