City of Basketball Love

Ty Daubert (@TyDaubert)   
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For Drexel men’s basketball to defend its first-ever Colonial Athletic Association title, a trio of sophomores will need to step up and fill some important roles. Xavier Bell, Lamar Oden Jr. and Amari Williams all got their feet wet a year ago, but had the luxury of being auxiliary pieces, important but less critical to the team's overall success.

That isn’t the case this year. The Dragons need the trio to fill big holes in production. All three flashed their progression in their first opportunity of the season at Daskalakis Athletic Center on Tuesday night as Drexel hosted D-III Neumann in its season opener.

“Amari has gotten better. And so has Lamar. And so has X,” sixth-year Dragons coach Zach Spiker said. “... I thought they did a good job, all of them, in their opportunities and moments.”

Drexel — looking to replace the graduated Zach Walton (10.5 ppg last season) and T.J. Bickerstaff (10.2 ppg), who transferred to Boston College — will need players to surround and complement its two standouts in senior guard and CAA Preseason Player of the Year Camren Wynter (16.2 ppg) and CAA Preseason First Team forward James Butler (12.8 ppg, 9.2 rpg). Grad transfer Melik Martin will help fill out the team after coming from Monmouth along with Bell, Oden and Williams.

Each of the three sophomores will be asked to take on different tasks as role players in 2021-2022, but collectively getting better and becoming more effective in the minutes they play will be the key. They were all productive in their roles as the Dragons defeated the Knights 103-74.

Bell (below, middle), who averaged 4.0 points per game last season, is back in the starting lineup after being moved there down the stretch last year. He’s expected to be the Dragons primary perimeter defender and knock down shots beyond the arc after shooting 42% from 3-point range last season.

Tuesday, the 6-foot-3 guard scored 14 points and went 2-for-6 from deep, while recording six rebounds and a steal.

Oden, who played in all but one game last season to average 3.7 points per game, will serve in an extended bench role. He shot 4-for-8 from the floor and 4-for-6 from 3 against Neumann for 12 points and added six rebounds. Oden’s scoring is valuable in a reserve role, and at 6-6, his length and versatility on defense is incredibly useful as well.

The player who’s being asked to take the biggest jump is perhaps the one who showed the most improvement. Williams played 15 games last season, averaging 4.0 minutes, 1.1 points and 1.0 rebounds per game. He’s now slated to be Drexel’s backup big, and put on 25 pounds of muscle this offseason to get ready for the role.

Williams played well in 18 minutes off the bench on Tuesday, dropping 10 points with seven rebounds, three blocks and going 6-for-6 from the foul line. At 6-foot-10, 250 pounds, the British import exemplified the difference between D-I and D-III players: size and strength. But, as seen in a thunderous first-half dunk and two monster blocks in the second half, his physicality should play at any level.

The success of these three in game action was a positive sign that the work they put in ahead of the season has been getting them ready.

“They’re moving in the right direction,” Spiker said of the three. “Today’s game day, so this is one day. We’ve had 32, 30 practices, whatever it may be. They’ve moved and they’ve done a good job in our fall camp.”

It wasn’t all perfect for Drexel, as the Dragons did run into some issues on defense, particularly in stopping Knights guard Tyler Norwood. The junior, who led Penncrest to back-to-back District 1 titles in 2017 and 2018, scored 29 points for Neumann and went 8-for-15 on 3s. The perimeter and transition defense will need to improve to prevent performances like this against greater opponents, and Bell and Oden should be able to contribute there. 

Even with improvements to be made, the first game was a first chance to settle into certain roles for the Dragons. They’ll need to continue succeeding in them throughout the rest of their schedule, starting with Friday’s 5 PM matchup against Fairleigh Dickinson.

“Ths was one game. This was one opportunity,” Spiker said. “I thought we made the most of it, and we’ll move on from there.”

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Drexel women come up short against Marist

With a shot to tie the season opener after struggling offensively all night, Drexel missed a golden opportunity at the rim in the game’s closing moments — and then another.

Down two points to visitor Marist with 11 seconds left, the Dragons streaked down the floor for their last offensive chance. Point guard Hannah Nihill pushed the ball and found Tessa Brugler at the left side of the basket, but the forward’s layup attempt was too strong. Brugler grabbed her own rebound and put it back up, but still couldn’t convert.

Marist came down with the ball with 0.6 seconds left and called timeout before inbounding it to seal a 52-50 win. 

“I’m sure she’s going to punch herself a little bit about those layups,” second-year Drexel coach Amy Mallon said of Brugler, “but that was the execution. We didn’t have timeouts. We knew that. Hannah, a fifth-year point guard, did an excellent job getting it down there and gave us an opportunity, again, to tie the game. And I think it shows we can do the execution, and now we have to finish it.”

Up to that point, Brugler, a grad transfer from Bucknell who was named first team all-Patriot League and Patriot League all-defense last season, had been a huge reason Drexel was still in the game. As the Dragons shot 21-for-62 (33.9%) from the field, the 6-foot-1 Brugler tallied 14 rebounds, including six on the offensive end, while adding 12 points. 

She had also previously tied the game at 50-50 by knocking down two late foul shots, before Zaria Demember-Shazer gave the Foxes the lead for good with a layup.

Despite the disappointing finish, Mallon is confident Brugler can come through in those moments moving forward and continue to help the defending CAA champions throughout the season. Drexel has its own banner unveiling ceremony on Friday, just before hosting St. Joe’s (1-0) — with Tessa’s sister Talya Brugler, a freshman forward, starting in the Hawks’ frontcourt.

“I think you’re going to see more of that in the future,” Mallon said. “And I guarantee the next time it happens for Tessa, it’s going to go in."