City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Amy Mallon knows all the winning her team’s done this year won’t matter much if they can’t get three more. 

Drexel’s women are rolling into this weekend’s Colonial Athletic Association tournament the favorites — though not an overwhelming one — as the league’s regular-season champions, the defending title holders, not to mention the tournament hosts. They’re 24-4 on the season, 16-2 in CAA play, having beaten every other program in the 10-team league at least once.

But if they lose one of their next three games, it’ll be another year in the NIT, the tournament they were in five straight years from 2015-19. For a program that features six seniors, which has had its eye on March Madness since a loss to Georgia in last year’s NCAA Tournament, this is what they’ve been waiting for, and now it’s time to execute.

“I think it starts back to Day One,” Mallon, the Dragons’ second-year head coach said by phone on Wednesday. “The one thing we talked about [...] is about being consistent with what we did every day. [...] You look at that record, 24-4, that’s a pretty consistent team at what you’re doing and what you’re teaching every day,

“You talk about pressure, and I feel like if you make something special, it adds pressure,” added Mallon, who spent 16 years as a Drexel assistant, and just won CAA Coach of the Year for the first time. “Obviously we welcome being home and hosting the tournament, but treating everything the same, that’s what our goal is this week. We’re treating these games as we did all year long, we want to be as consistent as we can as we approach each game and what we do, and if we do that, I think we’re in a position to be successful.”

The Dragons certainly have all the pieces in place.

There’s senior guard Keishana Washington, a first-team All-CAA selection and the CAA Scholar-Athlete of the year, who leads the squad in scoring (19.4 ppg), making 33.8% from beyond the arc. Tessa Brugler, the Bucknell grad transfer who’s fit in flawlessly, averaging 14.0 ppg and a team-high 8.6 rpg, a second-team all-conference pick. Hannah Nihill, the 2020-21 CAA Defensive Player of the Year and 2021-22 all-conference second team pick, whose scoring output matches Brugler (14.0 ppg), a team-best 5.1 apg. 

Round out the senior class with Mariah Leonard (6.3 ppg/6.8 rpg), Kate Connolly (3.1 ppg) and Maura Hendrixson (3.1 ppg), and you’ve got the large bulk of Mallon’s production, leadership, experience, etc. 

It’s a group that’s easy to watch, ranking in the top-25 nationally in both assists per game (19th) and assist rate (21st), according to HerHoopStats, which has the Dragons 31st nationally in points per 100 possessions, third in turnovers per game, a top-60 team nationally.

Nihill (12) sets the tone for a Drexel program that's one of the best in the country at sharing the ball. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Now they’re about to play their last stretch together, having won 84 games in the last four years, wanting desperately to get to 87, for a shot at 88.

“Last year, we took it one game at a time and we were just kind of focusing, even right now, on just the five minutes that we have in front of us,” Nihill said, “so we know that we just have to take it one game at a time, just stay in the moment and play as hard as we can.”

Staying loose, as much as possible, is a necessity.

“[We’re] just having fun with it, knowing that it is our last year and we want to continue our season,” Washington said, “so that’s definitely something that keeps us going, motivates us to stay connected and do what we need to do to win another championship.

“It starts at practice, you know sometimes we’ll play fun games [...] just to loosen up the vibe a little bit,” the 5-foot-7 Toronto native added. “During warmups, it’s singing, dancing, little things like that that can get us more hyped up for the game.”

It helps that Drexel, which is only hosting the tournament due to scheduled hosts James Madison voting to leave the conference last fall, gets to surround itself with familiarity during the weekend stretch, which opens noon Friday with a game against No. 8 Hofstra (7-19, 4-14). They get their own locker room, their own video room, no travel, no strange beds, their fans just a couple blocks away.

“It’s been really awesome so far to see them set up the court, put all the logos down,” said Nihill, who starred at Cardinal O’Hara before coming to West Philadelphia. “Just knowing that all the teams are going to be coming in soon, I think it’s really exciting and awesome for the DAC and all the students here, hopefully we get a big support system.”

While the Dragons’ first opponent might not be a huge threat to knock them off, winning the CAA tournament will not be easy. Archrival Delaware (21-7, 15-3) is the No. 2 seed, and No. 3 Towson (23-6, 14-4) just beat Drexel in the regular-season finale; one of those two is likely to be the opponent in the championship game. The Dragons’ second-round game would come against either No. 4 Elon (17-11, 9-9) or No. 5 Charleston (17-12, 9-9), the only other team to beat Drexel since Nov. 26.

Although Drexel comes in with the security that it’s done this before, that nobody beats the Dragons in the ‘been-there’ factor (Brugler also made an NCAA Tournament, her sophomore year at Bucknell), that all the intangibles that could be in their favor are there, nobody’s resting on their laurels.

As Mallon noted, most players would love to end their college careers saying they won three conference regular-season titles and one conference tournament, would easily sign up for that experience as they pick a school their junior or senior year of high school. But for this Drexel team, anything less than a second conference title, anything less than another dance, will feel like it’s not quite enough.

“That’s what I love most about this opportunity this year — it’s a chance for this team,” Mallon said. “We use the success we had in the past as momentum, but understand this is our chance to write our own story, our own history as a team, and I have no doubt that this team’s prepared and able to do it.

“We have all the pieces that we need.”