City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2022-23 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 9. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season click here.)

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2022-23 Drexel Dragons MBB Primer
Coach: Zach Spiker, 7th season (76-103, .425)
Last Year: 15-14 (10-8 CAA); lost in CAA quarterfinals (Delaware, 66-56)

The first six years of the Spiker era at Drexel have seen the Dragons make slow steps forward out of the pit they were in by the end of the Bruiser Flint era, when they won just six games in 2015-16. The 15 victories last season were the most in a season since then, and their 10-8 mark in league play were the best in Spiker’s tenure, but they’ve got a lot of production and experience to replace and a lot of inexperienced faces to work with. 

Key Departures: G Camren Wynter (15.8 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 4.6 apg), G Xavier Bell (11.0 ppg), G/F Melik Martin (10.6 ppg, 5.3 rpg), PF James Butler (8.3 ppg, 7.2 rpg)

Four of Drexel’s top five scorers are gone, including the program’s sixth all-time leading scorer in Wynter (1,657 points), off to Penn State, plus another 1,000-point scorer in Butler (1,227) and a talented sophomore in Bell, who transferred to Wichita State. Those four, plus deeper reserves Matej Juric and Tre Brown, represented 66% of Drexel’s scoring from a year ago, not to mention an inside-out duo in Wynter and Butler that defined the Dragon’s attack the last four years.

New Faces: G Jamie Bergens (R-Soph./Oral Roberts), SG Shane Blakeney (Fr./Legion Collegiate, S.C.), SG Yame Butler (Soph./State Fair CC), F Cole Hargrove (Fr./Methacton, Pa.), SG Kobe Magee (Fr./Executive Education, Pa.), PG Justin Moore (Fr./Archbishop Wood, Pa.), F Garfield Turner (Soph./Odessa College)

It’s not a stretch to say that Spiker’s success with this group will go a long way towards helping shape his legacy at Drexel. If it’s more hits than misses, the program’s in good shape for a good few years; if not, it could be a few years at least before they’re back at the top of a suddenly-deeper CAA. At least two or three new faces will be significant parts of the rotation, and as many as five or six could see regular playing time as the year goes on. 

The most college-ready of the bunch of Moore, one of two local prospects, who comes in after a high school track that took him from Cheltenham to Bishop McDevitt, which promptly closed and necessitated a senior year at Wood, where he was one of the top guards in the region, earning all-PCL First Team honors. But Blakeney brings them scoring presence on the wing, and Bergens and Turner have a little more experience under their belts and Division I-ready bodies that will help them off the bat. 

Projected Starters: PG Justin Moore, SG Coletrane Washington (6.5 ppg), G/F Lamar Oden Jr. (4.6 ppg), SF Mate Okros (5.6 ppg), F/C Amari Williams (9.5 ppg, 7.3 rpg)

We’re going to give the true freshman the nod at point here, as the Drexel coaches see him as the PG of the future, and he at least has experience around him (with size) in the 6-4 Washington, 6-6 Oden, 6-6 Okros and 6-10 Williams, who have a few hundred collegiate games under their collective belts. We’d also be surprised if this group starts every game this season; with all the new faces and inexperience mixed in, it would be surprising not to see Spiker experiment at some point.

No matter what, someone in this group is going to have to step up and be a consistent 13-15 ppg scorer, but just who that is is a little unclear at the moment. The coaching staff’s all praised the way Washington’s played over the summer, and the 6-4 wing out of western Pennsylvania has shown the ability to light it up from deep (35.6%) and is in the best shape of his college career. Oden didn’t quite make the leap from freshman year (3.7 ppg) to sophomore, but he did hit 43.5% from deep on 62 attempts.

Key Reserves: F Terrence Butler (DNP), G Jamie Bergens, SG Shane Blakeney, PF Garfield Turner

Technically the ‘DNP’ by Butler’s name isn’t quite right, as he played a total of four minutes in one game due to injury, but if he’s back to being healthy, the 6-7 combo forward brings a nice dose of strength and athleticism to the frontcourt. Turner will be Williams’ main backup in the post, while Bergens will back up Moore and Blakeney will give them extra wing scoring. While this group looks like the first one to get reserve minutes, don’t count out the likes of Butler, Hargrove and Magee from getting their time at some point.

By the Numbers

(7): New Scholarship Players. Yeah, we’ve mentioned it already, but it bears repeating; more than half of Drexel’s scholarship players are in their first year in the program. And maybe this trend is something that will happen more often with the new NCAA transfer rules, but seven still seems like it’ll be the exception rather than the norm. Just how quickly this group can build chemistry and establish roles will be the ultimate factor towards their success this year, and there’s no way to know until things start to count.

(.254): Last year, Drexel’s men only got to the foul line about once for every four shots they took, a free-throw rate (25.4%) that was 309th in the country, according to KenPom. That’s an area in which Spiker’s teams have struggled, never finishing higher than 225th (31.8% in 2018); top teams in that area have a free-throw rate between 45-50%. Spiker has said he wants his team to get to the line much more often this season, so that FTR will be a telling number if it’s working.

(2,112) Exact number of points the Dragons scored last season. If you’re a Rush fan, this will mean something. If not….Listen to my music, hear what it can do

Keep an eye on…

Defensive Efficiency: The Dragons put up their best defensive numbers of the Spiker tenure last year, coming in third in the CAA in allowing 1.03 points per possession, right in line with their weighted season average. That was good for 176th nationally, a 70-spot bump from the year before and 150 spots better than 2018-19 (1.13 ppp). Spiker’s got a new, young group, but it’s also possible they improve defensively, without Butler playing through injury, and with even more length on the wings. If they can hold their own defensively, they will be in bet

Williams’ impact: The biggest differentiator the Dragons have is Williams, who should be one of the best big men in the league this season. With his size and the way he moves, Spiker and the Drexel staff have to do whatever they can to get him in mismatch and post-up situations, and they need the guards to be able to create off the bounce in order to take pressure off the post and allow Williams to go to work; defensively, they also need to make sure to keep him out of foul trouble. The more he can be on the floor, the better, though the staff seems high on Turner’s ability to give them quality minutes in the post when Williams isn’t on the floor.