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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Zach Spiker’s run as Drexel’s men’s head coach is making the transition from ‘stint’ to ‘era,’ much quicker than the former West Point coach would like to admit. It’s now going into seven years in University City for the 45-year-old, who arrived in town in 2016 with an entirely new style from that of his 15-year predecessor, Bruiser Flint, a transition that didn’t happen easily or immediately.

“It feels like it’s been seven minutes,” Spiker said after a late September practice, one of the Dragons’ first of the preseason. “I just found my favorite cheesesteak spot the other day.” 

(The Happy Sunshine Food Truck at 33rd and Arch, for those curious. Spiker recommends the buffalo chicken cheesesteak).

Spiker has achieved enough in his first six seasons to merit extending his stay, earning a trip to the 2021 NCAA Tournament thanks to a run through the CAA tournament, yet his program still has room to grow. Now he faces the most significant rebuild since his first year, his squad needing to replace a core it’s been built around for the last four years.

Camren Wynter and James Butler made a combined 209 starts and teamed up for nearly 2,900 points in Drexel uniforms, the 6-foot-3 guard from New York and 6-9 forward from Virginia becoming an instant hit as an inside-out duo. Wynter, the 2018-19 CAA Rookie of the Year, turned into one of the best mid-major guards in the country, averaging more than 15 ppg the last three seasons; Butler became the fourth 1,000-1,000 player in DU history, even after transferring in from Navy. 

Those two alone leave a gaping hole in production, leadership and know-how, and they’re not the only ones gone. 

Wynter’s using up his last year of eligibility at Penn State, while second-leading scorer Xavier Bell transferred to Wichita State and third-leading scorer Melik Martin is out of his college years. Throw in Butler, and the Dragons will have to replace four of their five leading scorers from a year ago; several other rotation members also graduated, leaving Drexel without 66% of its scoring output.

“If someone told you (we) were going to lose players [in the last three years] to Minnesota, Boston College, Penn State, Wichita State and Saint Louis, you’d probably say ‘s***, he got fired,’” Spiker quipped. “No, we’ve gotten better. Second-most wins in the city, next to ‘Nova, the last three seasons.”

Spiker’s not wrong in his last point: the Dragons’ 41 wins are more than Temple (36), La Salle (35) and St. Joe’s (22), though Penn won 28 without playing the 2020-21 season, and none of those numbers are much to write home about.

But the analytics support their improvement as well. Ken Pomeroy’s models had Drexel No. 153 out of 358 Division I teams a year ago, the best finish in Spiker’s tenure, up only a few spots (No. 158) from the year before — but those two seasons were a substantial improvement on the four before them, when the Dragons finished between 244-251 each season.

They improved on both sides of the ball, too; the offense went from the high-200s his first two years to 147th last year, and the defense went from the 280-290s range up to No. 176 last year. It’s not the Flint era of defense, for sure — Drexel had a top-25 defense three times between 2005-06 and 2010-11 — but Spiker’s teams are more efficient offensively, no doubt.

Now Spiker’s got a new cast to work with, with seven new scholarship faces on the roster; four freshmen — including former Archbishop Wood point guard Justin Moore and Methacton forward Cole Hargrove — plus two junior college transfers and one D-I transfer, all of whom have sophomore eligibility.

There are a few holderovers, but there’s no denying that the Dragons which take the court this fall are going to look drastically different from their predecessors. 

“I think certainly the energy’s new, but I think it’s been great to have guys that are [...] excited to be at Drexel,” Spiker said. “Whatever their path has been, Drexel is the stop for them, and they’re excited to be here and [...] are willing to buy into what we’ve done well and keep it going and enhance it.”

(Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

“The energy we’ve got in practice has been awesome,” senior wing Mate Okros (pictured above) said. “We’ve just been competing. There’s a whole new style of guys, so obviously we need to get used to that but I feel like it’s been awesome. It’s been really exciting so far.”

Okros is one of three returners with significant experience, the 6-foot-6 Hungarian wing averaging 5.9 ppg in 71 games (60 starts) over the last three years. Junior forward Amari Williams and fifth-year senior guard Coletrane Washington, who each started 17 games a year ago, will return to the starting lineup; junior wing Lamar Oden Jr. (15.5 mpg) is the only significant returning bench piece, and he’ll likely slide into the starting five.

After that, it’s going to be fresh faces, and a few have started to rise closer to the rotation than away from it. 

Moore, a 6-3 point guard, might — like Wynter — have the ball in his hands from Day One; fellow freshman Shane Blakeney, a 6-5 wing, has come on strong in the last few weeks as well with his shot-making and play-making, as well as his length and versatility on the perimeter. And Garfield Turner, a 6-8 forward out of Odessa (Tex.) College, has impressed with his motor and rebounding abilities. 

Oral Roberts transfer Jamie Bergens, Executive Education Charter wing Kobe Magee, and Fork Union transfer guard Yame Butler make up the rest of the newcomers.

Spiker and his staff couldn’t have picked a better offseason for the Dragons to take advantage of the NCAA rules that permit teams to take one international trip every four years. Four games in Italy in August, against a mix of U-19 and professional teams from around Europe, was a good chance for Spiker to get an early evaluation on his team, and to try out some new rotations and lineups.

“It was perfect [timing],” Spiker said. “We’ve already played four games with this team, we know who needs to do what and what’s going on. It’s invaluable, and that was our plan all along.”

The anchor returning in the middle is Williams, an imposing physical force in the paint who can play above the rim and has added 25 pounds to his frame, reaching 250 as he enters his upperclassman years. 

Williams took a big step forward last year, from averaging 1.1 ppg as a freshman in spot minutes to 9.5 ppg and 7.3 rpg as a sophomore, leading the CAA in blocks (2.0/game); counting out the first nine games, he averaged 12.0 ppg and 8.4 rpg while making 55% of his shots.

“I think another step [for him] is going to be on the offensive side, being good with the basketball,” Spiker said. “Understanding how big he is and how active he is, can finish around the rim. He’s got a wide base and he’s going there, he’s got to go to the foul line.”

Williams is also going to have to be one of the mentors for the young group, taking a major step up in leadership from last year’s senior-dominant squad.

“Just being a leader in practice, being vocal, more vocal than I was before, just things like that and just trying to stay consistent in practice,” he said. “We’re kind of clicking together now, understanding each other’s games and stuff, getting used to how we play. We’ve got a good team coming together.”

It’s clear just from watching the Dragons practice for an hour that there’s no shortage of size and talent around the roster, and Spiker’s got himself an interesting group to build around for the next few years. How much it comes together right off the bat certainly remains to be seen, especially in a Colonial Athletic Association that added four new programs this offseason in Hampton, North Carolina A&T, Monmouth and Stony Brook. 

That’s a lot of unknowns in the mix.

“It’s always evolving, it’s evolving,” Spiker said. “I think we’re evolving to a different version of where we were. I love where we’re going.”