City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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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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Drexel women’s basketball coach Amy Mallon understands things will look different on the floor this season.

For the first time in five seasons point guard Hannah Nihill won’t be running up and down the floor causing chaos on both ends and three other starters from last season’s squad graduated as well. 

Those four Dragons leave with them 1,295 points, 727 rebounds, 322 assists, 166 steals and 48 blocks to replace.

“We talk about having a foundation, which as a program we have a foundation, even with some of the seniors coming back we have a solid foundation, but we have a lot of building to do to get where we need to go,” Mallon said. “But it’s exciting to work with this group. It’s a little bit different than what we had last year when we had a lot of experience back. I’m looking forward to kind of seeing where this team goes this year.”

Drexel went 28-6 last season with a 16-2 record in the CAA. The Dragons finished with the best record in the conference but fell in the CAA title game before advancing to the WNIT third round.

Along with Nihill (13.9 ppg, 4.8 apg, 2.2 spg), Tessa Brugler (13.9 ppg, 8.9 rpg), Mariah Leonard (6.7 ppg, 6.6 rpg) and Kate Connolly (3.9 ppg, 2.9 rpg) made up about 60 percent of Drexel’s scoring and rebounding that need to be replaced.

It’s quite a different situation from last season when all five starters returned for the Dragons.

But Mallon does have two pillars to lean on as the rest of her roster attempts to figure things out. Graduate guards Keishana Washington and Maura Hendrixson have been fixtures on the floor at the DAC for the last several seasons.

“They’ve both been part of really successful teams here, so as a coach you know right away you have two people back who have won CAA championships, who have won regular-season titles and have been part of a team who have won the most games in history,” Mallon said. “That alone, you know they know what it take to get that done, so they’re going to demand that from their teammates. I think that way they’re going to lead just naturally. People are going to follow them.”

Washington was a first team All-CAA and All-City 6 selection, averaging 19.2 ppg, 2.6 apg and 2.9 rpg for the Dragons in 2021-22. Hendrixson was essentially a sixth starter, averaging 3.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg and 3.4 apg in 25.3 minutes per game.

During their first four seasons on campus, the pair have been part of two CAA regular-season titles, two WNIT trips and a CAA tournament championship and NCAA Tournament appearance.

Washington, entering her fourth season as a starter, isn’t concerned about the group’s inexperience, pointing to the NCAA Tournament team in 2020-21 when the Dragons went 14-9 (8-6 CAA) after replacing a strong group of seniors before a run through the conference tournament.

“It’s different in terms of experience, but if you remember the year prior, we lost a core group of seniors, Bailey Greenberg’s class, and we had the same issue of lack of experience,” Washington said. “But I think it’s just creating your own identity, creating a new identity for this team and that’s something that we have to work on to figure out.”

The Dragons have a handful of other upperclassmen, including senior guard Tori Hyduke, senior forward Hetta Saatman and senior forward Bri Borcky (Garnet Valley), who played limited roles last season.

“For me, I’ve played every year I’ve been here, so I know the standard,” Washington said. “I know what’s expected to win. A lot of my teammates have been a part of it. They know what’s expected, but it’s on myself and the other seniors on the team to continue pushing them because we know what it takes to get to the top.”

Freshman point guard Grace O’Neill (Archbishop Carroll), whose cousin Meghan Creighton (2012-2017) is one of the most decorated players in program history, appears poised to fill Nihill’s shoes at the point guard spot. Freshman 6-foot-2 forward Kylie Lavelle is another who looks like a likely member of the Dragons’ rotation.

Between the freshmen and the fifth-year guards there are a number of breakout candidates on this Drexel roster. Junior forward Jasmine Valentine (2.1 ppg, 2.5 rpg) averaged 11.1 minutes per game and put together some promising performances at the end of last season. Junior forward Erin Sweeney (Archbishop Carroll), sophomore guard Momo Laclair and sophomore forward Sira Ba all saw limited action last season.

“This team, I think in some ways, is going to surprise others,” Mallon said. “I think that we know Keishana Washington, people know that name, but I’m really excited. I think some of the players we have are going to surprise a little bit, what they’re capable of doing.”

With so much unknown it will be hard to replicate the 17-2 start they went on last season, but the Dragons hope by the end of the season the product they put on the floor can resemble the postseason squads of the recent past.

“We have four freshmen, so there’s definitely a lot of patience being played in practice and when we play in games because they’re all learning … even the juniors as well too because they’re all stepping up because we lost four people last year,” Hendrixson said.

“It’s such a long season, so just being patient in the fall, winter and just knowing whatever happens now will just set us up for conference play,” she added. “Definitely being patient with games and playing with new people.”

How this group responds to some potentially challenging times will help Mallon figure out a lot about them.

“You’re not going to be perfect, so things are gonna happen,” Mallon said. “How we respond I think is going to build this team. That I don’t know now. That’s what you try to figure out with so many new people. Last year, I kind of knew what I had because I had that group for a long time.

“I knew what they were gonna do, so it was ‘How are we going to get them to the finished product where we’re going?’ This group, I think we’re kind of building and trying to figure that out. I think we’ll get there but how we build on it is up to them.”