City of Basketball Love

Matt Trabold (@TrabsMatt)
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NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. -- As the National Weather Service issued a special weather statement not long after the opening tip about imminent wet snow coming into the Niagara Falls area, the perimeter shooting from Niagara that Drexel had to deal with on this night was anything but cold.

Niagara shot a blistering 10-of-12 from behind the arc en route to an 85-68 win that saw a trio of Purple Eagles record career-high totals for points in a single game. Two of those Purple Eagles in Marvin Prochet and freshman James Towns both only made two three-pointers through four games on the season coming into the day.

“I think they did a terrific job. I don’t know if they’ll go 10-for-12 from three many nights,” first-year Drexel head coach Zach Spiker said. “I think what we need to look at for our team to get better is which one of those (three-pointers) could we have done something about and which one of those was just Niagara’s night. The ones that we can control, we’ve got to clean up.”

The contest appeared to be shaping up for a competitive second half after the Dragons clawed to shave five points off their deficit in the final nine minutes and change of the first half to go into the halftime break trailing by just a single tally. Junior guard Sammy Mojica had eight points in the final 8:03 of that span. Before his pair of triples in that stretch, Drexel had converted on just one of its seven attempts from downtown up to that point.

“Sammy is going to be big for us all season. Sammy is a big part of what we do,” Spiker said.

A mid-range jumper by Prochet to get the Niagara lead to back above a one-possession game just 38 ticks into the second half was a sign of things to come. The next time down the floor for the Purple Eagles, Prochet canned a threeball and followed it up right on the other end with a block on reigning Colonial Athletic Association Rookie of the Week Kurk Lee.

Despite the first made bucket by Towns in the second half giving Niagara its largest lead of the game at that moment with a score of 70-52 just a minute and a half prior, an energy boost was thrust upon Spiker’s forces as a Mojica score was quickly followed up by the Dragons drawing a charge on Matt Scott. Spiker, knowing a media timeout was imminent with 7:58 remaining in regulation, even scooted out to the center court logo before the whistles were fully blown to congratulate his guys heading over to the sideline.

That slight bit of momentum was short-lived though as the ballgame’s dagger moment arguably came with four and a half minutes left to play. With Drexel’s Icelandic freshman guard Kári Jónsson draped all over him, Southern California transfer Kahlil Dukes threw up and sent home a prayer from deep just before the shot clock horn sounded to make the score 83-66.

“At the end of the day, we saw a different type of adversity than we’ve seen so far. This stinks right now, but I know we’ll be a better team because of it,” Spiker said. “I know our guys don’t want to hear it. I don’t even want to say it, but we’ve got to have a big picture view.”

In their next game on Sunday afternoon, the Dragons square off with what should be a very hungry La Salle side coming off a one-point loss against the class of the Southwestern Athletic Conference in Texas Southern. It’s safe to say Spiker is eager to be at the helm for his first match-up between men’s college basketball teams from Philadelphia.

“All those games are big. Those Philadelphia games have got something that I’m excited to be a part of,” Spiker said.