City of Basketball Love

Zach Drapkin (@ZachDrapkin)
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With 17 seconds to go in overtime, Hofstra’s Justin Wright-Foreman, already with 30 points on the night, had the ball in his hands with a chance to win the game.

Down by a single point, 81-80, Wright-Foreman drove through the lane, just as he had done on numerous occasions earlier in the contest, and went up with his left hand.

The shot rimmed out. But Wright-Foreman’s teammate, Ty Greer, followed the shot and tipped it back up toward the basket. That too rimmed out. Greer had another go. It rimmed out again.

“You sit there and you watch that ball roll on the rim and there’s nothing you can do if you’re on the court, there’s nothing you can do if you’re watching,” Drexel head coach Zach Spiker said. 

The ball then ricocheted out to Brian Bernardi at the top of the key. He took a dribble and fired up a last-hope three-pointer. That didn’t fall either. And then came the buzzer.

Somehow, after all of that, Drexel had survived.

“It was a team effort,” Spiker remarked after the game. “By team effort, I mean no one on our team got the last rebound. But we all went for it and batted it around enough to burn some time and found a way to get the streamers to come on the floor.”

Seeing those streamers must have been quite a relief for Spiker, whose Dragons blew a double-digit lead late in the second half and trailed with less than half a minute to go in OT.

After Wright-Foreman split a pair of free throws with 41 seconds remaining to make it 80-78 Hofstra, Drexel came down the court needing just a two to tie.

Instead, 5-foot-10 freshman Kurk Lee went for the lead, and he nailed a three with 21 seconds left on the clock, putting Drexel up one and setting up Hofstra’s crazy last possession.

“That little freshman’s a tough kid,” Hofstra head coach Joe Mihalich said. “He made big shots and he made foul shots and he made his team win. He’s a special player.”

Lee, following a scoreless first-half performance, scored all 17 of his points in the second half and overtime, also assisting the Rodney Williams basket which preceded Wright-Foreman’s final trip to the free throw line.

Williams finished with a team-high 22 points, eight rebounds, and four assists in the win, hitting key shots with time winding down in regulation and OT.

That duo of Lee and Williams held Drexel together down the stretch, combining for all but three of the Dragons’ points after the team went on a six-minute scoring drought at the 14-minute mark of the second half.

Drexel’s dry spell allowed Hofstra to come back from as many as 15 down, as the Pride mounted a 12-0 run midway through the second half to turn a 55-42 deficit into a 55-54 deficit with nine minutes still to play in regulation.

Once Drexel finally got back on the board on a Williams jumper, it turned into a back-and-forth barnburner, with Wright-Foreman doing the majority of the scoring for Hofstra and Lee and Williams doing so for the Dragons.

The game could have come down to Hofstra’s final possession of that second half, with the shot clock turned off and 24 seconds to manufacture a game winning bucket.

Wright-Foreman scored 22 of his 30 points in the final two frames, a one-man wrecking crew for the Pride, but on that particular occasion, he decided to give up the rock as he drove to the basket, catching teammate Hunter Sabety off-guard and watching Sabety fumble the pass out of bounds.

“We wanted Justin Wright-Foreman to take the shot,” Mihalich said. “I don’t know why he passed.”

“Hopefully we made him work over time, maybe he got a little bit more tired,” Spiker added regarding Wright-Foreman. “We tried just about every coverage we could. He’s a talented basketball player. We knew it going in.”

Instead, the game headed to OT, where Drexel was able to grind out the win.

It wasn’t the prettiest of victories, but Spiker is okay with that.

“We want a game where we had to grind it out because it shows a little bit of our character, our maturity, and how we’ve evolved as a team,” he said. “We’ve had some games where we’ve gotten down and we didn’t respond the right way.”

With Austin Williams out of the lineup, Thursday night was an especially big test for the Dragons, who had to go up against one of the nation’s top rebounders, Rokas Gustys.

Drexel was able to hold Gustys in check for most of the game, limiting the Lithuanian to 10 points and 10 rebounds on the night, less than his usual 12.1 boards per game coming into the contest.

Also contributing for Hofstra in the loss were Brian Bernardi (14 points), Deron Powers (11 points, 5 assists), Ty Greer (11 rebounds), and Jamall Robinson (9 points).

On Drexel’s side, Sammy Mojica had 16 points, six rebounds, four assists, and no turnovers while Miles Overton added 10 points.

For a team that has struggled in the CAA this season, the win showed grit and it showed discipline.

The Dragons didn’t collapse when their lead vanished and came together to pull out the W in front of their home crowd.

“It’s not an X or an O, it’s not a coach. It’s a group of guys in the locker room that stayed together. They kept each other going. And I’m proud of them,” Spiker said. “(At) other points in the season, I don’t know if we would have been saying the things we were saying in the huddle. They found a way to get to the next play and keep playing.”

Now, Drexel will have to find a way to get on to the next game, which is set for Saturday at 2 PM after Thursday’s grueling affair.

It won’t be any easier of a fight, as the Dragons go up against 16-6 Charleston, which currently holds second place in the conference standings.

“We need all the rest we can get,” Spiker said. “We’ve got another very talented and tough CAA team coming into the building Saturday afternoon.”

“When you’re in the CAA, you better come ready to play. Every single night, home or away, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t come ready to go, you’re not going to deserve to win.”