skip navigation

Temple, Drexel getting hot in the nick of time

02/02/2018, 2:30am EST
By Josh Verlin

Austin Williams (above) and Drexel picked up their third consecutive win on Thursday night. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

As Zach Spiker sat the post-game press conference table following Drexel’s 76-74 win over James Madison on Thursday night, the Dragons’ head coach couldn’t help but notice the game playing on the screen on the wall, as fellow City 6 member Temple was locked in overtime against No. 16 Wichita State.

Spiker stuck around for the next few minutes, watching as the Owls pulled out their own two-point win, 81-79 over the Shockers.

Both Spiker and Temple coach Fran Dunphy were undoubtedly pleased with the results of Thursday. Though under different circumstances, they’re in the same spot -- if anything significant is to happen this season, it needs to happen now. And both teams took a step in the right direction with their wins, though there’s plenty of work to be done.

For Drexel (10-14, 4-7), the win was the third in a row -- all at home -- and though it came against the last-place Dukes, it was an encouraging team effort, with four players in double-figures, none of whom were named Tramaine Isabell. That was a welcome sign after it seemed the Dragons were becoming reliant on the Missouri transfer to carry the load night after night, which he’s certainly capable of doing, as he showed with a 40-point effort against Elon last week.

Three wins in a row ties Drexel’s longest streak of the season, but it follows up a run of five straight losses and 10 of 12 games ending in defeat for a program that hadn’t won more than nine games in its last four years. It’s progress in the big picture and small picture, but not enough progress to satisfy anybody around the program.

“Basketball’s a game of momentum,” Spiker said. “If that’s what we can be about, and not care where the numbers are on the stat sheet, as long as we get the letter, that’s all that matters. We don’t want to care about numbers, we want to care about letters, getting Ws.”

Drexel is 8-3 at home this year, 2-11 away from the Daskalakis Athletic Center. But that’s where they’ll have to go to keep it rolling, traveling to William & Mary (15-7, 8-3) on Saturday. The record might be daunting, and the Tribe already have an 85-63 win over the Dragons this season, but Drexel has fared well against the top of the CAA, beating Charleston (17-6, 8-3) on Jan. 5 and more recently Northeastern (14-9, 12-6).

“I think our guys have probably gotten a bit of confidence,” Spiker said, “I think we’ve played well, moving the basketball and we’ve rebounded the basketball a little bit better.”

The three straight wins makes the Dragons the second-hottest team in the CAA. They’re now tied with Delaware and UNC-Wilmington for 7th in the 10-team conference; a strong finish in league play could easily boost them into the top half in the league. Even getting out of the bottom four spots and avoiding the first round of the CAA Tournament in Charleston (March 3-6) would be a good start.

After that...well, Drexel already knows it can beat literally anybody in the league, when it’s on.

“In my four years here, I always said that, no matter how bad we’ve been, we could always make a late run,” Drexel senior Austin Williams said. “The way it’s set up; in the postseason, (there’s) three games that matter.”

Temple has a few more meaningful games than that, considering the Owls are jockeying for more than just positioning in the American Athletic Conference’s postseason picture.

Dunphy’s squad had slowly started to turn it around after losing five straight following a 7-3 start, turning what had been a promising opening month into what was beginning to look like a lost season at 8-9 overall and 1-5 in the AAC. But Temple has won four of its last five after also beating Southern Methodist on Jan. 10, and sits at 12-10 overall (4-6 AAC) following its big win over Wichita State.

The schedule opens up a bit at this point for the Owls, who travel to play Tulane (13-8, 4-5) before hosting East Carolina (8-13, 2-8) and then going to South Florida (8-15, 1-9); if they win all three, they’ll have a five-game winning streak headed into a road rematch at Wichita State on Feb. 15.

With eight games left in the regular season, one loss would put Temple at 19-11 (11-7) going into the AAC tournament, and it’s very possible that a win or two in Orlando would put the Owls on the right side of the bubble. According to RealTimeRPI, Temple is No. 37 in the RPI and has the third-toughest strength of schedule, numbers that will play in its favor if it can put itself back in the bubble decision.

The margin for error is razor-thin. But it’s there.

“As we talk about, it’s a long season, and we need to keep plugging away, need to keep plugging away” Dunphy said. “We’ve got a huge game on Sunday in New Orleans, and they beat us here, so we need to pay attention to it.”

Just a couple weeks ago, it seemed like much of the intrigue of the City 6’s collective 2017-18 season seemed to be at a low point. Villanova was cruising along, sure, and Penn was a nifty 3-0 in the Ivy League, but beyond that, hope seemed dim for any excitement in the rest of the city.

Now Temple and Drexel are creating a little more excitement, just in time for the city’s sports focus to shift to hoops -- after one more football game this weekend, of course.

And maybe just in time to save their seasons. We’ll find out soon enough.


HS Coverage:

Recruiting News:

Tag(s): Home  Events  Division I  Drexel  Temple  Big 5  CoBL 5