Drexel coach Zach Spiker looks out to the play on the court in a CAA tourney game against Stony Brook last season. (Photo: Aaron Bracy)
By AARON BRACY
March 27, 2024
Big5Hoops.com
The Philadelphia Big 5 went 44 consecutive seasons with a representative in the NCAA tournament from 1978 through 2022. (There was no tournament in 2020.) Over that stretch, the five schools combined for 92 trips to the Big Dance that included national championships in 1985, 2016 and 2018 for Villanova.
Add in Drexel’s five appearances during that stretch and the combined number of NCAA berths is 97. (Drexel was not part of the Big 5 until this season.)
But this season marks the second straight year without a Big 5 team in the Big Dance. The reasons for Philly schools’ absence have some to do with each of the schools and some to do with the changing landscape of college basketball.
Let’s take a look at each school’s season, why they are not in the tournament and how they might get back there.
Here’s the schedule:
Friday: Villanova
Saturday: Temple
Sunday: Saint Joseph’s
Monday: Penn
Tuesday: La Salle
Today: Drexel
Thursday: All-Big 5 Selections
Drexel
NCAA tournaments between 1978-2022: 5
2023-24 record: 20-12, 13-5 Coastal Athletic Association
Leading scorers: Justin Moore 12.4, Amari Williams 12.2, Luke House 9.2, Lucas Monroe 6.7, Mate Okros 6.4, Kobe MaGee 6.3, Yame Butler 6.1
Leading rebounders: Williams 7.8, Monroe 5.2, Garfield Turner 4.6, Lamar Oden Jr. 4.2, Moore 3.6, House 3.4
What went right: After almost 50 years of exclusion since Drexel became a Division I program in 1973, the Dragons finally were invited to join the Big 5 this season. And Drexel wasted no time making its presence known, earning its landmark victory of the season with a 57-55 defeat of Villanova in the fifth-place game of the inaugural Big 5 Classic at the Wells Fargo Center on Dec. 2. Williams had 12 points, 6 rebounds and 5 blocks in the game, and the Dragons held the Wildcats to 18.5 percent (5 of 27) shooting from 3-point range. Drexel burst out of the gate in conference play, winning its first seven games before ending the regular season as the CAA’s No. 2 seed in the conference tournament. Coach Zach Spiker led the Dragons to just their 10th 20-plus win season since 1973. Williams was named the CAA’s Defensive Player of the Year for the third straight season.
What went wrong: The Dragons earned a double-bye into the quarterfinals of the CAA tournament in arguably one of the most competitive conferences in the country. It wasn’t going to be easy to win the tournament and earn the one-bid league’s automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. And things didn’t break well for the Dragons, losing 91-88 in double-overtime to seventh-seeded Stony Brook on March 10 in Washington, D.C. The Dragons had control of the contest, up 43-38 with 17:04 remaining in the second half when Williams went down with an ankle injury. He would return to the contest but wasn’t himself. House was dominant in the game, scoring 28 points, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Dragons’ season alive.
The postseason losses kept coming, too, as both Williams and Moore announced they were entering the transfer portal after the season. That’s 33.6 percent of Drexel’s scoring and 29.1 percent of the Dragons’ rebounding that Spiker will need to replace. Add those two additions to Monroe, House and Okros, who are out of eligibility, and the Dragons have a lot of points, rebounds and assists to find in recruiting and the portal for 2024-25. Reserve Lamar Oden Jr., a good rebounder who fell out of Spiker’s deep rotation midseason, also entered the portal and likely will not be back.
My thoughts: Drexel was my favorite team to watch in the city this season. I just loved the way Spiker’s team played, unselfishly on offense and tough on defense. I only wished I had gotten to see more of the Dragons this season. And I’ve especially thought that now that Drexel will be losing its five leading scorers, including portal departures Williams and Moore.
You really can’t blame talented players like Williams or Moore for looking for options for a bigger payday. That is the nature of college basketball today. I don’t begrudge players at all. Selfishly, though, I would like to have seen Moore and Williams run it back for a shot at the CAA title next year. The Dragons certainly were good enough to win the conference crown this season, but the CAA isn’t easy. I knew that first CAA quarterfinal game would be tough but was sitting courtside as Drexel was playing well, only to have the misfortune of Williams going down early in the second half.
So, Spiker is left to pick up the pieces. And he knows how to do that. Drexel’s coach has combined for a 64-49 (.566) record in the last four seasons, beginning in 2020-21 when he led the Dragons to their eighth NCAA tournament. It’s not the easiest position to be a CAA coach today because you recruit and develop players that might later be poached by higher levels after you do all of the legwork. But Spiker has been through this before. Consider the talent that has transferred out of Drexel in recent years, most to higher levels of competition, and the Dragons have kept winning.
Here are a few recent Drexel transfers: Tramaine Isabell (Saint Louis), Jarvis Doles (Albany/UMBC), Sam Green (Howard), Camren Wynter (Penn State), T.J. Bickerstaff (Boston College/JMU), Xavier Bell (Wichita State).
Spiker recruits deep rosters. He is in a pretty unique position as a recruiter as someone who coached at Army as a head coach for seven seasons and Cornell as an assistant from 2004-09. At Army, coaches have to be prepared for the grueling nature of being a cadet and the possibility of them not sticking. At Cornell in the Ivy League without scholarships, players’ main focus might not be athletics and might choose another path after being recruited. The point here is that Spiker has experience with rosters in flux. He knows how to do it. It’s not easy for any coach to navigate the NIL/portal world (Check that: Blueblood programs have it much easier), but Spiker is uniquely equipped to navigate these murky waters.
And his experience will need to come in handy now because the Dragons have many, many holes to fill. I’m looking forward to seeing how Spiker fills them and will make a point to get over to Drexel more often next season, figuring that there will be only so many chances to see those Dragons play in this wild, new era.
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Aaron Bracy has been covering Philadelphia sports since 1996. His byline regularly appears on Associated Press stories. Big5Hoops.com is his second website dedicated to Philadelphia college basketball. Follow Bracy on X: @Aaron_Bracy and like his Facebook and Instagram pages.