Drexel Basketball

I went to my first college basketball game today, as the Drexel Dragons took on the Towson Tigers. I didn't know what to expect; the Dragons have had a rough season, and the Tigers aren't much better. However, Frank Elegar would be the biggest player on the court, so I thought Drexel could have some success.

The DAC is basically a high school gym. It's the only college basketball arena I've been to, but I can't imagine them being as small as this. It just shows how little athletics matter to the administartion, but I'm not going to get into whether or not that's good or bad. They use it for everythingl basketball, volleyball, Olympic ping pong team tryouts, etc. It really limits the basketball team because capacity is only around 3000. They could definitely put butts in the seats in a bigger arena, and that would allow them to make more money and get official Big Five consideration.

We arrived just as the game started. Bruiser Flint tried a couple of interesting things to start the game. Frank Elegar and Gerald Colds started the game on the bench. I don't know if they were being disciplined, but it allowed them to come in fresh after Towson picked up some early fouls and had to make some substitutions. Secondly, he was sitting himself for the first few minutes. This allowed him to pace himself and finish the first half strong. He used the same technique in the second half, and he did a great job yelling his team a victory.

Bruiser Flint has to be the most entertaining and emotional coach in basketball. With how small the DAC is, every person in the gym knows every word he says. "O! O! You put your hands down again, O!" "Simple play! Simple play!" "Get upcourt!" He always has a grin on his face, even when he's berating officials or coaching one of his players in the middle of a play. He truly enjoys his job, even if his team is struggling this year. As much as it would hurt Drexel, it would be great to see him land a big time job sometime.

Drexel got up early, and Towson never really made it close. The Dragons got surprisingly balanced scoring, with four guys scoring double digits. Getting contributions from everyone has been a problem this year, but they got good offensive play from the guards this afternoon. They successfully mixed in full and half court defenses to throw off Towson and disrupt their offense.

Someone should've told me Kevin Durant's brother played on Towson. I saw the name and number on his jersey and was kind of curious. Then the heckler a few rows in front (who heckles at Drexel Basketball?) screamed at him for not being as good as his brother, so I had to look this up when I got home. Lo and behold, he's Kevin's brother. I wonder how that feels. You're the older brother, but you're stuck at a mid major while your younger brother went to a top team for one year and got drafted #2 overall. He's just not anywhere close to his brother. He tries to post up, he tries to penetrate, he tries straight up shooting, he just couldn't do it today.

Overall, it was a fun time. It's too bad this season isn't going better for the Dragons.