By: Nick Borowski

PHILADELPHIA – Drexel University (8-8) returned home after a two-game road trip to take on CAA opponent Elon University (5-15) on Thursday. The two teams have recent history, meeting for the first time since Drexel took down Elon in the CAA Championship Game last March to clinch their bid to the NCAA March Madness Tournament. Drexel, dominated this contest from start to finish, winning 77-49.

Both teams started hot with 3-pointers from Drexel sophomore guard Xavier Bell and Elon guard Hunter McIntosh. McIntosh had five of Elon’s first 12 points, opening a 12-9 lead early in the first half. Drexel standout Cam Wynter responded to this lead with a 3-pointer of his own to bring the score to a tie at 12. Elon’s lead did not last more than the two minutes and 25 seconds that they had it.

Wynter, a 6’2 senior, took over the first half, leading Drexel in scoring with 10 points. Elon center Michael Graham was dominating the Dragons on the glass in the first half with five offensive rebounds and five defensive rebounds, keeping within striking distance.

At the under 12 minute media timeout, Elon pulled within one, trailing 19-18. Drexel came out of the timeout scorching hot from three. Lamar Oden Jr., Wynter, Coletrane Washington and Matey Juric combined to shoot 4-6 from 3-point range in the final 10 minutes to push Drexel’s lead to 10 with the score being 37-27 after 20 minutes of play.

The Dragons took that energy into the locker room and came out a completely different team. Elon could not keep up with Drexel’s pace and ended up down big before the Phoenix could put anything together.

Drexel center Amari Williams was perfect from the field in the second half, shooting 4-4 and totaling 10 points. He also had three steals in the second half, one of which he ran the fastbreak and fed Wynter on a no-look pass for the easy layup.

Drexel averaged an amazing 1.429 points per possession in the second half. To put that into perspective, the average points per possession in college basketball is 1.005 and the highest average this year is No.4 ranked Purdue at 1.196 points per possession.

Receiving distributions from many different players, Drexel ballooned their lead to 55-34 at the under 12-minute media timeout. Elon had no answers defensively for the hot shooting of the Dragons. The teams continued to go back and forth until the final buzzer where Drexel ultimately won 77-49.

“When we went into halftime, we tried not to come out sluggish and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the game,” said Williams.

Despite Elon not having a great game, Graham had one of the best rebounding performances in the school’s history. Graham’s 17 rebounds is the second most in the school’s 109 year history and the most since becoming a Division 1 basketball team.

Following up the huge win against Elon, Drexel welcomed William & Mary (4-15) into the Daskalakis Athletic Center. Despite the return of Drexel star forward James Butler, William & Mary won a nail-biter in the final minutes, 83-75.

Wynter had a huge game for the Dragons with 27 points, seven rebounds, and six assists. William & Mary had huge efforts from Ben Wight (21 points, 11 rebounds), Brandon Carroll (18 points, 10 rebounds) and Connor Kochera (23 points, 5 rebounds).

This was Drexel’s homecoming game, so the stands were packed, marking the highest attendance all season long. The energy in the arena was palpable to begin the game and Drexel ran with it. The Dragons quickly got out to a 17-10 lead in the initial eight minutes of the first half. William & Mary knew that they were in deep waters with this lead and the crowd behind the home team and quickly responded. At the under 8-minute media timeout, William & Mary cut the lead down to 21-17.

Drexel came out of the break looking to push the ball down the floor, putting an emphasis on feeding center Amari Williams, who scored their first five points of the half. Despite Drexel’s hot second half start, William & Mary was hotter, scoring on four of their first six possessions pushing the six point lead out to 10 at 43-33. At the under 16-minute media timeout, Drexel was in a dangerous territory down 47-35.

Wynter took matters into his own capable hands, scoring four straight points out of the timeout. Unfortunately for the Dragons on the defensive end, they had no answer for Wight in the paint. Wight sparked a 7-0 run to put the Tribe up 55-39 with 11:41 remaining. The crowd could feel this game getting into blowout territory, knowing that Drexel needed a spark quickly if they wanted to win this game. The spark did not come and a Brandon Carroll 3-point shot extended the lead to 19 with 8:26 to go.

In the second half, Drexel seemed to have slowed down their 3-point output and started attacking the paint with Wynter and Williams. The Dragons went on a 7-2 run, seeming like this was the spark that they needed to make a small comeback. However, William & Mary answered quickly and shut down Drexel’s hopes of getting back into the game. Wight hit a three at the top of the key to extend the lead to 72-51 with 6:42 remaining.

Camren Wynter quickly picked up his third and fourth foul within a minute, but that did not deter him from being aggressive and getting to his spots. Wynter started pushing the ball down the floor as fast as he could, and it was working. It caught William & Mary off guard and Wynter was able to get an easy layup in two straight possessions, giving the crowd life while down 72-55. William & Mary called timeout to regroup before things got dangerous.

After the timeout, Drexel continued to impose their will in the paint after being dominated there all game. Wynter, Martin and Williams all scored the next 13 unanswered points in the paint or from the free throw line, cutting the lead to single digits at 72-65. Drexel’s defense tightened up and made life hard on the William & Mary bigs in the paint, forcing turnovers and runouts to get back into the game.

Following the under 4-minute media timeout, this was a brand new game. Wynter took a seat on the bench with four fouls and was replaced by the gritty Juric. Juric lived up to his defensive name forcing a turnover and allowing Bell to run the break and find Juric for a wide open trey. William & Mary allowed the lead to shrink down to four after having a 21 point lead. Kochera and Wight each scored two points to balloon the lead back to 76-68.

Wynter returned to the game, still forcing his way into the paint and scoring with ease. Wynter and Williams each forced fouls on shots in the painted area, going 3-4 from the line and cut the lead to 76-73 with 1:10 remaining. About six seconds after the Wynter free throws, Drexel’s full court press forced an errant pass from Wight right into the hands of Martin. Martin caught the ball at the half court line and pressed down the floor and to the basket and finished the layup through contact. The crowd roared in celebration, only to shortly find out that the referee called a charge, sending the ball back to William & Mary.

On the defensive side with 47 seconds left, Williams fouled Wight and Wight hit both of his free throws, extending the lead to 78-73. Wynter pushed his way back down the court, but this time he missed a contested layup. Drexel was then forced to foul and play the free throw game, which did not work due to William & Mary going 5-6 from the line to close the game.

After the game, Spiker had nothing but good things to say about William & Mary big man Ben Wight.

“Ben Wight was good, he was very effective, not only against (James Butler) but also against Amari Williams,” said Spiker.

Spiker also stated that graduate James Butler is still working his way back from injury.

“We all know what James (Butler) is capable of at 100%. (Butler) at a different percentage than that is better than no (Butler). I love what that guy has given and sacrificed for this program… A lot of guys in that situation would not even play right now. I credit him wanting to do whatever he can to help his teammates,” said Spiker.

The Drexel Dragons return to where they won their CAA Championship at James Madison (12-5) for a game on Thursday, 1/27 at 7:00 pm