Drexel tips off its season next week. Here’s what to watch on both the men’s and women’s side.

Throughout Drexel’s men’s and women’s basketball programs, there’s an abundance of questions behind once-familiar faces that have departed and new ones that have joined their rosters. With a clean slate for both heading into season openers that start on Monday for the men against Georgian Court (6 p.m., ESPN+) and Nov. 7 (7 p.m., ESPN+) for the women against Marist, here are things we’re watching for this season.

With Amari Williams’ departure for Kentucky and Drexel center Garfield Turner’s season-ending injury, junior center Cole Hargrove will have to transition from depth piece to potentially the Dragons’ starting center. Hargrove played 68 minutes across 16 games last season, contributing a total of 15 points in all contests. While Hargrove was originally slated to see more time at power forward, Drexel coach Zach Spiker highlighted Hargrove’s versatile skill set.

“He’s been one of our better three-point shooters in our fall practices and scrimmages,” Spiker said. “I think we’re gaining some versatility, some athleticism, and frankly, our fours and fives haven’t been great three-point shooters the last year or so. Now we’ve got a couple of guys that I think would cause the [opposing] coaching staff to pause before they guard us just one way the entire game.”

Last season, Amy Mallon’s squad was predicted to finish in the middle of the conference standings. Throughout the regular season, the Dragons bounced between gritty wins and frustrating losses as their defense stifled opponents while their offense sputtered.

However, the team progressed and came to form at exactly the right time, going on a magical run to win the Coastal Athletic Association championship as the No. 7 seed. Now projected to finish second in the CAA, and with a newly crafted ring on their fingers, the Dragons will not be gritty underdogs. They will have to stave off conference opponents who are looking to get redemption against the champs.

With so few returning contributors on the men’s squad, a spotlight will be cast on the returning members who are moving from the bench to key cogs of the rotation. In particular, Shane Blakeney, who played spot minutes last season, is slated to be a difference-maker on the offensive end — likely in a sixth-man role. Blakeney has shown flashes of talent in games when his number was called. Horace Simmons, who redshirted his freshman year, will also be called upon to play a role this season. Simmons is a well-regarded recruit out of La Salle College High School, and the Dragons will need him to show his pedigree.

Amaris Baker was brought to Drexel to be a true scoring threat for the women’s team, and after she overcame the learning curve of Division I, few people in the game did it at a higher level than her. In her final 11 games of the season, Baker averaged nearly 17 points per contest. She received preseason first-team All-CAA honors and will be tasked with maintaining her production while helping ease the loss of 10 points per game from graduating guard Brooke Mullins.

In his media day availability, Spiker mentioned that this Drexel team would look similar to the Army teams that he coached from 2009-16 from a tempo standpoint. Spiker noted that in almost every year, Army was a top-100 team in tempo, and in his final two years it was ranked among the top 25. This is in great contrast to offenses that Drexel has featured in past seasons. This stylistic change is aided by the different personnel, most notably without Williams, who will no longer be the driving force. This stylistic change could lead to more attack-minded basketball this season.

The Dragons women’s team brought six players into the program this offseason, with three transfers and three freshmen. The transfers are highlighted by sophomore guard Deja Evans, who was on the America East All-Defensive team as well as the All-Rookie team, while also contributing eight points and seven rebounds per game at Albany. Molly Lavin, who comes from American University, averaged more than seven points and 10 rebounds coming off the bench for the Eagles. Freshman guard Mariah Watkins of Rochester, N.Y., was a prolific scorer in high school, averaging more than 24 points and nine rebounds in 2022-23 before suffering a torn ACL and missing her senior season. Other freshman additions include Iriona Gravely, who netted 22 double-doubles in her senior season at Williamstown High School, as well as Emilee Jones, a forward from Texas.

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Spiker and his staff brought in four players via the transfer portal this offseason, and none of them are proven at the Division I level. Three of the four transfers come from junior colleges, but Spiker has seen tremendous returns on his investment in juco players in the past, most notably Yame Butler and Garfield Turner. Kevon Vanderhorst, a point guard from Brunswick (N.C.) Community College, had a tremendous 2023-24 season, averaging above 15 points over his last 18 games, but he is out indefinitely with a broken wrist. This leaves Jason “Deuce” Drake, another juco transfer, to fill his spot in the starting lineup.

Victor Panov, a 6-foot-7 center from Daytona (Fla.) State College, brings a versatile all-around game. Finally, Villiam Garcia Adsten, the team’s lone transfer to come directly from another Division I program (Pacific), brings a deep offensive skill set and defensive versatility, as his 6-7 frame allows him to play multiple positions.

Drexel’s women’s championship-winning identity from last season was built upon hard-nosed defense and doing just enough offensively to win. There were just two players on the roster who shot over 35% from beyond the arc. As such, Drexel relied on its ability to score from the paint to generate offense, and the percentage of its shots that came from deep was the lowest among the top seven teams in the conference. This season, the Dragons return their most important offensive cogs in Amaris and Chloe Hodges, while adding new faces hungry to help on offense.

It may not be an overstatement to say that the Dragons will go as far as Yame Butler can take them this season. Butler’s offensive skills are immense, and Spiker described him as “good of a one-on-one player in our league [as anybody].” He also highlighted Butler’s history, saying, “he has had big segments of different seasons last year and the year before, and we’d like to see him do that on a higher, more consistent level.”

Butler’s best games as a Dragon all stem from moments when the team relied on him to be the dominant force on offense. In a six-game stretch during the 2022-23 season, Butler led an undermanned squad into the Coastal Athletic Association playoffs while averaging nearly 20 points per game. His role was reduced last season, but he enters the season as the Dragons’ go-to guy on offense.

» READ MORE: Drexel center Garfield Turner will miss the season with a knee injury