In Charleston, Drexel received a look at how much harder it’ll be to dance come March
An accurate representation of just how much more the Dragons need to push to make March a reality played out inside the TD Arena in Charleston on Saturday.
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Drexel’s game against the College of Charleston started exactly how most hoped it would.
A testy first half found the score deadlocked at intermission. That was largely fueled by Amari Williams, who entered the locker room on pace to notch his 10th double-double of the season.
The senior forward missed out on that double-double as the Dragons couldn’t maintain its pace in the second half, and Charleston ended the day celebrating an 80-70 victory. Williams finished with 20 points and eight rebounds while guard Luke House added 12 points.
Charleston (18-7, 9-3 Coastal Athletic Association) was led by a game-high 22 points from senior guard Frankie Policelli, coupled with 19 from junior forward Ante Brzovic.
Drexel (15-10, 8-4) shot 43.5% from the field but just 5 of 19 from beyond the arc. In addition to a slow start in the second half, the Dragons had nine turnovers to Charleston’s five.
It’s a scoreline that is less than desirable for the Dragons. Then again, it was a matchup in which the score may not have offered an accurate representation of the type of effort, win or lose, Drexel has to put forth to have realistic chances of dancing in March.
It’s nearly mid-February, and after Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII, football largely goes into the rearview. Eyes shift to this, the fun time of college basketball. And the teams that have gone dancing recently are dialed into the notion every win starts to matter a little more.
Charleston is one of those teams. The defending CAA champion and conference representative in last year’s NCAA Tournament, the Cougars are creeping in on a 20-win season and nipping at the top spot in the conference yet again.
Essentially, this is the right team to test mettle against. The Dragons made it a dogfight. Until they didn’t.
These two halves of basketball offered a pretty telling story of the Drexel team that ran out to a 7-0 conference record only to now have lost three straight — the last one coming at the hands of a Charleston team celebrating its third straight win.
Next up for the Dragons comes a good-looking Hofstra (15-10, 8-4) team at the Daskalaskis Athletic Center on Thursday (7 p.m., FloHoops, NBCSP). It’s February hoops and another contest that will reveal if these Dragons were only blowing smoke with that conference start.