Last season was a monumentally successful one for the Drexel men’s basketball program. The team won a school-record 29 games, and won two postseason games for the first time ever.
But the world of big-time college basketball isn’t always fair. The Dragons also will be remembered for falling three points short in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament championship game. And those postseason wins came in the NIT, not the NCAA tournament, which Drexel didn’t make.
The 2012-13 team returns all but one player, and those veterans will have one thing on their mind: unfinished business.
We spoke with Coach James “Bruiser” Flint, who signed a multiyear contract extension in March, about the upcoming season.
He’s bullish on this year’s team, and as you’ll find out, he thinks Daryl McCoy is the best defensive big man in the league.
You accomplished so much last season, but unfortunately I think one thing the fans will remember most is not getting that NCAA invite. What was it like for you on Selection Sunday when the last team was called and you realized that you weren’t going?
It was disappointing, but I knew we had a chance of not going. There was too much being said about it. I had been through it before in 2007, same thing. I actually told the team after we lost the championship game, ‘Look guys, we’re going to be playing next week, no matter what tournament we’re in, NCAA or NIT, let’s just be prepared to win games.’
Did I think we were good enough to be in the NCAA Tournament? No question. But it just didn’t work out for us that way.
How do you go about replacing not only Samme Givens’ scoring and rebounding, but also his leadership?
You hope that what a good leader does is he hands it down to the guys who come behind him, so the seniors who become leaders next season understand what they need to do. Those are things true leaders do. I think Samme did a good job of that.
That being said, who are going to be your leaders this year on the court?
I’ve got three good seniors. Derrick [Thomas], Daryl [McCoy], and Chris [Fouch] have been there for a long time, played a lot. Those guys have been really really good players in the program. I think they understand the responsibility of being a senior, they’ve seen some good ones over the last couple of years. I think they’ve learned some good lessons. I know they’re excited about playing; this is their senior year. They know that they can do special things again.
What about offensively? Who are going to be your scorers this year?
We return pretty much all the guys who scored the points for us. We did lose Samme, and I look at Dartaye [Ruffin] as the guy who will probably take up that slack. We still got Chris [Fouch] and Frantz [Massenat] and even Damion [Lee], who improved his scoring last year.
Who are a couple of players whose contributions are really felt on the defensive end?
I think Daryl [McCoy] is actually the best big defensive guy in the league. We never get any credit in the conference, we never put anybody on the all-defensive team, but I think Daryl is the best defensive big man in the league by far. He doesn’t block a lot of shots, put that type of statistic up there. Most people attribute steals and blocked shots to playing defense, which I really don’t. I think he’s the best defensive big man in the league.
Who are some newcomers who fans can expect to see some contributions from this year?
Kazembe [Abif] got sick at the end of the year, but he was playing well for us before that. We’re looking for him to make a recovery. Our two redshirts, Tavon Allen and Casey Carroll, they’re gonna play big for us. We need a backup point guard and we’re gonna need some contributions from those guys. They’re gonna have to play some good minutes for us.
Who do you see as the top teams in the conference this year?
George Mason will be good again. Delaware, they return everybody. Northeastern returns three or four starters, James Madison I think returns four starters. Although they’re not eligible for the playoffs, Old Dominion is going to be a good-looking team. A lot of the teams that actually are eligible for the playoffs are going to be the better teams returning anyway.
How does the fact that only seven teams will compete in the conference tournament change the dynamic in the league?
I don’t even know myself. We’ll find out. If you come in first place, I think you get a bye to the semifinals, so we’ll just go from there. The tournament’s going to be a day short, so instead of having to win three or four games, you gotta win two or three. Everybody knows it’s gonna be tough, you just gotta be ready.
Do you think your team earned some new fans last year? Could you feel the buzz on campus and around the city?
I actually think the buzz started the year before. We went to Louisville, won the game, we beat some teams in the city, so I think people were looking to see whether we could come back and do it again. And we sure did.
You had such a great year last year, but you did fall short in the conference tournament and didn’t make the NCAAs. Do you look at the season as not being successful unless you perform in the postseason? How do you analyze that heading into the year?
Drexel’s not one of those schools that goes to the NCAA Tournament every year. We’re not North Carolina. I think it’s unfair to the kids—when you win 29 games, it’s unfair to tell them that if you don’t go to the NCAA Tournament that you failed. We were able to go and win the most games ever in postseason in the history of the school. We know we had a good year. Was it disappointing that we didn’t make it to the tournament? Yes. I think a little bit in our guys’ minds it’s sort of like unfinished business. One of the best things about this season is the last time we were in this situation all the guys were seniors. In ’07 we pretty much lost our entire team. We’ve got a lot of guys back, so we’ve got an opportunity to go back and finish some things.
What aspect of your team’s play needs to improve to get over that hump?
Honestly, we lost a lot of games to teams that pressed us. We only lost seven games, but the five teams that pressed us, we lost to them. We gotta get better handling the ball. I thought last year we got off to a slow start because we had some injuries, but once we got everyone back we sort of got it going again. It will be interesting, as long as we can stay at full strength and have guys ready to go from the beginning, to see what type of start we get off to.