sutomcat
2024 Iggy Award (ACC Tournament Record)
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Not much going in tonight and I am bored, so I thought I would write up a preview of the game with Drexel. Proceed with caution.
I never heard of Drexel growing up. When I started getting into college basketball, I learned about the ‘Big 5’ in Philly. Drexel is apparently the first school in the ‘Medium 5’ for Philly.
It is a big school. According to college tuition compare.com, Syracuse is the 13th largest private university in the US and Drexel is 14th.
They have 3 alumni I have heard of. And the list is quite impressive.
Chuck Barris (game show host and possible CIA spy in his own mind)
Toots Shor (renowned saloon keeper in New York City)
Meinhardt Raabe
Meinhardt played the coroner in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and visited Chittenango many times for their annual celebration of Oz.
I expected that the person who invented ‘Shark Week’ was surely,going to be a proud graduate of Drexel but no, it turns out Tom Golden, who really was a spy the CIA, went to FSU instead. Makes sense. FSU is the Drexel of the South.
Anyway,I digress. Let’s talk about the Drexel Dragon basketball program.
Drexel played something called Widener in their opener, and beat them. They then played St Joseph’s (who we are playing in a couple week) and Colgate. They lost to both. The Colgate loss was on Tuesday night. They should have stayed in the area and served as the crew for the private jet flight SU took to Philly (I assume they did not bus down but maybe they did in these cost cutting times). That would have been cool.
As a team, Drexel has shot well from the 3 point circle, made a lot of fouls, defended poorly and done a reasonably good job rebounding the ball. They have drawn a reasonably good number of fouls as well.
They have 2 7’1 centers. Ralph Akuta is one of them. At 7’1 and 285 pounds, he has impressive size. He had 6 blocks in 16 minutes against Widener, but only played 4 minutes against St Joseph’s and did not play against Colgate. Yet in 20 minutes of play, he only has 2 rebounds and 0 personal fouls. Guessing he might be hurt. The other 7’1 guy is Martin de LaPorterie, originally from France, who is a transfer from Yavapai Community College. He is only 210 pounds but is their leading rebounder with 6.2 rpg. He is only scoring 5.0 ppg. They also have 6’8 250 pound senior big man Garfield Turner, who is averaging 7.3 ppg and 5.0 rpg.
Shane Blakeney is a 6’5 wing shooting 45% from 3 and has made 9 3s in 3 games, but is only 34.9% from the field overall. He is their leading scorer at 14.3 ppg.
Their second leading scorer is a 5’11 5th year senior combo transfer from Mary Hardin-Baylor named Eli Beard. He was first team all conference and the leading scorer in his conference. Shot 84.5% from the FT line and shot 40% from 3.
Their third leading scorer is a 6’2 180 junior PG named Kevon Vanderhorst. He is shooting 41.7% from 3 and averaging 3.3 apt and 10.7 ppg.
They also have a 6’7 230 pound Russian forward and a 6’8 225 pound forward from Sweden, neither of whom are big scorers. So they have some legit size inside.
Should be interesting to see how we do in a road game. I wonder if JJ will play?
I never heard of Drexel growing up. When I started getting into college basketball, I learned about the ‘Big 5’ in Philly. Drexel is apparently the first school in the ‘Medium 5’ for Philly.
It is a big school. According to college tuition compare.com, Syracuse is the 13th largest private university in the US and Drexel is 14th.
They have 3 alumni I have heard of. And the list is quite impressive.
Chuck Barris (game show host and possible CIA spy in his own mind)
Toots Shor (renowned saloon keeper in New York City)
Meinhardt Raabe
Meinhardt played the coroner in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and visited Chittenango many times for their annual celebration of Oz.
I expected that the person who invented ‘Shark Week’ was surely,going to be a proud graduate of Drexel but no, it turns out Tom Golden, who really was a spy the CIA, went to FSU instead. Makes sense. FSU is the Drexel of the South.
Anyway,I digress. Let’s talk about the Drexel Dragon basketball program.
Drexel played something called Widener in their opener, and beat them. They then played St Joseph’s (who we are playing in a couple week) and Colgate. They lost to both. The Colgate loss was on Tuesday night. They should have stayed in the area and served as the crew for the private jet flight SU took to Philly (I assume they did not bus down but maybe they did in these cost cutting times). That would have been cool.
As a team, Drexel has shot well from the 3 point circle, made a lot of fouls, defended poorly and done a reasonably good job rebounding the ball. They have drawn a reasonably good number of fouls as well.
They have 2 7’1 centers. Ralph Akuta is one of them. At 7’1 and 285 pounds, he has impressive size. He had 6 blocks in 16 minutes against Widener, but only played 4 minutes against St Joseph’s and did not play against Colgate. Yet in 20 minutes of play, he only has 2 rebounds and 0 personal fouls. Guessing he might be hurt. The other 7’1 guy is Martin de LaPorterie, originally from France, who is a transfer from Yavapai Community College. He is only 210 pounds but is their leading rebounder with 6.2 rpg. He is only scoring 5.0 ppg. They also have 6’8 250 pound senior big man Garfield Turner, who is averaging 7.3 ppg and 5.0 rpg.
Shane Blakeney is a 6’5 wing shooting 45% from 3 and has made 9 3s in 3 games, but is only 34.9% from the field overall. He is their leading scorer at 14.3 ppg.
Their second leading scorer is a 5’11 5th year senior combo transfer from Mary Hardin-Baylor named Eli Beard. He was first team all conference and the leading scorer in his conference. Shot 84.5% from the FT line and shot 40% from 3.
Their third leading scorer is a 6’2 180 junior PG named Kevon Vanderhorst. He is shooting 41.7% from 3 and averaging 3.3 apt and 10.7 ppg.
They also have a 6’7 230 pound Russian forward and a 6’8 225 pound forward from Sweden, neither of whom are big scorers. So they have some legit size inside.
Should be interesting to see how we do in a road game. I wonder if JJ will play?
