Let's see...
Christmas is finally over.
New Year's Eve is Sunday. I'll probably get drunk.
James Brown is dead.
Memphis is carrying Conference USA like Al Pacino carried The Godfather: Part III.
Drexel may be the best basketball team in Philadelphia (76ers included).
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The 2006-2007 NCAA men's basketball season is off to a grand start, and nowhere has it been more grand than on the 42-acre Drexel University campus in Philadelphia.
With a three-game run of road wins against Villanova, Syracuse, and Temple, the Dragons are proving George Mason's Final Four run was no fluke. The Colonial is a top-10 conference (better than Conference USA — believe it).
And despite being completely overlooked in both the latest AP and ESPN/USA Today polls (not a single rotten vote in the latter), I guarantee you no opposing coach is going to want to see this team come the NCAA tournament.
Here's the thing: they don't shoot that well (45% FG, 65% FT, 35% from three). They have more turnovers per game (15.7) than assists (12.3). And they aren't overly deep, playing an eight-man rotation. They even lost to Penn and Rider in back-to-back games in November.
So how does that team get an RPI of 7 and their own column?
For one, Bruiser Flint. A two-time Colonial Coach of the Year, Flint has an 83-65 record in five seasons at the school (this being his sixth after leaving Massachusetts with an 86-72 record). Since his arrival, the Dragons have had the conference Defensive Player of the Year three times, and have had seven members of the conference's All-Defensive team. (BruiserFlint.com‚ he's got his own website! He's definitely heading to the SEC in a year or two.)
Through 10 games, the Dragons are holding opponents to 61 points per game on 39 percent shooting. They lead the Colonial in blocks (5.9 per game) and steals (10 per game). They force 18.6 turnovers per game. They out-rebounded Temple by 19, and have gone to the free-throw line more than their opponents five times during their current six-game winning streak (Syracuse tied them with 24 attempts).
In other words, Bruiser Flint has these guys up their opponents' asses the whole game.
(Not literally. That would be gross and inappropriate.)
Two, Drexel has a quality inside-outside combo (offensive and defensive) with junior center Frank Elegar and senior guard Bashir Mason. Elegar leads the team in scoring (15.3) and put up 27 and 10 against Syracuse. Mason averages more than three steals per game (12 steals in the three-game run), and can score in a big game (21 vs. Villanova). Senior 6-10 forward Chaz Crawford (8.4 rebounds, 3.8 blocks per game) and sophomore guard Tramayne Hawthorne (2.1 steals per game, 44% from three) have also made consistent contributions on both sides of the floor.
Senior guard Dominick Mejia is in a shooting slump (30 percent from three, down from 37 percent last season), but it looks like Flint is trying to get him through it because Mejia hasn't let the poor percentages stop him from jacking up threes en masse (6-of-24 against Syracuse and Temple), and Flint hasn't cut his minutes as a result (32 in each of the past two games).
Drexel begins Colonial play with George Mason on Thursday in Philadelphia, and, from the look of things, that game may officially signal the passing of the torch for the Colonial's threat to the college basketball world. (VCU, Old Dominion, and Hofstra may take umbrage with that statement. Then again, they aren't No. 7 in the RPI, are they?) (www.kenpom.com)
Sadly, as the latest rankings show, even if Drexel goes on to win the Colonial tournament and take the auto bid, they will still probably get stuck with a too-low seed.
Then again, this will make them angry (a good thing) and most likely facing the third- or fourth-best team from one of the larger conferences (also a good thing).
Miracles have been made from less.
Seth Doria is a writer/sellout in Missouri. His weekly Sleeper Watch and Daily NCAA Reports are posted on The Left Calf.
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