Looking to gain momentum after last Saturday’s win against injury-riddled Delaware (Sunday’s game was postponed because of Delaware injuries), William and Mary (3-5, 1-2 CAA) will travel north to Philadelphia to take on the Drexel Dragons (5-4, 0-2 CAA) in the Tribe’s latest two-game, two-day slate. For the Tribe — which has struggled with turnovers and has yet to string together two decent halves of basketball, coming out cold every conference game in the first half — this will be an opportunity to reset the narrative and potentially upset the No. 3 team in CAA preseason polls.
Meanwhile, for Drexel — which underperformed at Charleston last weekend and was swept 2-0 by Tommy Glasgow’s Cougars — this will be a chance for the Dragons to reassert their dominance and redeem themselves after a poor performance. While the Dragons have two star players in graduate forward James Butler and junior guard Camren Wynter, both of whom were tapped as part of the preseason All-CAA First Team, Drexel has underperformed repeatedly in past seasons. Plus, Brendan, John and I (but Brendan especially) have questions about Drexel head coach Zach Spiker and his abilities to lead the Dragons and turn them into CAA title contenders. (Interestingly, however, Spiker and our very own Dane Fischer both attended Ithaca College in central New York, and Fischer credits Spiker as being “very instrumental” in helping him get into coaching.)
Ideally, Drexel should win both of these games at home against us. But maybe — just maybe — the Green and Gold can steal a road win from the Dragons in the City of Brotherly Love, John’s favorite place in America.
William and Mary Tribe vs. Drexel Dragons — Saturday, 1 p.m. // Sunday 1 p.m.
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Tale of the Tape
According to John Kearns’s KYUSAG model, William and Mary is a 10-point underdog and has only a 15.6 percent chance of staging an upset at Drexel.
Currently, William and Mary is ranked 287th in KenPom (248th adj off/305th adj def), while Drexel is a much better 163rd (149th adj off/182 adj def).
Meanwhile, in KYSUAG, the Tribe ranks 10th (dead last!) in the CAA and 268th overall, and Drexel ranks third in the conference and 152nd in the NCAA.
Projected Starters
W&M: G Luke Loewe (Sr.), G Yuri Covington (Fr.), G Connor Kochera (Fr.), F Quinn Blair (Jr.), F Ben Wight (RFr.). Wight had a solid performance against Delaware last Saturday — tallying 10 points, four rebounds and two blocks in just 19 minutes of play — so I imagine we’ll see him again as a starter at Drexel this weekend. Plus, junior forward/center Mekhel Harvey, I thought, played better down the stretch coming off the bench, so I think he should be our backup big man going forward unless something changes for the worse with Wight. In the second half against Delaware last Saturday, Harvey scored seven points in 15 minutes on perfect 3-of-3 shooting. He also grabbed five rebounds and put up a block during that pivotal final period.
Drexel: G Camren Wynter (Jr.), G/F Zach Walton (Gr.), F James Butler (Gr.), F T.J. Bickerstaff (So.), F Mate Okros (So.). This lineup has worked decently well for Drexel so far, although the Dragons gave up a 12-point lead to Charleston in the second half last Sunday, losing 73-68. The only potential starter I see from among the Dragons’ bench — if Spiker wanted to switch it up, which I doubt — is junior guard Matey Juric. Juric started 15 times out of the 33 games he played last season and is currently averaging three points per game. While that’s not a great scoring average so far, he’s playing roughly the same amount of minutes as Okros (typically more than 20 minutes per game), and Okros is averaging only a marginally better 4.9 points per game.
What to Watch For
For William and Mary, the man as always to watch is Luke Loewe, the lone scholarship senior. Loewe had an off game, by his impeccable standards, against Delaware last Saturday. He shot 0-of-6 from the field in the first half, including 0-of-2 from three — although he did grab three huge steals from the Blue Hens. He warmed up in the second half, during which he shot 3-of-8 from the field, but he still couldn’t hit a three, finishing the game 0-of-4 from behind the arc. While Loewe did have a team-high seven assists, which is typical for him as one of the Tribe’s best passers with junior guard Thornton Scott (who’s out, sadly, because of personal reasons), Loewe scored only eight points and was the Tribe’s sixth best scorer that day. (Yikes!) Hopefully, Loewe will be able to stage a much better performance during his two-game, two-day road trip at Drexel this weekend. I’m sure Loewe’s dying to take the court and reassert himself as our best and brightest player, and I believe he’ll do that this Saturday and Sunday as he tries to singlehandedly slay the Dragons. Ever faithful, I believe in the Fisherman.
The other man in Green and Gold to really watch this weekend, in my opinion, is freshman guard Connor Kochera. Kochera had one of his best performances all year last Saturday against the Blue Hens, scoring a solid 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting from the field and 3-of-5 from three. However, while his box score was also brightened by a total of eight great rebounds (seven on defense and one on offense), Kochera’s scorecard was darkened by a team-high four turnovers. That put him in the territory of his classmate Yuri Covington, who’s averaging more than four turnovers (4.375, to be exact) across eight games so far. (Kochera, by contrast, has 11 total turnovers across seven appearances, meaning he’s averaging 1.57 per game.) While I’m not concerned that Kochera is going to become a ball-dominant turnover machine, I’d like to see the McDonald’s All-American nominee from Arlington Heights, Ill., bring his scoring average closer to 12, 13 or 14 points per game (currently, he’s at 10.1 PPG) without turning the ball over or without getting into foul trouble. In his debut game at Old Dominion (Nov. 28, 2020), during which he scored a season- and career-high 19 points, Kochera fouled out. If Kochera can stay healthy and sustain those kinds of contributions without turning the ball over or getting into foul trouble, we’ll be in excellent shape as a team going forward.
For Drexel, the players to watch are the Dragons’ dynamic duo, graduate forward James Butler and junior guard Camren Wynter. Butler, a perennial All-CAA talent, is averaging a double-double so far this season: 14.2 points and 10.3 boards per game. While Butler doesn’t shoot the three ball (he’s only shot one trey this year, which, to his credit, he made), he’s an excellent paint player, scoring an incredible 56.8 percent (46-of-81) from inside the arc.
Drexel’s leading scorer, Wynter, meanwhile, is averaging 18 points per game on 46.5 percent (60-of-129) shooting from the field and remarkable 47.2 percent (17-of-36) shooting from three. While Wynter had one of his worst games ever during his first go-around at Charleston (Jan. 9) last weekend, in which the Dragons narrowly fell to the Cougars, 61-60, and Wynter had six fatal turnovers and a meager four points (more TOs than points!), that game was an outlier, and Wynter will be a persistent threat against us this weekend. He’s only scored below 10 points once this season. (The second go-around against Charleston, he roared back against the Cougars with a team-high 19 points.) Don’t sleep on Wynter, or you’ll regret it. In the words of George R. R. Martin if he were a CAA basketball fan, Wynter is coming — and don’t you forget it.