Men's Basketball: 7-game road swing continues at Drexel

The men’s basketball team will travel to Philadelphia this weekend as it faces Drexel in the second match of a sequence of seven away games. The Tigers (4-5) will look to make it four wins in a row after triumphing in the dying seconds in the annual match against Rutgers on Wednesday. Drexel (2-4) needs to regroup after a difficult start to the season that has seen four losses in its last five games.

Princeton came into the game after junior forward Ian Hummer sank a game-winning layup for a two-point lead over Rutgers with only three seconds on the clock. The Tigers won 59-57, but only after blowing a 17-point lead at 49-32 with eight minutes left in the second half. The victory was the first for Princeton in Rutgers territory since 1999, ending a five-game losing streak on the home floor of the Scarlet Knights.

Hummer led the team for the umpteenth time this season with 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Sophomore guard T.J. Bray and senior guard Doug Davis turned in very good shifts as well, but head coach Mitch Henderson ’98 has been especially pleased with the emergence of freshman forward Denton Koon.

“I like what we’ve seen off the bench,” Henderson said in an interview prior to the Rutgers game, “especially with Denton and the lift that we got and in not fouling — that’s been a big lift for us.”

After making six of seven field goal attempts in the win against Lafayette, Koon went a perfect 5-5 from the field against Rutgers and chipped in with an additional four rebounds. He saw extended minutes as a substitute, teaming up with Hummer and junior forward Mack Darrow in the frontcourt for most of the game.

“It’s huge. Like coach said, because we have a pretty tough road trip coming up, it’s good for our confidence,” Davis said in the post-match interview. “But the most important thing is to get a win — period.”

Despite having already played six games this season, Drexel’s home game against the Tigers will be the first at Daskalakis Athletic Center this season, and a raucous crowd will likely greet the visitors. The inconsistent Dragons outscored their opponents by a combined 41 points in their two wins, while three of their four losses were by double digits. Inexperience has likely played an important role in their absurd collection of results, considering 10 of the 14 squad members are freshmen or sophomores.

Dragons’ forward Samme Givens could test Princeton’s frontcourt after coming off a solid year in which he averaged 12.2 points and 10.1 rebounds per game. Nonetheless, although he found himself selected by collegeinsider.com to the Lou Henson Preseason All-America early last month, he has yet to find his rhythm this season, having averaged single digits in both points and rebounds thus far.

The Dragons will count on guards Damion Lee and Frantz Massenat to provide the scoring impetus for the team. Massenat has buried an impressive 43.5 percent of his three-point attempts this season, while Lee has contributed a valuable 11.5 points per game. With the pair leading the scoring charts for Drexel, Davis and Bray will have to ensure they maintain their intensity, on defense in particular.

Even if Givens does find his old touch, Henderson can take comfort in the success of the current starting lineup that has played and won the last three games. Darrow and senior forward Patrick Saunders have performed creditably when given the opportunity, and Koon has proven himself capable of filling in and providing an offensive boost, something the team has sorely needed this season. Bray, while not a prolific scorer, has shown himself to be a more-than-dependable presence at the point guard position, dishing out assists, rebounding well and defending wholeheartedly.

Henderson may justifiably continue to tinker with the successful lineup as he seeks to refine a team that has not managed to sustain high levels of play for all 40 minutes. Still, he certainly has the raw ingredients at his disposal to preside over a promising season.