Starting the Look Back

With only two weekends of basketball left, and Drexel done for the year, that time has come.  It's the time to look back and reflect, analyize and then decide what we can do better, as fans, players or administrators.  Some friends of mine were flipping around emails today on what they most enjoyed about the season, and some of my answers are below.  Truth is, this was a seaon with one of the most talented Drexel teams of all time, and they spent the season hovering around .500.  Many fans will be spending Final Four weekend hoping that Bru will accept an assistant job at Kentucky, where he can go and recruit for Cal in private jets with more seating room than he has in his Drexel office.  And for reasons we will get into later, that would be a win/win all the way around, except for the whole moving to Kentucky thing for Bru.  Maybe he's a bourbon guy though.  Today we ignore all that though (the flip side will be coming next week, I promise) and come to realize that given how much this team underperformed, there were still some incredible highlights this year:


Three clearly at the top:

MSG.  Triple OT.  No Damion Lee.  Walk out a winner anyway, and then getting to see one of the best games of the premire out of conference games of the year, Arizona/Duke?  That`s a solid evening.

Pauley Pavillion.  Double dgit Drexel fans hopping a plane out, and the coaching staff taking care of us like they always do.  Bru always wanted to coach at Pauley, I always wanted to see a game there, and a game it was, right to the end.

Watching the DU/NU game in Baltimore while knowing with 100% confidence that Chris Fouch was going to go nuts in the second half and then watching him do it.  Seeing a kid that clutch is why I think he's my favorite DU player ever. I'm a stats guy and stats seem to argue that "clutchness" is a myth.  Thing is, I believe in Chris Fouch more than I believe in numbers.  Incredible kid, incredible talent, and the fact that he chose to play his senior year at DU when he could have played anywhere is a tribute to every member of this program, and his own sense of loyalty.


The rest:

Drexel at Davidson, VA state trooper and all.  Went to the game with my senior year housemates and got the road W, then the roomies place in Charlotte for a Christmas party.  What a trip.

A CAA tournament in Baltimore?  In Baltimore?  #DragonFail or not, a great weekend with lots of CAA friends.  The reason why it's still snowing in March?  This is Yeager's hell and it has frozen over.

The success of the blog, totally unexpected and because of all of you.  Can't thank you enough for making this feel like a worthwhile venture, and also to you BT editors who helped me along the way.

It's no secret that I've had rocky relationship at times with the DAC staff, but that some of them were willing to step up and spend some of their valuable time to assist me in various ways tshoughout the season was a highlight for me personally.  Special thanks to Molly Rallo Zaluski (edit: sorry Molly!) and Mike Tuberosa, both of whom are really quality people.

Hofstra.  Frantz Massenat.  HU fans, just tip your hat and call him your daddy.

Watching Delaware lose.  Always watching Delaware lose.


And can Bruiser Flint make the positive list?  You`re damn right he can. Love it or hate it, how long have fans been asking him to do something, anything at all, outside the box?  Was the four guard lineup attrocious?  Absolutely.  Did the zone resemble a bad 2-3 that you would see at the pickup game courts Bru played on when he was 14?  Yup.  Did they both look like panic moves from a coach that was scared of injuries and knew his team was underperforming, and stuff that the team wasn't nearly prepared to execute succesfully?  Sure.

But none of that is the point.  He did it.  That's all that matters.  13 years into not thinking could learn new tricks, he tried something new.  Who knows, maybe some of that sticks and the team will have a whole offseason and China trip to impliment it this time.  Anything is possible, Kevin Garnett told me that.  I can be upset he used it in the conference tournament, but I have to be downright giddy that he tried it in the regular season.  You don't think this is a big deal?  Try doing something for 13 years and then changing.  Have fun with that.  Bru showed the willingness to do it, after years of many fans, myself included, almost begging.  And for that I am thankful.


Next week, part two.  Thanks for sticking with the blog, and thanks for sticking with Drexel basketball.