Drexel’s season comes to an end after loss to Towson in CAA tournament

Drexel’s season came to a heartbreaking end as it fell to the top-seeded Towson, 82-76.

The quarterfinal matchup lived up to its billing as a fight between two top contenders for the Coastal Athletic Association title, and ultimately the Tigers needed a Herculean effort out of the CAA Player of the Year Tyler Tejada and All-CAA second team guard Dylan Williamson to survive the underdog Dragons.

Williamson scored 32 points, 24 of which came in the second half, propelled by his 7 of 10 shooting from three. Tejada scored 21 points on 9 of 19 shooting. No other Tiger reached double digits.

For Drexel, redshirt sophomore Shane Blakeney led the Dragons offensively, scoring 24 points on 9 of 11 shooting.

The Dragons received another well-rounded offensive performance with four double-digit contributors. Yame Butler, Kobe MaGee and Deuce Drake scored 14, 13 and 12 points, respectively.

Towson set the tone early with physical defense, which led to Drexel to struggle mightily inside the paint. Center Cole Hargrove in particular was unable to get anything going offensively.

Drexel’s best offense came from beyond the arc where they shot 4 of 9. On two-point attempts, the Dragons shot 36%. That was not enough for the Dragons to keep up with Towson’s potent offense, which helped the Tigers, 38-29, at the half.

In the second half, Drexel found an answer to Towson’s offensive threats besides Williamson, who hit all six of his three-point attempts. The rest of the Tigers shot 30% and went only 1 of 6 from behind the arc.

The Dragons, on the other hand, had a great second half of offensively, with 47 points on 63% shooting overall and 54% shooting from deep.

With 7:05 remaining, the Dragons trailed, 71-59, and it seemed as though it just caught Towson on the wrong day. But 17 points in the next five minutes — all but two of which came from the trio of Butler, Blakeney and MaGee — brought the Dragons to a 77-76 deficit with 1:50 to play.

With their usual power forward, Victor Panov, missing this game due to injury, Drexel head coach Zach Spiker opted to deploy a small ball lineup for the majority of the game. This severely hampered Drexel’s performance on the glass, allowing Towson to grab 17 offensive rebounds and 16 second chance points. This weakness often undercut Drexel’s comeback effort, but it was most evident with 43 seconds left in the game and Towson’s Nendah Tarke at the line.

This meant that the 6-foot, 5-inch Butler was lined up closest to the basket, tasked with boxing out a taller, heavier Tomiwa Sulaiman. Tarke missed the free throw off the back iron, sending the ball arcing high in between Butler and Sulaiman, with the latter coming away with the ball.

This reset the possession, leading to Williamson hitting a final, heavily-contested, dagger three to put the game away.