The Triangle

Issue date: 2/6/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Aaron Walizer

After getting a few prayers answered, the Dragons were hoping to be tied for second place in the CAA by the end of the evening. Instead, they fell just short of pulling off their most impressive win of the season.

The men's basketball team (12-9, 8-4 CAA) lost 73-70 in overtime to the Delaware Blue Hens Feb. 4 at the Bob Carpenter Center in Newark, Del.

The loss ends Drexel's seven-game winning streak.

Guard Scott Rodgers had 17 points and nine rebounds and forward Samme Givens had 15 points and 11 boards for the Dragons.

Marc Egerson had a game-high 23 points to add to his 11 rebounds and Brian Johnson had 20 points for the Blue Hens (10-14, 4-8).

"I made the mistake because I should have just had [Rodgers] on [Egerson] throughout the entire game," Drexel coach Bruiser Flint said.

Delaware's Jawan Carter hit a 3-pointer with 42 seconds left in overtime and Drexel's Jamie Harris and Tramayne Hawthorne missed consecutive threes in the last five seconds as Delaware fans let out a huge gasp before celebrating the victory.

"They made big shots and big plays especially that last shot at the end of the game," Flint said.

The Dragons were lucky just to make it to the extra session.

With under a minute to play and the Dragons down by six, Hawthorne hit two desperation 3-pointers to tie the game and send it into overtime.

Drexel guard Jamie Harris had a rare off game.

He was just 1-of-4 from the field, he missed the potential game-tying shot and had four fouls the majority of the second half and overtime.

"[Harris] got in foul trouble and wasn't aggressive," Flint said. "But we still had our chances. Give Delaware credit."

Drexel lost despite outrebounding its conference rival 50-31. Four Dragons had at least eight rebounds compared to just one player on the Blue Hens.

Outside of rebounds, the biggest stat discrepancy of the night came from the foul line. The Dragons were only 11-19 (57.9 percent) from the charity stripe while the Blue Hens were 22-30 (73.3 percent).

"We gave Delaware plenty of opportunities to win the game and we couldn't knock down our free throws," Flint said. "We missed a lot of easy shots too."

The Dragons only shot 37.1 percent from the field, but did make 43.8 percent of their 3-point attempts.

Delaware made 43.1 percent of its shots and was red hot from beyond the arc, hitting 50 percent of its attempts.

The Dragons stormed out to a 9-0 lead and were up by 11 late in the first half.

"We should have put them away," Flint said. "We got up big, but we missed too many easy shots."

Earlier in the evening, Virginia Commonwealth (16-7, 9-3) was upset by host UNC Wilmington (6-18, 3-9) 81-72, and William & Mary (7-15, 2-10) stunned first-place Northeastern (15-7, 10-2) 68-63.

The losses by VCU and William & Mary meant that Drexel had a chance to be in a three-way tie for second place in the CAA had it won.

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