Spring Break
Flint highlights award recipients
CAA Tournament gets underway
Brett Fischer
Issue date: 3/6/09 Section: Sports
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Head Coach Bruiser Flint, senior Scott Rodgers, freshman Samme Givens and junior Leon Spencer were all honored with CAA awards March 5, signifying the end of the regular season and the beginning of the CAA Tournament.
Flint was named Coach of the Year for the third time. After finishing 12-20 last season and losing their best player in Frank Elegar, the Dragons were picked 12th out of the 12 teams in the CAA. Things only got worse after highly touted freshman guard Chris Fouch was injured for the season.
But Flint took a "no nonsense" attitude and guided his team to a seven-game winning streak in January, a 10-8 conference record (15-13 overall) and gave it a chance to earn a bye in the CAA Tournament until the final night of the season.
A large part of the reason Drexel was able to do so well throughout the season was because of Rodgers and Givens.
Rodgers, who was named to the All-Defense Team and the Second-Team All CAA, led the Dragons with 13.7 ppg and averaged 5.1 rpg. Even more impressively, Rodgers had his best year defensively of his career. He forced three All-CAA First Team players into bad performances against Rodgers including Virginia Commonwealth's Eric Maynor, Northeastern's Matt Janning and Hofstra's Charles Jenkins.
Givens was named to the All-Rookie Team after averaging 5.6 ppg and 6.8 rpg for the season. Givens proved himself as a good overall rebounder, but he excelled most as an offensive boarder, getting over half of his rebounds off of his team's missed shots.
Spencer was awarded as a Second-Team All-Academic performer for his successes both on and off the court. Spencer averaged 6.5 ppg and 4.7 rpg, but his shot-blocking efforts are what made him such an incredible competitor this year.
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