WASHINGTON D.C. – Drexel head coach Zach Spiker sat inside the press room at CareFirst Arena for a good minute after speaking with the media with his head in his hand.
The Dragons season had come to a close, following a 65-57 loss to Monmouth in the quarterfinals of the CAA Tournament. The finality of the season was setting in for the visibly distraught Spiker. His Dragons had played their last game together. This particular group’s time was coming to an end. Seniors will graduate and move on to their next endeavor. The transfer portal brings uncertainty about those who have eligibility left. The abrupt and cold reality of a season’s end started to come on.
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“When you have your final game, it always comes a bit earlier than you plan for,” said Spiker, sitting beside seniors Garfield Turner and Shane Blakeney.
It was a pair of long scoring droughts, and a tough afternoon on the offensive end outside of the opening minutes that closed the 10th season of the Spiker era.
Drexel made five of their first six threes out of the gate, and at one point had an 11-point advantage in the latter portion of the first half. The Dragons would go on to make just four of their next 16 triples for the rest of the afternoon.
There was a scoring drought of over six and a half minutes that allowed Monmouth to take their first lead at the end of the opening half.
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Then in the second half, Drexel went over nine minutes without a field goal. A Garfield Turner turnaround shot in the paint at the 10:31 mark put Drexel up 48-43. Their next made basket came with just over a minute left, when Eli Beard drilled a transition three point shot from the right wing. The game was all but out of reach at that point, as Monmouth was on the cusp of being put into the double bonus as Drexel played the foul game.
Drexel ultimately finished the second half with eight turnovers and just seven made field goals. A combination of tough bounces, unfavorable rolls, and 15 turnovers against the CAA’s top defense in that department did them in, at a time of year where unfortunately, you’re not guaranteed another opportunity to try to change your fortune.
“I felt like we were stuck on 29 in the first half, and 48 [in the second half]. Some tough stretches, a couple tough bounces,” Spiker said. “We start out hot, maybe there’s a little bit of a regression to the mean, and maybe those averages kicked in. I really liked how we started. You’d like to finish better.”
The end of a season isn’t easy for any coach, no matter how many times they’ve been through it. When it’s personal between coaches, it can be even harder. Spiker and Monmouth head coach King Rice are close friends, and have been for a while. Spiker’s father was a trainer at the University of North Carolina before Rice played there under the legendary Dean Smith.
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Rice’s team will have a chance to advance to the NCAA Tournament with a win in the CAA Championship Tuesday night, after defeating Campbell the night after beating Drexel. Rice is a win away from clinching a spot in March Madness for the first time in his 15 seasons as the head coach in West Long Branch, N.J.
He still feels for Spiker. The two shook hands and shared some words after the game. It’s something Rice said that he didn’t do properly in his eyes after their first meeting in the middle of January, when Drexel raced past Monmouth 73-51 on the Hawks’ campus.
“People don’t know that me and Spiker are super tight,” Rice said. “After the game, you shake hands knowing their season is done and we get to keep going. These games are exciting, they’re fun, but there’s friendships.
‘Now my friend’s season is over. You get to know guys. You call each other after big wins and tough losses. When he whooped me earlier this year, I called him. I didn’t shake his hand the right way after the game because I got a whooping that night and I was being immature. I apologized to him the next time we played because he’s my friend.”
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It can be tough for the coaches, sure, but Rice and Spiker can come back next year, and have for a decade or more at their respective institutions. Not all the time can either coaches’ players do the same.
For Garfield Turner, he’s out eligibility. For Shane Blakeney, he can return, but has the option to use his final year of eligibility elsewhere if he chooses. The veteran duo each spent four years at Drexel, spending one of them on the sidelines due to injury. They stayed. They grew. They developed. They became guys that Spiker depended on.
“It sucks to be in a locker room with a group of guys that you’ve shared so much life with, that you’ve seen grow and mature from members of the team, to drivers of the culture,” Spiker said. “That’s who I’m sharing this table with today. I couldn’t be more honored to have a chance to coach them.”
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Their leadership was needed on a team that lost their four leading scorers from a season ago. They’ve spent enough time in University City to live the standards of the program, and even take over for Spiker in the huddle. They’ve done that at multiple points over the course of the season. Sunday was no different.
“We had a huddle [Saturday afternoon against Northeastern] where I didn’t say a word,” Spiker said. “Actually, I couldn’t get a word in. Shane and GT were all over guys coaching them. Hopefully we can continue to evolve to the part where you got guys playing that can drive the culture.”
In Turner’s final game as a Dragon, he put up 10 points and six rebounds in Washington D.C., just over 30 miles south of his hometown of Gaithersburg, Md. After sitting out last season with a knee injury, Turner was a big reason why Drexel, picked to finish 10th out of 13 teams in the CAA preseason poll, finished in fifth place. He averaged 10 points per game and more than six rebounds per game over the final month of the season, which included a career best game with 16 points and 13 rebounds in a late February win over Towson. Four years ago, he came to Drexel as a JUCO transfer, playing previously at Odessa College in East Texas. His personal growth is the biggest thing he’ll take with him as he turns in his jersey for the final time.
“Personally, the biggest thing that I learned is how to become a man,” Turner said. “I came here from the wild west of JUCO. Coming here, everyone helped me become a man off the court. On the court, I learned how to deal with things, learning there’s going to be adversity in life.”
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For Blakeney, whether he returns or not, he’s been another in a long line of great development stories at Drexel. He sat out with injury his first year. Then he seldom played on a 20-win team that was among the top 10 teams in the country in returning minutes. Last season, he was the Dragons’ super sub, playing the role of a sixth starter off the bench. This season, he was one the CAA’s best two way players. He led Drexel and scoring, and most nights he chased around the other team’s best scorer. He was rewarded not only with a spot on the CAA’s all conference second team, but with a spot on the all-defensive team as well. His defense wasn’t even something he came to the college ranks well regarded in by his own sentiment.
“My high school stuff, I wasn’t really guarding,” Blakeney said.“ So, I appreciate [Spiker] for helping me understand both sides of the ball defensively.
“That’s probably one of the more important parts of my game. They explained it to me and allowed me to grow in a way where I could become an all-defensive player, which is something I never thought I’d do.”
The loss, and ultimately the curtain coming down on Drexel’s season hurts. College basketball is unique in that regard in how quickly things can end. Spiker still appreciates his guys and the chance to watch their development over victory or defeat.
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“The difference in winning and losing, it’s a fine line,” Spiker said. “We’re in a one bid league… It doesn’t change the big picture and how these guys have evolved and grown. It’s been an honor to share the program with them.”
