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LOCATION: Philadelphia, PA
CONFERENCE: America East
LAST SEASON: 20-9 (.690)
CONFERENCE RECORD: 15-3 (t-1st)
STARTERS LOST/RETURNING: 1/4
NICKNAME: Dragons
COLORS: Blue & Gold
HOMECOURT: Physical Ed. Athletic Center (2,300)
COACH: Steve Seymour (Bridgewater State '81)
record at school John O'Connor (Penn State '83)
career record Dino Presley (Kutztown '93)
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ASSISTANTS: Jim Rullo (Drexel '94)
RECORD AT SCHOOL 1st year
CAREER RECORD 1st year
TEAM WINS: (last 5 years) 25-27-22-13-20
RPI (last 5 years) 57-50-72-156-100
1998-99 FINISH: Lost in conference finals.
ESPN.com Clubhouse
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He finally did it. After five America East regular-season titles, three NCAA Tournament appearances, and even more inquiries from other schools into his availability, Bill Herrion finally listened long enough and liked what he heard. Eight years at Drexel was enough. Herrion has taken his hard-driving style to Greenville, N.C., and is the new coach at East Carolina. But "new coach" would hardly be the way to describe the man now running the Dragons. Steve Seymour spent eight years alongside Herrion as the Dragons' top assistant. Now he has the program all to himself. "When you enter into this profession, it's your goal to have a chance to have your own program. This is my opportunity," Seymour said. With his loyalty rewarded, it is now Seymour's responsibility and aim to dethrone Delaware, the program that has replaced Drexel as America East's signature team. The Dragons were close a year ago, so Seymour doesn't plan to change much on the court, but he is by no means the crack-the-whip fireball that Herrion was. "Our trademark is going to remain the same hardcore man-to-man defense," Seymour said. "But I'm a young coach and as time goes on and as I get more comfortable, my own ideas and style will come out."
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Blue Ribbon Analysis |
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BACKCOURT C+ BENCH/DEPTH B+
FRONTCOURT B+ INTANGIBLES B+
The Dragons got the program back to where it always expects to be last season with the 20 victories and the appearance in the America East Tournament final. Yet, the man who built those expectations, Bill Herrion, is gone. After eight years at Drexel, Herrion accepted the head-coaching job at East Carolina, leaving the Dragons to long-time assistant Steve Seymour. Most of the talent remains for Seymour to maintain in 1999-2000 what Herrion established. Seymour does have to replace program poster boy Mike DeRocckis, but all-league frontcourt performers Joe Linderman and Mike Kouser and senior point guard Bryant Coursey form a good nucleus. Seymour's biggest chore will be to interchange steady junior forward Petrik Sanders with a collection of promising freshmen and other underachieving juniors to get sufficient production. If Julius Williams and Stephen Starks finally live up to expectations, Seymour will have one of those depth problems that coaches like to have. "All our guys had good summers, but now it's a matter of them taking that and making it pay on the court," Seymour said. "The question is can they go up to Seton Hall and carry out a defensive assignment for 40 minutes." That's the philosophy that Herrion brought to Drexel and Seymour will maintain. The Dragons' aberration of a season in 1997-98 directly correlated to some young players not knowing the defensive system. They learned last year and Drexel improved. If that learning curve continues to rise, the Dragons will again find themselves among the best in a very competitive upper echelon in America East. If Seymour also finds another scorer or two, the Dragons could be lifting league hardware for the first time since 1996. |
The Dragons still have nearly all the weapons that left them one victory short of the NCAA Tournament. The No. 1 bullet in Seymour's gun is 6-9 senior center Joe Linderman. With Drexel's version of granite man, Mike DeRocckis, now gone, the attention and focus of the program shifts squarely to Linderman, who battled through a stress fracture in his left foot last season and earned first-team all-league honors for a second straight year. Offseason surgery to remove bone spurs from both feet should make Linderman completely healthy for the first time in his career. That could be scary. "Joe's never been healthy from October to March," Seymour said. "He's a hell of a player at 80-percent. What's he going to be like at 100-percent for 27 games?" A Linderman with limited mobility still managed to score 17.2 points, grab 7.6 rebounds per game, and shoot .569 percent from the field. He remains, as he has been virtually throughout his career, the conference's best pure back-to-the-basket force. "He's always given us trouble," Delaware coach Mike Brey said. "He's a matchup problem because he's so solid in the post." Linderman may have his health, but he won't have alongside the player who personified Herrion's tenure. DeRocckis was as heady and hard-nosed a player as there is. He started all 119 of his games at Drexel and, although his shooting (.372) and scoring (13.4 ppg) numbers dropped a bit, his leadership and toughness will be impossible to replace. "Where we are really going to miss Michael is on the defensive end," Seymour said. "He was a tenacious defender. I'm really concerned more about my perimeter defense than my perimeter offense." Seymour hopes two mild surprises from last year Mike Kouser and Bryant Coursey can improve defensively the way they improved offensively last season. Kouser, a 6-7 junior, emerged from a pack of four athletic forwards who all had rather ordinary freshmen years and became the one outstanding sophomore. Kouser, Petrick Sanders, Julius Williams and Stephen Starks all got their rookie-year chances and produced mixed results. The results were minimal for Williams and Starks. Sanders' improvement was subtle, while Kouser blossomed, averaging 12.8 points and a team-best 8.1 rebounds on his way to a second-team all-league selection. He also showed off his versatility with 43 three-pointers second only to DeRocckis among Dragons and a respectable .368 percentage from long range. "Mike took advantage of the time at the beginning of the year when Joe was out with the injury. He played well and developed confidence. He played too well to take out of the lineup," Seymour said. If Kouser was the Dragons' most improved player then the 6-1 Coursey was club's comeback player of the year. As a junior last season, Coursey seemed to grow up. That translated into much better results. Two seasons ago things were so bad for Coursey that he found himself in the outhouse of Herrion's doghouse and was suspended for the final six weeks of the season. No such troubles last year. After a slow start, Coursey (9.3 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 4.6 apg, .476 FG percentage, .306 three-point percentage) became the threat at the point that Drexel had been lacking. He also quarterbacks the defense. Athletic and strong, Coursey is the best on-the-ball defender on a pressure-defense team. Coursey may have been at his best in the America East Tournament, where he averaged 12 points and four assists, earning all-tournament status and helping Drexel to the title game. With DeRocckis gone, that type of performance and additional leadership will be needed every night. Only DeRocckis started more games than Sanders, a 6-6 junior, whose first two seasons were surprisingly steady for a young player. Sanders (8.6 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 15 blocked shots), who Seymour calls "the quiet assassin," reached double figures in three of the five games Linderman missed last season and quietly settled into his supporting role. A hometown high school star at Frankford HS, Sanders has adapted well and become more of a grinder in college. His rebounding numbers could be better. They will be if he learns to better use his leaping ability and is more aggressive. Sanders could have the kind of breakthrough year Kouser had last season. Swingmen Williams (2.9 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 8.3 mpg, 17 games) and Starks (1.6 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 7.6 mpg, 18 games) have both performed under expectations in their first two seasons. A big scorer in high school, the 6-4 Williams has become mostly a defense-oriented player at Drexel. Yet he hasn't even done that well enough to earn consistent playing time. Williams played more as a freshman (12.8 mpg, 19 games) and by the end of last season was barely getting off the bench. Starks' game is offense, where he has shown signs that he could be a big scorer at the college level. Unfortunately, the gaps between those glimpses have gotten larger. The 6-5 Starks saw an even more significant drop off in playing time (19.3 mpg, 26 games as a freshman). He will get that time back as a junior if he can apply his athletic gifts to improvements on the defensive end. Six-foot-two senior Tom Dearborn (2.4 ppg, 0.4 rpg, .344 three-point percentage,18 games) was also a disappointment last season. Expected to be another deep-shooting option, complementing DeRocckis, Dearborn couldn't get off the bench enough to have an impact. The problem is that deep-shooting is all Dearborn does. Of his 124 career field goal attempts, 110 have been three-point shots. Dearborn took just five shots inside the arc last season. He doesn't rebound and can't defend well, but with DeRocckis gone, Seymour may have to use Dearborn more often. Much of what happens to the playing time of Dearborn, Williams, and Starks could depend on the new faces. Seymour has two freshmen 6-6 Tim Whitworth (Chestnut Hill Academy/ Philadelphia) and 6-4 Doug Fairfax (Haverford School/ Philadelphia) who could challenge them immediately. Whitworth is a two-time all-city and all-state high school player and won the three-point shooting contest at the Pittsburgh Hoop Classic. He averaged 20.6 points and 9.0 rebounds last season and is Chestnut Hill's all-time leading scorer (1,727 points). Fairfax was also a big-time scorer, but more importantly, perhaps, knows what competing for minutes is all about. He has nine brothers and sisters. Fairfax scored more than 26 points a game and was also an all-Philly pick as a senior. Six-foot freshman guard Ashley Howard (Monsignor Bonner HS/ Philadelphia)will replaced the graduated Greg Gaffney as Coursey's backup at the point. Howard played his first three years at St. Joseph's Prep before moving onto Monsignor Bonner, where he was a 23.4 points-per-game scorer and a Philadelphia Daily News second-team all-city selection as a senior. Seymour secured a late signee in Robert Battle (Northeast HS/Philadelphia), who could get an opportunity to play as a reserve in what is a relatively small frontline. In fact, at 6-7 and 220-pounds, Battle is already the second-biggest player on the team behind Linderman. Battle's experience is limited, however. Despite receiving honorable mention all-city honors, Battle played just two seasons of basketball at Northeast. Most of his athletic excellence came on the football field as a defensive end. Battle also played volleyball and competed in track and field in high school. Because his talent is so raw, Battle may be redshirted. "When I first came into this league freshmen could make an impact, but this league has gotten so much better that freshmen can't come in and be impact players anymore," Seymour said. Six-foot-five senior guard-forward Chris Burch (1.7 ppg, 2.2 rpg) managed to make appearances in 24 games, but had very little impact in any other than maybe his nine points in a two-point loss to LaSalle. His role should be largely unchanged in 1999-2000. Six-foot-five sophomore forward Dakaree Rose (0.0 ppg, 0.2 rpg, six games), the brother of former Drexel great and current San Antonio Spurs forward Malik Rose, left the team for personal reasons. He is still enrolled in school.
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