McCoy helps Drexel win bruising battle against Old Dominion

His birth certificate reveals that his given first name is James, but the Drexel men's basketball coach only uses that for official documents. The grandfather of Bruiser Flint, Philadelphia college basketball's most ardent boxing fan, obviously had a notion of what the future would hold when he conferred that nickname on the rambunctious toddler who even then loved to get physical.

Now in his 10th season with the Dragons, Flint's teams are taught to play a bruising and flinty brand of hoops, never backing down, always taking the fight to the guys in the other-colored jerseys. To get it on with the Dragons in the paint is like engaging in a heavyweight boxing match, no quarter either asked or given.

And so it was last night at the Daskalakis Athletic Center when Drexel and Old Dominion, the nation's second- and third-leading rebounding teams, went at it like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, bodies slamming into one another around the basket. The visiting Monarchs won the first few rounds, and closed strong, but Drexel's scrappers controlled enough of the midgame action to come away with a 62-57 Colonial Athletic Association victory that served notice that the rest of the league schedule will be a toe-to-toe slugfest.

Down, 32-24, at intermission, the Dragons began the second half by going on a 29-5 run that was effective, if not especially elegant. The biggest banger was 6-9 sophomore forward Daryl McCoy, who outbattled the Monarchs in finishing with 11 points and, more significantly, 16 rebounds. With McCoy tossing his 270 pounds around with authority, the Dragons (11-4, 3-2 CAA) became the first team to outboard Old Dominion (12-4, 3-2), and by a fairly significant 47-37 margin. McCoy's power game was especially evident in the second half as Drexel owned the glass by a 27-17 margin.

"It came down to Daryl McCoy because he got nearly every rebound," Flint said. "In the second half, not only did Daryl make them miss, he got the rebounds, too."

Evidently, McCoy, a sophomore from Hartford, Conn., took to heart the lesson he learned last season when Flint gathered his players together to watch a tape of the legendary third bout between Ali and Frazier, the "Thrilla in Manila." Basketball and boxing are alike in some ways; sometimes it comes down to who wants it more, and is willing to pay the steeper price for victory.

"We watched the 'Thrilla in Manila' and analyzed it because that's one of the all-time ebb-and-flow boxing matches," Flint said. "You take a shot, I take a shot. One guy gets going for five rounds, the next guy gets going for five rounds. We stopped it after each round to talk about it."

With an especially raucous crowd of 2,532 in the DAC and a national television audience on ESPNU looking on, the Dragons didn't really come out smokin' at the start against a team that had beaten Drexel six straight times. ODU seized a 30-18 lead with 3 minutes, 51 seconds remaining in the first half. Considering it shot only 32.1 percent (9-for-28) heading into the break, Drexel probably was fortunate to be down by only eight.

Flint, of course, lit into his team and gave it the what-for. To have a real slugfest, he told them, you have to have both sides firing away.

"They manhandled us," Flint said of the first half. "I thought we were a little afraid of these guys. I said, 'Yo, why are we playing that way?' But in the second half, we did what we needed to do."

It helped, of course, that Old Dominion sank only two of its first 15 field-goal attempts as Drexel surged to a 53-37 lead with 6:09 left.

Chris Fouch led the Dragons with 16 points while Samme Givens and Gerald Colds added 12 apiece.