Dragons unfazed by preseason predictions

Here at Drexel, we are excited to get the season under way. We’ve had a good few weeks of practice and I think our guys are ready to play for real. I think our team will be playing with a chip on its shoulder after being picked last in our conference. It’s not a surprise that we were picked where we were. We did lose one of the school’s all-time leading scorers in Frank Elegar. However, I think we have a chance to be much better than where we were picked.

The start of the season should be a lot of fun as we open the year with Penn here in the DAC. This will be the first time ever that Penn takes the walk up 33rd Street, and having them come to campus is an exciting thing for our fans as well as our players. What makes this even more exciting is that we will be playing at 10 in the morning as part of ESPN’s College Hoops Tip-off event. This will be the first time ESPN’s main network will be in the DAC since I got here and from what I hear it is the first time since Malik Rose was a junior. Our students should really get into the game and I am hoping we have more than 1,000 kids in the stands showing Penn just how much they care about basketball on the other side of Market Street.

We are really looking forward to our seniors having a good year for us. Tramayne Hawthorne and Scott Rodgers are looking to end their careers on a high note and get us back to the level we have been at over the last six years. Tramayne can really knock down the three-pointer and is one of the better defensive guards in our league. Scott has played well in the preseason and we need for him to continue playing like that as we start the new year.