Drexel set for showdown with Northeastern

Drexel coach Bruiser Flint has told his players that he's trying not to yell at them so much lately.

"At some point in the season, there are only so many Knute Rockne speeches you've got," Flint said last week. "And there's only so much you can get on them about."

Saturday afternoon, the Dragons are in Richmond, Va., to play their first game in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament, at 2:30 p.m. They'll face Northeastern, a 77-67 winner over Delaware in Friday's first round of the CAA tournament.

The fourth-seeded Dragons (22-7 overall, 13-5 CAA) will go over the scouting report, but Flint said of his team, "Those guys have to realize, it's about them. My whole thing is, and I've been on my team about this all year, is about their preparation. When we come ready to play, honestly, we can play with anybody. We've proven it all year. When we get our minds right, and guys come in, and we prepare, and they're mentally and physically ready, we've shown what we can do. But we've had some games where honestly, where we haven't been ready, and it's bit us in the butt."

Nobody on Drexel's current team has won a postseason game, not even in the CAA tournament. So Flint doesn't expect anybody looking past Saturday's game to a potential matchup with top CAA seed Virginia Commonwealth today in the semifinals. Everybody understands that a game with VCU might be an NCAA play-in game. But a loss Saturday probably means the NIT.

Flint believes his team could return from Richmond with a conference title. Of course, he points out that nobody could be surprised if any of the top four seeds win it.

"This team, after we got in the CAA, this is what I envisioned three or four years down the line," Flint said. "Because these are the type of guys I needed to have success in this conference. The other guys before that, we scrapped and scraped and the guys played hard, but I always felt that we could never win a championship, just because when push came to shove, we weren't physically good enough, when we got into the tournament and things slowed a little bit."

It's no given that all four of the league heavyweights - VCU, Drexel, Old Dominion and Hofstra - would get through to the semifinals.

Drexel swept the season series with Northeastern (13-18), winning, 67-41, on Market Street on Jan. 17 and by 68-59 in Boston on Jan. 29. But Northeastern has won four straight games and ended its regular season by grabbing the No. 5 seed in the CAA with an impressive 73-50 victory over George Mason.

If Drexel gets past this one and VCU also survives, "it will be crazy," Flint said. "It will be like a home game for them." But this is the Drexel team that already has won at Villanova, Syracuse and Creighton (and Hofstra, St. Joseph's and Temple). After winning at Creighton, Flint said he knew his team could handle anything.