PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — Despite a frenzied effort in the closing minutes, Northeastern dug themselves too deep of a hole Saturday afternoon at the Daskalakis Athletic Center, losing to Drexel by a score of 83-78 and dropping to the bottom of the conference standings.
The Huskies are now 2-7 at the midpoint of regular-season CAA play, their second-worst mark through nine games since the 2010-11 season. Combined with NC A&T’s win over Towson earlier in the day, the loss left Northeastern dead last in the conference table.
Saturday’s contest got off to an even start, with the Huskies holding a 10-9 advantage after freshman guard Xavier Abreu sank a long two-pointer seven minutes in. Northeastern then proceeded to give up 12 unanswered points from Drexel, including a pair of three-point plays from graduate student forward Garfield Turner and junior guard Kevon Vanderhorst. It was Abreu who stopped the run on the next possession, sinking a jumper from the free-throw line to cut the deficit back to single digits.
The Huskies were able to whittle the margin down further by making four consecutive three-point attempts, with a trey from junior guard William Kermoury cutting the deficit to two with less than three minutes left in the half. It looked like Northeastern was going to take that deficit into the halftime break, until a three from senior forward Victor Panov with the shot clock off put the Dragons up five after 20 minutes.
The Huskies again looked to the deep ball at the start of the second half, but missed their first three triples during a span where Drexel did not score a single point. Those shots, combined with a couple of misses from the free-throw line, prevented Northeastern from fully capitalizing on the offensive lull from the home team.
The Dragons did not make a single field goal for a period of almost five minutes, but that drought ended when junior guard Kevon Vanderhorst made a three from the left corner to put his team up six. A couple possessions later, Vanderhorst got the ball in the same spot, faked the shot to blow by his defender, and drove to the rim, slamming down a dunk that brought a lively Homecoming weekend crowd at the DAC to its feet.
That sequence was the beginning of a 12-2 run by Drexel, helped by the Huskies committing turnovers on back-to-back possessions, both relatively unforced errors on short-range passes. To their credit, Northeastern showed spurts of getting into passing lanes on the defensive end throughout the night, often tipping the ball and making it more difficult for the Dragons’ offense but not forcing the turnover.
“The first time, they kind of got over the top on us, but I thought overall it was pretty good,” said Huskies head coach Bill Coen of his team’s defensive pressure. “I thought there was a travel or two that wasn’t called, or we could’ve had a few more turnovers out of it.”
Drexel, though, was able to expand its lead even further later in the second half, making nine of their last 11 field goal attempts of the afternoon. The Dragons led by 16 with as little as 1:35 remaining in the game, but the Huskies were able to put together a run in the closing moments that may have briefly put a scare into the home crowd.
Northeastern scored 19 points in the span of 1:28 that briefly cut the deficit to three, buoyed just as much by their four consecutive made three-pointers as it was by Drexel missing some key shots from the foul line. The Huskies smartly chose to foul sophomore guard Josh Reed as soon as he got the ball, and the 52% free-throw shooter on the season missed a few from the stripe to give Northeastern a chance. The Dragons as a team went 8-for-14 from the charity stripe during this stretch, but a pair of clutch shots from junior guard Shane Blakeney following an 0-for-2 trip the possession prior ultimately sealed it for Drexel.
The 19-6 run left the Huskies with some positives to take away, but it probably left Northeastern fans wishing for more of that type of performance earlier in the game.
“What we’re preaching to our guys is that for us, it’s a process,” Coen said. “We know we’re a little bit shorthanded. We’ve got to continue to get better. We’ve got to take full advantage of every opportunity, every minute on the clock to try to improve.”
Some of those injury issues seemed to be somewhat eased when freshman forward Ty Francis made his first appearance since an injury two weeks ago that left him in a walking boot. Less than two minutes into his afternoon, he took a hard hit on a screen from Turner and seemed to be in some pain on the ground before getting up under his own power. Less than a minute later, he committed a foul on a drive from Turner that resulted in a three-point play, and did not see the court again for the rest of the day.
Turner has posed issues for the Huskies even dating back to his first season with the Dragons, when he baited Chris Doherty into a technical foul minutes into a game at Matthews Arena in 2023. The lack of senior forward Youri Fritz and redshirt freshman forward Xander Alarie again provided issues in the frontcourt for Northeastern, especially against the 6-foot-8, 250-pound Turner, who finished with 12 points and was a plus-11 in his 24 minutes on the floor.
Freshman center Petar Pinter played 21 minutes at the five for the Huskies before getting into foul trouble, with freshman center Liam Koelsch and graduate student forward Haris Elezovic splitting the remaining minutes. Turner’s physical style of play seemed to present challenges for all of them.
“Obviously, Petar got in a little bit of foul trouble, so we came with Haris, and I thought he was just a little bit too small,” Coen said. “Liam came in and battled him a little bit, and at least kept it even. But [Turner’s] a good player, he’s a veteran player. He’s got good size and he’s gotten better over the years.”
While the Huskies can take some positives away from Saturday’s game, they will need to start getting victories soon if they don’t want to finish in the basement of the conference.
“For us, we just need to find a way to clean up five to eight possessions a game,” Coen said. “Some unforced turnovers, some points left on the free-throw line, things that were within our control. But overall, a good effort, but not the outcome.”
Hold on, we’re going home: Northeastern returns to the Cabot Center Saturday afternoon to host Charleston for their “Drake Game”. Jacob Phillips, Jordan Walsh, and Daniel Ku will have the call of the 2 p.m. tip.
Jordan Walsh is a fifth-year student at Northeastern who has been with WRBB Sports since 2021, primarily covering men’s and women’s basketball. You can read all of his articles for WRBB here and find him on Twitter/X here.