BOSTON — Junior guard William Kermoury re-entered the lineup for Northeastern following a two-week absence Thursday night, but the Huskies could not turn around their fortunes against Drexel, falling 70-61 and extending their losing streak to eight games.
Kermoury not only re-entered the active list Thursday, but was placed in the starting lineup, and made a splash of a return, finishing the night with a team-high 36 minutes. Freshman center Petar Pinter also returned to the starting five after coming off the bench in his most recent game, with Northeastern head coach Bill Coen putting Pinter and senior forward Youri Fritz on the floor together for a two-big lineup to start.
Pinter scored six of the Huskies’ first eight points of the game, but was subbed out after committing an early backcourt foul. Pinter was the only Northeastern player to have a positive plus-minus Thursday night, but he only saw 17 minutes of action.
“He probably should have played more, but [Drexel] went small, and they played a power forward … and I thought it was really to kind of limit Petar’s playing time,” Coen said. “And then we had to match them and go a little bit smaller, and [Fritz] got the majority of those minutes.”
Fritz went 1-for-7 from the field in 30 minutes and finished with two points on the night, the third time in the four games since coming back from his injury that he has put up that scoring total.
As a team, the Huskies shot 8-for-26 (31%) from the floor in the first half, but went into halftime trailing by just five, with Drexel’s ten turnovers helping to keep Northeastern in the game. A lot of the shots the Huskies missed in the first half were right at the rim; the home team went 1-for-7 on layups through the frame. Players like freshman guard Xavier Abreu were able to get downhill, but their attempts to finish rolled off the rim. Abreu went 0-for-6 from the field in the first half, his only points in that stint coming from a free-throw trip.
That immediately changed after the halftime break, with Abreu making back-to-back driving layups to open up Northeastern’s scoring in the second half. The freshman sensation would finish the night with a team-high 19 points, 17 of those coming in the latter 20 minutes.
“I thought a lot of our attacks at the rim in the first half were off one foot,” Coen said. “And when you do that, [Drexel’s] physicality can bump you off your stride. [Abreu’s] a really good two-foot finisher, where he can get into the body, absorb the contact, and go and finish. He’s our best finisher, and he’s got a way to contort his body and get angles on the glass.”
The Huskies were able to cut the deficit to one point on four different occasions in the second half, but every time, Drexel responded with a score. On the occasions where the Dragons went cold from the field, Northeastern was unable to capitalize. The Huskies had two separate stretches of around three minutes without a field goal late in the game.
Northeastern tried to play the foul game in the closing moments, a strategy they employed to nearly erase a 16-point deficit towards the end of the meeting between these two teams in Philadelphia last month, but the Huskies could only get as close as six points tonight. Although the Huskies kept the game within arms’ reach, with the Dragons never finding a double-digit lead, the end result was a nine-point loss, and the extension of a skid that is now Northeastern’s longest losing streak since the 2021-22 season.
The Huskies are now managing three players working their way back from injuries. Kermoury finished the game second on the team in scoring with 14 points, going 2-for-8 from deep in his return to the lineup. Fritz, as mentioned earlier, made just one field goal on the night. And freshman forward Ty Francis did not appear at all in Thursday’s game. (Postgame, Coen said Francis has been “banged up a little bit” but is “certainly available, and he’ll look to help us on Saturday.”)
“[Kermoury] had some really makeable looks, for him,” Coen said. “Tough shots for the mere mortals, but shots he’s made all year long. He came up a little short a couple of times, and I thought [Fritz] had a couple of easy buckets around the rim and just didn’t get them to go. Both those guys have been missing practice, so [it’s] a little bit of a timing thing and a conditioning thing.”
The one positive about the position Northeastern holds in the standings is that, unlike the vast majority of the conference, they at least know where they will fall in the CAA tournament bracket: as one of the bottom two seeds. For that reason, they don’t have to necessarily rush players back in the closing weeks for a stretch run to try to secure a bye. Of course, the Huskies would still love to get a win before the regular season ends.
“Everybody’s staying positive,” Coen said. “Everybody still believes in themselves and their teammates and what we’re doing, but I’m sure it would help if we could get over the hump. We’ve had a lot of these moral victories, when we’ve played well enough to win but didn’t get the job done. And we’ve got another opportunity here on Saturday with Senior Day.”
Youri Fritz will be honored on Senior Day as Northeastern returns to the Cabot Center to host Hofstra Saturday afternoon. Jacob Phillips, Chase Alexander, and Daniel Ku will have the call of the 2 p.m. tip on WRBB Sports+.
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.