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Last Tuesday Drexel beat Elon by 7 PTS in the CAA tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Dragons had a 3-5 conference record in late-February but won 4 games in a row to claim the school’s 1st NCAA tourney bid since they beat Memphis/lost to Syracuse back in 1996. Earlier this week HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Coach Zach Spiker about pulling off the largest comeback in D-1 history and what it feels like to make the NCAA tourney.
You were born/raised in Morgantown: would it be a dream or a nightmare if you have to face the Mountaineers next week? West Virginia has a really good team but it would be a dream for us to face anyone in the NCAA tourney.
You played basketball at Ithaca College: how good a player were you back in the day, and how did you get into coaching? I got into coaching because I was not that great a player!
You have worked for many successful coaches including Steve Donahue/John Beilein/Gregg Marshall: which of them gave you the best advice about what it takes to win games in March? I communicated with Steve/John a handful of times last weekend and they all had great nuggets/information for me.
Your 1st head coaching job was at Army: how crazy will the Black Knight get if they ever make the NCAA tourney for the 1st time in their long basketball history? Pretty crazy: they are 1 of 4 original D-1 teams to have never made the NCAA tourney (along with Citadel/St. Francis NY/William & Mary) so Go Army!
In February of 2018 you trailed Delaware in the 1st half by a score of 53-19 before eventually winning 85-83: how on earth did you pull off the largest comeback in D-1 history, and what lesson can you take from that if you are getting blown out in the 1st half next week? The lesson is to not dig yourself too big of a hole! You will face adversity in any game you play so you just have to keep plugging away because you never know what will happen.
What is it like to be a college basketball coach during a pandemic? You just have to be very aware of your surroundings/environment. My kids go to public school so it would be devastating if they caught something, gave it to me, and then our entire team had to forfeit due to COVID. Your awareness of potential danger spots is incredibly high so you end up becoming a little paranoid.
You returned each of your top-5 scorers from last year: how crucial was all of that offense/experience to your team’s success? The older you get the more continuity you have. We have some players who have been through it all and understand why we lost. They made big plays and hit big shots, which shows that if you stick with it then you can eventually end up on the other side of the scoreboard.
Your team had only 4 regular season conference wins: what was the mood/mindset of the team entering the conference tourney? We were incredibly upbeat/excited and had some key wins toward the end of the season.
In the CAA tourney you won 3 games by single-digits in 3 days including a 7-PT win over Elon last night in the title game: what did it mean to you to win a championship, and was it extra-special after having 4 straight losing seasons before this year? The losing had nothing to do with it. We actually won 4 in a row because we had to beat the #1 seed (James Madison) in our season finale in what essentially was a play-in game in the same arena where the conference tourney was held. We to beat the #1 seed (JMU), the #3 seed (Charleston), the #2 seed (Northeastern), and then the hottest team in the league that had won 7 in a row (Elon).
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? I do not know, but if the Committee factors in Kenpom rankings we have a top-100 offense. We share the ball and play the game the right way analytically. We were the #6-seed due to playing only 9 regular season conference games, but those were all against the best teams because we did not play any of the bottom-3 teams in our league (Elon/Towson/UNC Wilmington). We only had 1 regular season win in our arena (vs. the Tribe in mid-January)…and then won 4 times as many games at JMU’s arena during the past 2 weeks!