Guru’s March Madness IV: Drexel Women Take the Spotlight Alone After Men’s Team Eliminated

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

With the men’s team eliminated following the Drexel dual championship qualifications for the NCAA tournaments out of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), the women now get the spotlight alone down in Texas through at least Monday afternoon when the Dragons (14-8) tip off against third-seeded Georgia (20-6), the Southeastern Conference runnersup at noon on ESPN2 at St. Mary’s University.

Needless, to say, tying back from 12 months ago at the outbreak of the pandemic cancelling everything in the sports world to the NCAA back in the fall promulgating through the season to avoid another disruption of competition, it’s a whole different experience involved off the court for the men’s tourney in Indianapolis and the women’s event in San Antonio with the entire fields at each location.

Likewise for the media covering these tournaments, locally, and nationally.

Putting aside the alterations of exact start dates, normally, the women would have just arrived, not earlier in the week on Tuesday.

Drexel would be at one of first-round sites of the top 16 seeds, by this bracket, in Athens with Georgia being the highest seed in the group.

And instead of the Alamo Region, still promising to be memorable in some way, they’d be grouped with the name of one of the four cities, perhaps Albany (N.Y.) originally picked several years ago before the coronavirus began making its way into international daily life.

Ahead of Monday, there would have been four on-site preview press conferences, with some of us who might have made the trip, in the room with a ton of Dragons administrators while the team took the Dias for a question and answer session.

Of course, as we all know, in place of the process, the it’s become a zoomapolooza.

Those of us doing this year round, the summer dealing with the 12-team WNBA playing in the “wubble,” so to speak, down at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., near Tampa, we’ve been conditioned.

But getting this far, those of you outsiders have no idea what the 64-team spread sheet looks like for invitation availability links for round one, though as we go it will drop to 32 and then a manageable 16, but for now being run until the games actually start Sunday by the teams themselves.

However, somehow it is working.

And so on Friday afternoon, prior to the men’s game with Illinois or a chance for the Drexel women to watch their former coach Denise Dillon go win an opening round WNIT game with Villanova, we gathered, the locals here — your Guru will be in San Antonio late next week — and the rest of screen filled by senior co-captain Hannah Nihill and coach Amy Mallon.

And with all that in place, we commenced for about 20 minutes.

Mallon, of course, has been to Drexel’s only other NCAA appearance as an associate head coach under Dillon in 2009 when the team captured their only other CAA crown and headed to the Southwest.

But they got to at least enjoy the local surroundings when not practicing and of course were able to enjoy dining out at a few restaurants.

Some things are slipping into familiarity.

“We’ve been able to start practice, which is refreshing,” Mallon reported. “The first two days consisted of testing, making sue we were safe and ready to go. It felt great to be back on the floor and practice with the team, our normal schedule. So for us, we’re staying on point, which we have all season.

“We have the same philosophy each practice, work hard, repeat, and continue to get better,” Mallon said. “But just excited for the experience. It’s a little different than a normal visit to San Antonio than most. Since our only view of the River Walk is from our hotel windows, but we’re enjoying it and enjoying our time together.”

With the tumult that began building Thursday on social media over the disparity on conditions between the men’s and women’s events, a new element, one of several, had just been added to the mix as the NCAA began scrambling to right perceived wrongs.

“We’re allowed to take a little walk outside for a few minutes, so we’re looking forward to that,” Mallon said.

A separate issue the NCAA is dealing with is recently the Texas governor opened the entire state and dropped all mandates, though the NCAA was adamant earlier in the week that they would continue to work closely with local and health officials to provide the best guidelines to keep everyone safe.

As for the issue of disparity in terms of the weight room, meals, swag, which was touched upon briefly in Friday’s Drexel session, Nihill said, “I’ve seen it on social medial. It’s a constant struggle for women in sport and unfortunately, we’re experiencing it right now.

“And as being an athlete, I just want to continue to be part of the change for Title IX and equality for women and sport.”

As for the ramp up to the Georgia game in preparation, Mallon explained, “Part of what we’re doing here, it’s not much change than what we’ve been doing all year in Philadelphia with our restrictions, we tested daily for months.

“For some teams, it’s kind of a new concept, the testing process, but not being able to hang out and meet in our own rooms, that’s a little different, this team enjoys being around each other, even as much time as we have in quarantine.

“It’s definitely, not an NCAA experience as player or a coach might have had,” Mallon said, “but it’s still something they’re going to have the rest of the their lives, and they’re going to talk about it as teammates or to their kids what it was like, their time during a pandemic.

“But I think they’re making the most of it so I’m really being happy around the group and seeing how they work together.”

And both have been thrilled since winning the CAA title over top seed Delaware at Elon in North Carolina last Saturday, as each has been experiencing reach outs from afar.

“It’s been nice seeing cousins and family members who don’t really follow our season close, just reach out and wish us good luck in the tournament and saying they’ll be watching,” Nihill said. “Especially, friends, because of COVID, I haven’t seen in months.”

Added Mallon, “I’ve been hearing from family, former teammates from high school, people I played with, internationally,” Mallon said. “I told the team, `I’m still trying to get back to people, because I don’t like not having time to respond and you should feel good about your career and what this team has done.

“My high school coaches, they’re so proud of me, the three guys I’ve had, they’re so awesome and I always tell them, `I’m here because of you guys,’ — you just really love hearing from people who just set the tone for you.”

Mallon is a strong candidate for the WBCA Maggie Dixon rookie coach of the year, named for the Army first-year coach who guided the Knights to their only Patriot League title and NCAA appearance and was celebrated by the corp, carried off the court after they won the conference.

Sadly, several weeks later she collapsed and died of an enlarged heart while running on the grounds of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

As for playing Georgia, which, despite some huge seasons under retired Hall of Fame coach Andy Landers, the Bulldogs have lost to local teams here such as Villanova and Saint Joseph’s.

Mallon said there’s no one team in the CAA that has similarity to the SEC power, but, “they have elements from a lot of other teams we’ve seen in the conference.

“We don’t usually get to see teams they play, maybe a few like them when we can play out of conference,” Mallon said.

Nilhill, citing keys from the Drexel side, said, “We’re feeling pretty confident. It’s definitely important that our zone is on point, our 2-3 is something we’ve been working on all year and in the championship game it felt like the best it’s ever been, and just working on that, all week making sure that’s on point going into the game.”

“Defensively,” said Mallon, “with some our plays, you want to throw at them something different so it’s not what they’re used to doing, so you can speed them up or slow them down.”

And until later today when the next go-round will have the Delaware and Villanova semifinal games in the WNIT, some Rutgers playing preview, possibly Guru commentary on the NCAA controversy, and we’ll see what’s out there from Lehigh, and the national powers, that’s the report for now.