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Kentucky Wildcats @ Drexel Dragons: Pre-game

By Glenn Logan

I am a bit behind due to the holidays right now, so the pre-game for this will be brief.

Tonight, the Drexel Dragons out of the Colonial Athletic Association come into Rupp Arena to face the Kentucky Wildcats for what should be victory #2000, a tremendous milestone.  The Wildcats easily outdistanced the North Carolina Tar Heels, starting out the season only four ahead, and now fully eight games in the lead.  This race, in the end, turned out to be a bit anticlimactic.

But tonight will be long remembered by Kentucky fans as the second major milestone in victories that it accomplished, having already been the first team to 1000 victories.  At the very least, the trivia question will be, "Who did Kentucky defeat to reach its 2000th victory?"  Hopefully, the answer will be, "Drexel."

Rank and records Drexel UK
RPI 144 18
SOS 199 178
Overall 6-5 11-0
Conference 1-0 0-0
Home 4-1 6-0
Away 2-4 1-0
Neutral 0-0 4-0
Top 25 0-1 2-0
RPI Top 50 1-2 2-0

 

More after the jump.

The Drexel Roster

Drexel Dragons Basketball Roster

# Pos. Comments W H College
Ronald Colbert 15 G - 185 6-2 junior
Gerald Colds 11 G Starter 180 6-1 junior
Yannick Formbor 1 F - 245 6-8 junior
Chris Fouch 3 G Significant contributor 170 6-2 freshman
Samme Givens 45 F May start - Significant contributor 220 6-5 sophomore
Shannon Givens 54 G - 190 6-0 freshman
Jamie Harris 12 G Starter - Major contributor 175 5-10 junior
Bill Lally 14 G - 170 6-0 senior
Daryl McCoy 44 F May start 270 6-9 freshman
Evan Neisler 33 F May start - Role player 225 6-8 senior
Kevin Phillip 21 F - 225 6-6 sophomore
Leon Spencer 5 F Starter-Major Contributor 217 6-8 senior
Derrick Thomas 32 G Starter 190 6-4 freshman
Kenny Tribbett 42 F - 240 6-9 senior


Drexel team statistics

FG 3PT FT Rebounds Misc
G M M A Pct M A Pct M A Pct Off Def Tot Ast TO Stl Blk PF PPG
Jamie Harris 11 35.0 5.4 12.5 43.1 0.8 2.8 29.0 3.5 4.5 79.6 0.4 2.0 2.4 3.7 2.4 1.6 0.0 3.0 15.1
Gerald Colds 11 32.0 3.1 9.1 34.0 0.9 3.5 25.6 2.4 4.0 59.1 0.6 2.1 2.7 2.6 1.8 0.8 0.3 2.3 9.5
Derrick Thomas 11 27.5 3.1 9.0 34.3 1.1 4.0 27.3 1.3 2.3 56.0 1.0 1.9 2.9 1.9 1.5 1.2 0.2 2.1 8.5
Samme Givens 10 23.6 3.4 5.7 59.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.5 2.5 60.0 2.4 5.1 7.5 1.4 1.8 1.6 0.5 3.1 8.3
Leon Spencer 3 22.0 3.3 8.0 41.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.3 2.7 50.0 2.3 4.3 6.7 2.0 3.0 0.3 1.7 3.7 8.0
Chris Fouch 11 20.2 2.5 7.3 33.8 1.6 5.0 32.7 1.1 1.6 66.7 0.6 1.5 2.2 1.2 1.1 0.5 0.1 1.0 7.6
Evan Neisler 11 19.9 1.9 3.7 51.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.1 2.0 54.5 1.8 3.1 4.9 0.3 1.4 0.4 0.2 3.4 4.9
Ronald Colbert 1 1.0 1.0 1.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 1.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.0
Kevin Phillip 11 13.7 1.3 2.8 45.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.5 40.0 0.5 2.1 2.6 0.3 0.5 0.5 0.7 2.4 2.7
Shannon Givens 10 9.0 0.8 2.0 40.0 0.2 0.6 33.3 0.4 0.4 100.0 0.4 1.2 1.6 0.4 0.6 0.4 0.1 0.4 2.2
Daryl McCoy 11 13.3 0.5 2.0 22.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.8 44.4 1.7 2.7 4.5 0.5 0.6 0.0 0.8 2.9 1.3
Kenny Tribbett 6 7.5 0.5 1.0 50.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 0.2 0.7 0.0 0.2 1.5 1.0
Yannick Formbor 3 2.3 0.3 0.3 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.3 0.7 0.0 0.7 0.0 0.0 0.7 0.7
Bill Lally 2 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0


Four Factors (via Kenpom.com)

Scouting Report

Kentucky Drexel
Category Offense Defense Offense Defense D-I Avg
Adj. Efficiency: 113.0 [31] 93.4 [80] 92.4 [282] 87.3 [21] 99.9
Adj. Tempo: 68.7 [169] 68.7 64.5 [307] 68.7
Four Factors
Effective FG%: 55.0 [20] 45.0 [70] 44.7 [281] 42.2 [18] 48.8
Turnover %: 23.5 [280] 20.3 [207] 19.7 [109] 22.4 [99] 21.0
Off. Reb. %: 45.7 [1] 31.3 [116] 33.4 [155] 32.1 [140] 33.0
FTA/FGA: 41.4 [98] 28.5 [38] 33.9 [237] 49.7 [320] 37.5
Miscellaneous Components
3P%: 40.0 [39] 35.8 [231] 29.1 [293] 30.8 [73] 34.1
2P%: 53.3 [38] 40.0 [15] 45.0 [244] 40.9 [21] 47.7
FT%: 68.5 [169] 67.2 [137] 63.3 [298] 68.1 [165] 68.4
Block%: 7.8 [99] 21.2 [2] 11.0 [275] 8.6 [169] 9.1
Steal%: 11.0 [253] 10.1 [150] 8.5 [68] 10.4 [130] 10.0
Style Components
3PA/FGA: 26.4 [292] 36.7 [277] 28.3 [258] 23.7 [12] 32.6
A/FGM: 54.2 [164] 52.9 [160] 56.6 [115] 48.6 [66] 53.7
Defensive Fingerprint: Inconclusive
Mostly Man
Point Distribution (% of total points)
3-Pointers: 22.8 [260] 36.0 [17] 22.3 [270] 18.6 [333] 27.1
2-Pointers: 56.7 [71] 46.4 [311] 58.3 [43] 52.8 [149] 52.1
Free Throws: 20.5 [177] 17.5 [288] 19.4 [230] 28.7 [10] 20.8
Strength of Schedule
Components: 99.9 [203] 102.1 [268] 103.3 [81] 103.1 [305] 99.9
Overall: 0.4376 [242] .5000 0.5065 [187] .5000
Non-conference: 0.4376 [247] .5000 0.4950 [210] .5000
Personnel
Bench Minutes: 28.9% [232] 31.9% 30.0% [217] 31.9%
Experience: 0.96 yrs [332] 1.69 1.30 yrs [292] 1.69
Effective Height: +4.0 [11] 0.0 -1.6 [273] 0.0
Average Height: 78.7" [7] 76.6" 75.3" [315] 76.6"

Analysis

As you can see, the Dragons are a very good defensive team, but a rather poor offensive team.  Drexel plays at a somewhat more deliberate tempo than Kentucky, but they beat a decent Northwestern team and a fair Vermont team.  They have had a couple of bad losses to Rutgers (by just two) and a home loss to Cornell.  The only top team they have played is the Villanova Wildcats, who beat the Dragons 77-58.

Drexel comes in to Kentucky on a 3-game winning streak, having won their last one on the road at Cal St. Nothridge.  Of course, Kentucky is going for #2000 tonight and is undefeated so far in the 2009-10 season.

Drexel's leader in scoring is Jamie Harris, a 5'10" guard who averages 15 points and 3.7 assists/outing.  Harris is mostly a penetrator, though, as he doesn't shoot very many threes.  In fact, Drexel as a team doesn't shoot that many threes, much like Kentucky.  Chris Fouch is Drexel's leading 3-point percentage shooter at 33%, and he also shoots the most threes.

Samme Givens is the leading percentage shooter on the team averaging 8.3 points, but shooting almost 60% from the field and leading the team in rebounding with 7.5 per game -- pretty impressive for a 6'5" forward.

Drexel is a fairly small team, but they have a lot of juniors and seniors, and teams like this have given UK problems this year.  I expect the Wildcats to be ready for this one, though.

Projected score:  UK 75, Drexel 60.

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