Men's Basketball Falls to William and Mary in CAA Home Opener, 72-63

Thursday, January 7

Daskalakis Athletic Center

7:00

Drexel University

2-12, 0-3CAA

William & Mary

10-4, 2-1CAA

WILLIAM & MARY

DREXEL

Photo by: Sam Wasson/UAA Athletics

Men's Basketball Falls to William and Mary in CAA Home Opener, 72-63

1/7/2016 8:21:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA – The Drexel men's basketball team dropped its Colonial Athletic Association home opener Thursday night at the Daskalakis Athletic Center to the William & Mary Tribe, 72-63.

Drexel (2-12, 0-3 CAA) was able to hold Omar Prewitt, William & Mary's leading scorer and the third leading scorer in the conference at 18.2 points per game coming in, to just five points on the night. The Dragons pressured Prewitt with physical play while the Tribe's star battled foul trouble.

Terry Tarpey stepped up in Prewitt's place with a big game. William & Mary's do-it-all guy dropped a game-high 21 points and added six steals and six rebounds. The senior shot an efficient 8-for-13 from the floor, helping the Tribe turn defense into offense, turning 12 Drexel turnovers into 21 points in its favor. He also helped the Tribe to a 29-22 advantage on the glass.

The story of the game was the first half. Dragons jumped out to an early advantage in the first half, leading the Tribe 16-9 at the second media timeout. From that point on, the Tribe used a 21-0 run to take control and outscored Drexel 35-11 through the rest of the half. The Dragons hit a cold stretch, going without a field goal for over eight minutes from the 11:45 mark to 3:09 left on the clock. Daniel Dixon scored 14 of his 19 points before halftime. William & Mary would take a 44-27 lead into the half and not look back the rest of the way.

Drexel would show bursts of life in the second half, but couldn't string together the run to get back into the game. The Dragons pieced together a couple of 6-0 stretches, but the Tribe was still able to build an 18-point lead with 6:03 to go. Not totally going away, Drexel cut William & Mary's lead to single digits, 70-61, with 1:31 left after a Tavon Allen three. One of four Dragons in double figures, Allen scored 11 points and hit three shots from deep, all of which came in the second half. Drexel couldn't get any closer than nine, though, ultimately falling, 72-63.

In a losing effort, Drexel put together one its best shooting games from the field, hitting 54.2 percent (26-for-48) of its shots. William & Mary countered by hitting 53.1 percent of its shots (26-for-49). Rodney Williams continued his strong stretch in conference play. Coming in averaging 17 points and 11 rebounds in the first two games, Williams scored 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field and grabbed seven boards against the Tribe. The Dragons also got 13 points from Sammy Mojica and 10 points from Kazembe Abif.

Drexel will welcome the College of Charleston to the DAC on Saturday at 4 p.m. before three games on the road beginning next week.