Drexel Heads To Rider Tonight

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Drexel men's basketball team will be on the road on Friday night, travelling up to Lawrenceville, New Jersey to take on the Rider Broncs.

The Dragons are coming off a 72-71 loss to St. Joe's last time out on Sunday. That dropped their record to 4-5 for first-year head coach Zach Spiker, who talks about the progress the group has made.

"I think with nine games, it's a decent sampling," Spiker tells KYW Newsradio. "We're excited that we continue to learn, win or lose. I don't know that result determines whether we get better or not and the more minutes we log together, the more games we play, the better we'll get. We're nine games better than we were to start the season is the obvious answer. But I think we've got a lot of guys that have logged a lot of minutes that are freshmen or in the program and didn't play much, and that's starting to hopefully pay dividends for us as we get closer to conference play."

Listen to the entire interview with Drexel's Zach Spiker:

One of the freshmen really making an impact for the Dragons is guard Kurk Lee. He has scored in double figures in all nine games this season and is second on the team in scoring at 16 points per game. He is also fourth in the Colonial Athletic Association in assists (42) and third in steals (15).

"We want to bring everybody into our program that we recruit and let them know they're going to have the opportunity to prove themselves," Spiker says. "Kurk knew that, we were able to sign him late and he has made the most of his opportunity here and is very deserving of his time on the court and when he is on the court, good things happen."

The Dragons will match-up with a Rider team in this one that is 6-3 and on a three-game winning streak. Spiker on what's the first thing that jumps out at him about the Broncs.

"Their perimeter defense," he says. "The numbers are astounding, it's one of the best in the country. They are holding teams to 30% from three, 40% overall from the field and their rebound margin is almost plus-four."

Spiker says Rider will really make his team earn everything in this one.

"You watch them on tape, they press full court," he says. "We've got to be good with the basketball and we've got to take the right shots. Otherwise, they get you playing at a pace you don't want to play at and they're more comfortable playing that way than their opponents a lot of times, right now."

Tonight's game will tip-off at 7:00pm.