Looking Ahead

Wednesday will be the close of the incredible 2008-09 season for the Drexel Women's team. That's because the basketball banquet will take place to honor the CAA Champs as well as Seniors Andrea Peterson, Nicole Hester and Brooke Cornish. It caps an incredible run in which the finished the season on a 16 game winning streak before falling to Kansas State in the NCAA Tournament. They ended ODU's NCAA tournament run in the CAA semifinals and then knocked off JMU on their home floor in the final.

The women return a ton of talent next year too as they look to defend their title. CAA Player of the Year Gabriela Marginean comes back as does 3rd team player and all CAA tournament team member Jasmina Rosseel. The seniors will be a big loss, especially from a leadership standpoint. Hopefully the talented group of rising sophomores can take the next step and fill in for those losses. Three of the four players had productive freshman campaigns off the bench and hopefully Ayana Lee will be able to show more off the bench. The incoming freshmen have the potential to provide depth next year as well.

The Dragons didn't have a lot of players missing games because of injuries, but they were banged up. Jasmina had a great second season, but was bothered by kneed trouble all season. She had offseason surgery as did rising sophomore Tyler Hale. Kamile Nacickaite was bothered by foot problems too. Silvia Jankova has yet to take the court after battling knee injuries the first two seasons. A healthy Drexel team could even be more dangerous in 2009-10.

The most interesting thing to me this offseason is following the WNBA and seeing where Gabriela Marginean is projected to be drafted after next year. She's easily the best player in Drexel history and will break numerous records next season. I'm not an expert on the WNBA and hope to watch some games over the summer. I assume she'll have to play small forward at that level and that showing more from the outside would help. She's not the most explosive, athletic or strongest player so I don't know how well she can finish inside against higher competition. She's very crafty, smart and can do a little bit of everything though. Gabi is amazingly productive. She was held under 15 points only once all season. Her free throw shooting is a huge plus too. She's also an outstanding competitor and extremely hardworker. I think she can have success at that level, just hoping she gets a good chance.

Here is the first mock draft that I've found with Gabi listed.

http://wnbadraftsite.com/2010Mock.htm

I didn't update the blog last year for various reasons, but I will try to keep everyone informed on the team next year. I hope the fans that the Dragons have developed will be interested as well as the alumni who are setup throughout the world now. This is a great group to cheer for and this past season has been a fun run. Hopefully next year will be even better.