Game Details: Saturday, November 15th, Philadelphia, PA, 3:30 p.m.
Live Stream: Peacock
Live Coverage: Stats
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Syracuse (2-0) will hit the road for the first time this regular season as the Orange are set to travel to Philadelphia to clash with the Drexel Dragons (1-2) in the Autumn Invitational. The game will take place at Xfinity Mobile Arena as the second game of a doubleheader. La Salle and Penn State meet in the opener.
Building Chemistry
The 2025-26 roster is one with a plethora of new faces. The team has put together a pair of wins thus far with a number of different rotations making their way onto the court. Coach Adrian Autry sent out a starting five with four newcomers in the most recent outing against Delaware State, with sophomore forward Donnie Freeman being the lone returner in the lineup. Freeman paced the offense, scoring 20 points for the second consecutive game on 7-of-11 shooting (.636). He also dished out four assists, grabbed five boards, and picked up a steal in the victory.
Meanwhile, senior center William Kyle III scored eight points to go with 13 rebounds and a career-high six blocks. junior guard Naithan George and senior guard Nate Kingz joined Kyle III in the starting lineup, and each scored seven points.
Rounding out Autry’s first five was freshman Kiyan Anthony. In his first career start, Anthony was second on the team in scoring with 19 points on 8-of-11 (.727) shooting against Delaware State. He also dished out four assists while grabbing three boards in the win.
Freshman forward Sadiq White Jr. contributed off the bench, scoring into double-digits for the first time in his career with 10 against the Hornets. Sophomore forward Tyler Betsey knocked down a pair of shots from beyond the arc with a free throw mixed in to add seven points to the stat sheet.
Defensive Prowess
The Orange are off to their best defensive start to a season in over a decade, holding opponents to a combined 90 points in the opening two games. It represents the lowest combined points total in the first two games since the Orange held Kennesaw State and Hampton to 89 points in the initial two games of the 2014-15 campaign.
The 83-43 win over Delaware State was a historically strong performance, with the Orange limiting the Hornets to 14-of-65 (.215) shooting from the field, the lowest field goal percentage by an opponent since Syracuse held Loyola (Md.) to just 10-of-52 (.192) in 2014.
The opposition has made just 2-of-27 (.074) 3-point tries in two games versus the Orange.
Kyle III has paced the defense, racking up a team-high seven blocks thus far. He picked up six of those against the Hornets, marking the first time a Syracuse player has reached six blocks in a game in two seasons. The big man has also racked up seven steals thus far, tied for the team lead with George.
The Orange will look to keep the defense rolling against the Dragons. Drexel is averaging 80.3 points per game thus far and is coming off an 83-point performance in a loss at Colgate.
Scouting Drexel
The Drexel Dragons enter the matchup with a 1-2 record, having won their season opener versus Widener before dropping their past two games against Saint Joseph’s and Colgate. Competing in the Coastal Athletic Association, the Dragons were voted to finish 10th in the conference in the CAA Preseason Poll, as voted upon by the league’s head coaches.
A preseason All-CAA Honorable Mention, junior Shane Blakeney leads the Dragons in nearly every statistical category thus far. Blakeney has racked up 43 points (14.3 avg.) on 15-of-43 (.349) shooting, including a 9-of-20 (.450) clip from beyond the arc. He has added a team-high seven steals and added eight assists in three games so far. Blakeney served as the first man off the bench for the Dragons a year ago, averaging 7.5 points per game while appearing in all 33 games of the campaign.
Head Coach Zach Spiker has done well at retaining talent, with four other returners joining Blakeney in the starting five. Kevon Vanderhorst pairs with Blakeney at the guard position and has knocked down over 40% (5-of-12) of his shots from beyond the arc. William Garcia Adsten, a junior from Stockholm, Sweden, has worked his way into the starting lineup after seeing time in all 33 games in a reserve capacity a year ago. Garfield Turner and Victor Panov hold down the frontcourt for the Dragons and round out the starting five.
Eli Beard, a transfer from NCAA Division III institution Mary Hardin-Baylor, has provided a spark off the bench. Beard was lights out in the loss to Colgate, knocking down 9-of-12 (.750) shots from the field to score 24 points.
Spiker is in his 10th season leading the Dragons and has amassed a 132-147 record during his time in Philadelphia. Spiker led Drexel to its first NCAA Tournament berth since 1996 when he guided the Dragons to a CAA Championship in 2021 and secured the league’s automatic bid.
Series History
Syracuse leads the all-time series with the Dragons, 4-1, and won the last meeting on November 14th, 2021, 75-60.
TICKETS
Syracuse season and individual tickets are available at cuse.com/feature/basketball-tickets.
