To my surprise, the Drexel men’s lacrosse team added a third color to its uniforms, donning neon green laces. This would look ridiculous, but neon green (not to be confused with neon yellow) is a pretty sweet color.

But looks aren’t everything.

Drexel wears the bright laces to support “Laces for Lymphoma,” a part of the Headstrong Foundation, which is raises money and awareness for blood cancers. It was started in honor of Nick Colleluori, a former Hofstra lacrosse player who was diagnosed with Lymphoma.

“We wear them in his honor, and we have a senior next year, Matt Miller who’s got cancer,” Drexel coach Chris Bates said. “It’s a brother-hood support, and just to raise awareness for cancer.”

In Drexel’s third game at the Palestra against a Big 5 team, the Dragons were overwhelmed by St. Joe’s, falling 69-51 on New Year’s Eve. Basically, Drexel had the best player on the floor, but the Hawks had the next six.

Dragons center Frank Elegar went 6-for-6 for 17 points and eight rebounds, but the Hawks were too much. Six-foot-8 swingman Pat Calathes had 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists and Ahmad Nivins, Tasheed Carr and Darrin Govens all scored in double-figures.

Here are a few interesting notes about the game:

Drexel was the home team, and put down their own stickers along the baseline, but for some reason St. Joe’s sat on the home bench and got to use the Penn (much nicer, much bigger) locker room.

While both teams brought the band and cheerleaders (and in Drexel’s case the dance team as well), I’d say no more than 1,500 of the 5,284 fans in attendance were rooting for the Dragons. Despite being some three blocks away, the Dragons were clearly out-numbered by migrating members of Hawk Hill.

Phil Martelli, still, only plays six players. Idris Hilliard or Rockwell Moody may get 10 minutes on a given night, but Calathes, Nivins, Carr, Govens, Rob Ferguson and Garrett Williamson off the bench got 91.5 percent of the minutes in the win over Drexel. And that’s barely above their season average of 87. These teams have got to be two of the more foul-sensitive in the country. Certain players getting in foul trouble can be fatal.

There were five dunks in all (three by St. Joe’s, two by Elegar), most of which were thunderous ones. A dunk that won’t go down on the scoresheet was one in the first-half for the Hawks when the 6-foot-5 Williamson caught an alley-oop off on the baseline, but it hit the back iron. He jumped from out of the lane, and was about to tomahawk it, but unfortunately for all of the viewers, it didn’t fall.

Drexel coach Bruiser Flint didn’t disappoint, working the refs all game, drawing a technical foul in the second half and standing on the court for the majority of the game, even when the ball was in his own end.

Buried by all of the craziness that happened on the Palestra floor Friday night, you probably missed something that happened off of it.

While his team always gets supporters to walk down 33rd street, and there were more this year in particular because the Dragons were so good last season, Drexel coach Bruiser Flint has had very little success at the Palestra. Up until last night’s overtime win the two-time CAA Coach of the Year is 106-74 all-time at Drexel, but 1-5 against Penn.

And out of the 20 times Drexel has played Penn, how many times have the Dragons hosted the Quakers? Yep the same amount of times I’ve dunked on Frank Elegar.

It’s no Norries Wilson rant, but here’s Flint inviting Penn to the Daskalakis Center.

bruiser-sounding-off.mp3

Penn had its chances down the stretch to win the game, but in the end, Drexel just made more big shots. A lot of that was due to the fact that the Quakers were not getting the ball to the right guys in the right spots. When they most needed shooters on the floor, there were none to be found.

Tyler Bernardini, tentatively labeled “maybe the best shooter” on the team, played four minutes total. Aron Cohen, who had the hot hand in the game, didn’t even attempt a shot in overtime. But six of the final nine treys the Quakers attempted were from big men Jack Eggleston and Brennan Votel (and of those six, they made only one). Not having Darren Smith out late definitely hurt the Quakers’ versatility, but it was still hard to swallow watching five guys stand on the perimeter and the center taking the shot.

I thought Harrison Gaines was the Quakers’ third-best player out there. He was very patient in the half-court, showed some deft passing and a nice handle, and was solid in man defense. Three dimes and a steal in 13 minutes is more than enough for a first outing. While I thought he made a premature exit, it was probably the right move if Miller took him out in favor of experience.

Speaking of experience, Brian Grandieri stepped up when he had to. At first, things looked shaky and Miller even sat him for a long stretch in the first half. But around midway into the second, he seemed to shift a few gears up, and grabbed some big offensive boards, got in the lane, and got to the line. Before the game, Miller said that he wasn’t sure if Grandieri “would have to score 18 to 20 a game or if he was even capable of that.” Well, he scored 23 (8-14 FG, 7-12 FT) and was the main reason Penn got back into the game.

On the bright side, the Quakers’ defense looked very sharp in the second half. The team did a good job of sealing off the leaks from the first half. While in zone, they rotated better to cover the corners and rebounded well, and in man they were generally tight and disciplined. Nonetheless, it’s hard to win a game shooting 31/22/50 (FG/3PT/FT). The right guys need to be able to get the right looks, and someone is going to have to emerge as a viable isolation threat.