Under head coach Zach Spiker, Drexel has become the picture of consistency for the Big 5.
The Dragons haven’t finished below .500 in the past six years under his leadership and are constantly overperforming early expectations. With Drexel selected to finish 10th in the CAA’s 2024-25 preseason poll, Spiker managed an 18-15 record overall while tied for seventh in conference at 9-9.
“Its great to have success,” Spiker said. “But it’s dangerous when you have success, you get a little too full of yourself. We like to tell our guys that success is never owned by any person or team. It’s rented. And you’ve got to pay that rent every day.”
A key piece of that consistency is Drexel’s staff, which has become renowned for its player development with an initiative they refer to as “P.E.P” — the Player Enhancement Program.
It’s a program that produced second round NBA Draft pick Amari Williams as well as high-major players like Kobe MaGee (Florida State), Yame Butler (Butler), Cole Hargrove (Providence), and Jason Drake (Indiana).
Though Drexel battled a slow 1-3 start to the 2025-26 campaign, Tuesday’s 75-43 win over NJIT provided a glimpse into this season’s player development and the growth of Spiker’s roster.
Junior guard Shane Blakeney, Drexel’s top returner from last season, has been heavily leaned on for his experience within the program and that’s only led to an increased role in 2025-26.
He tied his career high with 24 points on 7-for-11 from three-point range to try and keep the Dragons within striking distance during a 90-83 loss at Colgate last Tuesday. While the win over NJIT wasn’t Blakeney’s best shooting night (3-for-8 FG), he still finished tied for the game-high with 13 points and chipped in nine rebounds and two assists.
As Drexel’s new defacto leader, Blakeney sees the potential of this group and even after a 32-point win, he can’t help but use it as a teaching moment on hard work and approach.
“Shane just said in the locker room: ‘This game may not have been determined today, but maybe in the weight room on Monday and the attitude on Sunday,’” Spiker said. “I’m proud of them for bouncing back.”
Blakeney has grown into his leadership role gradually, staying the course in what’s now his fourth year on Drexel’s campus. He redshirted his first year with an injury, then seldom played on a 20 win team that returned just about the entire roster.
However, Blakeney then moved to be the team’s sixth man last season, but was essentially a sixth starter. He could have started, but took on the bench role selflessly because the coaching staff thought that it would be best for the team. Now, Blakeney finds himself in a key position for the Dragons thanks to all that internal development.
Take Kevon Vanderhorst as another example. The Junior guard transferred in from Brunswick Community College in North Carolina last season and missed the first month with an injury. When he was healthy, he turned in some solid performances as the Dragons’ backup point guard.
Now, he’s in the starting lineup in his second year with the program, and Blakeney sees the improvement in his game. Vanderhorst tied Blakeney’s game-high 13 points as the Dragons downed the Highlanders on Tuesday.
“Kevon’s improvement is second to none,” Blakeney said. “I got to see how hard he worked in the offseason. Last year he dealt with a quick injury and was trying to find his role… With increased minutes, you see how well he can play.”
Vanderhorst has found his footing in the Division I game as a JUCO transfer. It’s something that Drexel has succeeded in doing in the past, finding players from not only JUCO, but from all levels of basketball, both domestic and internationally.
The latest example in this year’s transfer class is Eli Beard, a 5-foot-11 senior guard from Big Sandy, Texas, who spent the last two years at Division III Mary Hardin-Baylor. Getting Beard to University City took a connection from assistant coach Will Chavis, as well as what Spiker calls “a department effort.”
Beard’s former coach was Clif Carroll, who is now an assistant coach at East Texas A&M. Carroll and Chavis go back a number of years to Texas Tech, where Carroll was a graduate assistant for the legendary Bob Knight and Chavis was Knight’s first recruit.
Carroll raved about Beard’s play and his character, which in turn interested Drexel. However, it took a willingness from Beard to give Division I basketball a chance. It’s already paying off.
“If you were in the locker room and said one of these guys has been here for four months, I think you’d have a hard time identifying Eli as the guy that just got here,” Spiker said. “Credit to Chavis, who was able to unearth him. It took quite a process to get him here, but I think you can see that it’s worth it. More goes into winning than practice, film, and weights for the basketball team. The compliance office worked their butts off to make sure we were in between the guardrails, doing things the right way. For Eli to be here is a total effort from our department.”
On the court, it’s easy to like Beard’s game. In Tuesday night’s win over NJIT, he had nine points, off of three made three pointers, and tied a team high with four assists. Don’t let his small stature fool you: he can blow by defenders and get into the paint with ease. He didn’t record a turnover on a night where Drexel’s ball movement was crisp, racking up 15 assists on 24 made baskets.
“He’s a force multiplier,” Spiker said. “He makes everyone around him better. He challenges people in a way that they don’t hate him because they know it’s coming from the right place. He’s a joy to be around and he makes all of us love what we do to get to work with a guy like that. I wish he had more years of eligibility left.”
The Drexel coaching staff has been able to identify transfers well, but they’re still active in high school recruiting too, and have had their success stories in that area. Sophomore guard Josh Reed, a local product who played at Archbishop Wood in the Philadelphia Catholic League, seems poised for a big year leap just five games into the new season.
He scored 29 points combined in the first two games and against NJIT, stuffed the stat sheet, finishing with a team high plus/minus of +30. Reed had nine points, six boards, four assists, two steals and a couple of transition buckets off of his defensive work, including a two handed dunk in the first half.
That was no surprise to Spiker, who’s seen Reed do that since he began recruiting him.
“Josh has always had a great ability to anticipate and get steals,” Spiker said. “You follow him back to his days at Wood, there was a run out dunk or two almost every game. He’s really developed his game, and in the weight room too.”
Reed’s father, Rick Reed, is a member of the Temple Athletics Hall of Fame, was a Big 5 Co-MVP and scored 1,000 points for the Owls under Don Casey. This Friday, he’ll get to play against Penn in Philadelphia’s inter-city rivalry games just like his father once did.
Growth and development is abundant at the Daskalakis Athletic Center early this season between the immediate returns of Beard and significant second year jumps from both Vanderhorst and Reed.
However, Spiker likes to stay present with his program and will only focus on two to three day increments. For now, the Dragons look to the next practice, the next P.E.P session and the next game for opportunities to continue that growth and development.
“I don’t know where people sit in terms of perspective of our program and what’s going on inside the walls of our world,” Spiker said. “We try to live in about a two day window right here and having a very poor performance in the second half [vs.] Syracuse was very frustrating. We addressed it. It was disappointing, [but] I’m proud of our guys, staff, everybody, to get this result today.”
