March 18, 2024

Dear Students and Colleagues,

We join everyone in our extended Drexel family in congratulating Coach Amy Mallon and our women’s basketball team on capturing the Coastal Athletic Association Women’s Basketball Championship. Yesterday’s thrilling victory over heavily favored, top-seed Stony Brook University garnered an automatic invitation to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship Tournament.

Winning four straight “advance or go home” games in four days – the last three as underdogs to higher seeded Monmouth, Towson, and Stony Brook – attests to our Dragons’ tenacity, resilience, composure under pressure, and beautiful teamwork at both ends of the floor. Yesterday’s performance in particular was a microcosm of a season in which the team overcame its share of ups and downs, adversity, and the pressure of a highly competitive Division I basketball experience. Most important of all, they weathered a furious, inevitable Stony Brook run down the stretch before closing out the game in the final half minute.

During the game, television commentators remarked how this year’s 7th-seeded Dragons not only persevered through injuries, but also turned the absence of CAA postseason player honors into the fuel that powered them through the tournament as a complete, cohesive team, rather than a group of individuals. They have every reason to celebrate this triumph with pride.

Now Drexel will compete on the big stage in Friday’s NCAA opening round match at 3 p.m. EDT against #1 seed Texas in Austin.

The run-up to Friday’s game is an opportunity to rally our Drexel community behind the team, to lift one another’s spirits, and to show the world what Drexel’s student-athletes and commitment to excellence in experiential education are all about. Each of us can post messages of Drexel pride and support for our team by tagging @DrexelWBB across social media platforms and by adding the hashtags #ExperienceDrexel and #FearTheDragon. And we hope those of you who can make it will attend a victory watch party at the DAC, which will begin this Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m.

Sincerely,

John Fry
President

Maisha Kelly
Director of Athletics

Subir Sahu
Senior Vice President for Student Success