Playing top-seeded Texas is a tall task. Good thing Drexel is used to the ‘pressure’

In a way, Drexel coach Amy Mallon was forced to design this team for pressure moments.

She started the 2023-24 season with something to prove from the jump. After years of being on the outside looking in, Drexel finally became a bona fide member of the ultracompetitive Big 5.

In a preseason poll, coaches in the Coastal Athletic Association wrote off the Dragons as just the seventh-best team in the conference — mind you, this is a Drexel program that has consistently competed for championships over the last few seasons and qualified for the NCAA Tournament just three years ago.

This would be the first year the team would do all of this without one of the best players in the history of the program, former All-America point guard Keishana Washington.

Pressure. Pressure. Pressure.

But this week, Mallon’s team is serving as proof of the adage that “pressure makes diamonds,” serving as the crown jewel of the Big 5 as the only program, men’s or women’s, representing Philly in the NCAA Tournament. The Dragons, seeded 16th in the Portland 4 Regional, take on top seed Texas in Austin on Friday (3 p.m., ESPNU).

Judging from what Mallon repeatedly said after each Drexel win in the four-day roller coaster that was the CAA women’s tournament, this Dragons collective is more than ready for the pressure of the bright lights of March Madness.

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“This team has consistently been under pressure situations, but that’s what this team is about — toughness,” Mallon said following the team’s 69-68 win over Towson, setting up a CAA championship date with No. 2 seed Stony Brook on Sunday. “We talk about where we were picked at the beginning of the year to now, and just to be able to be in the situation we’re in, it’s all on this team. They believe in each other. When you do that, you can achieve anything.”

However, some of this pressure was a bit self-imposed. Take a three-game losing streak in December against the likes of then-No. 22 ranked Florida State, coupled with an 0-2 finish in the Homewood Suites Classic against the likes of Florida Gulf Coast and Cleveland State.

Or how about another three-game skid in February, just weeks before conference tournament? At that point, losses to William & Mary (Feb. 4), North Carolina A&T (Feb. 11) and Towson (Feb. 16) dropped the Dragons to 10-12 overall and 5-6 in the CAA.

But oddly, it took a loss to Stony Brook on March 1 for something in this Dragons team to click. And as Mallon would attest, it was because players began to buy into the notion that they, and they alone, were in full control of their postseason fate.

“[Freshman guard] Hetta Saatman and [senior forward] Chloe Hodges came in and said, ‘Hey, we have this path, we know it’s successful, we’re going to follow it,’ ” Mallon said. “We might have different changes in the lineup, but I think we stuck to what we do. We talk about the compass leading us in the right direction … our team plays for each other. They play for the fifth years for the seniors on this team, and they’re going to continue to do that … and I think that’s the total motivation we have and need.”

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Motivation became a mentality that has the Dragons on a seven-game winning streak, including a four-game sweep of conference tournament opponents, with three of those final four games decided by one possession. In a pressure-packed championship game against Stony Brook, a team that swept Drexel in the regular season? The Dragons won, 68-60.

“I mean, every game we played was a battle in the conference,” said Mallon before the Dragons knew they’d be taking on the Longhorns. “We had a really tough schedule and I think it only prepared us. “Whoever we play, it doesn’t surprise me. I think we’re capable of doing it, and I think our team is more than prepared because they’ve seen it.”

Now Drexel (19-14) has a tall task in defeating a Texas team (30-4) that enters Friday’s affair at the Moody Coliseum on a four-game winning streak. But in a season of something to prove — this is just the latest.

No pressure.

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