I would like to deliver a heartfelt apology to the Drexel Dragons fan base.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that Villanova is the only Philadelphia area school with a chance to make the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Well, Drexel enters the Coastal Athletic Association tournament as the No. 2 seed with a 5-1 record in its last six games.

The Dragons are three wins in Washington D.C. away from securing a spot in the Big Dance before Villanova fights for its bubble life at Madison Square Garden.

Despite being the No. 2 seed, Drexel checks in at +380 on DraftKings and +460 on FanDuel to win the CAA tournament. They’re tied for the third-best odds with UNC Wilmington at DK and squarely behind UNCW, Charleston and Hofstra on FD.

The good news for the Dragons is the CAA tournament has not gone to chalk in the last three years. The #1 seed has not reached the championship game in that span. Drexel won a #6-versus-#8 title game in 2021, Delaware cut down the nets as a 5 seed in 2022, and Charleston won as the #2 seed in 2023.

If you’re sports betting in PA and sports betting in NJ, Charleston is the favorite to win the CAA tournament, but at +200 (FD) and +225 (DK), they have the highest odds of any conference tournament favorite. That speaks to the recent unpredictability in the CAA tournament and the eight teams that had double-digit wins in the CAA regular season.

The knock on Drexel is that they can’t win away from the DAK. The Dragons went 4-5 on the road in CAA play. Their victory over Delaware last Monday was their only road win in the last six weeks and the only one over a top-eight conference team.

Now for the good news: Drexel was the only CAA team to rank in the top three in adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency in conference play, per KenPom. That’s a fancy way to call the Dragons balanced.

Charleston and UNC Wilmington, the #1 and #4 seeds, ranked sixth and eighth, respectively, in adjusted defensive efficiency in CAA play.

Hofstra, coached by former Sixers great Speedy Claxton, is Drexel’s top threat to reach Tuesday’s CAA tournament final. The Pride split the regular-season series with Drexel and went 8-2 in their final 10 games. Hofstra’s calling card is its offense, which ranks in the top 50 in most metrics.

But the way Drexel can stop Hofstra, and any team for that matter, is with its defense. The Dragons have the best three-point defense and third-best two-point defense in the CAA and they rank 30th in the country in points allowed per game.

The Dragons certainly won’t win any shootouts to get into the field of 68, but if they defend well in D.C., they have a good shot of making their second NCAA tournament in four years.