Justin Jennings

PHILADELPHIA — Justin Jennings only had to wait five years.

Drexel University had to wait 25.

Regardless, the Seneca Valley graduate and Dragons assistant men's basketball coach will be taking part in the NCAA Tournament this season.

The Dragons (12-7) received an automatic bid to the big dance by winning the Colonial Athletic Association championship game, 63-55, over Elon recently. Drexel was the seventh seed in the conference tourney, Elon was seeded eighth.

“A lot of upsets,” Jennings said. “But we were the two hottest teams. Elon had won seven straight entering the final.”

Drexel is in the NCAA tourney for the first time since 1996.

A 2002 SV grad, Jennings joined the Drexel coaching staff shortly after Zach Spiker accepted the Dragons' head coaching job five years ago. Jennings was an assistant coach under Spiker at Army before that.

Spiker and Jennings combined to lead Army to a postseason tournament in 2016, the program's first in 38 years.

“Zach knows how to build a program,” Jennings said. “When we first came to Drexel, the team was coming off a six-win season.

“The rapport I have with him is fantastic. I can finish his sentences, he can finish mine. We know each other that well.”

Jennings works with Drexel's guards. One of them, Cam Wynter, has developed into one of the best players in the CAA and was named the conference tournament's most outstanding player. Another, freshman Xavier Bell, came off the bench to score 11 points in the CAA title game.

“I know we're going to be a low seed (in the NCAA tourney), but we have four players who have been starters for three years,” Jennings said. “That experience could help us.

“Our guys won't be intimidated at all.”

Drexel sank 29 of 51 3-point shots in the CAA tourney.

“We got hot at the right time,” Jennings said.

A basketball player himself at Seneca Valley and Penn State Behrend, Jennings got the urge to get into coaching through watching his father coach youth football in the Cranberry Township area.

“He took over a program that had no wins the year before and turned it into one that lost three games in five years,” Jennings said. “It was so much fun watching that.

“I wanted to experience turning around a program like that.”

With Spiker, he's experienced that twice.

Jennings played for head coach Dave Niland at Behrend. Still active, Niland has won 515 games in 27 years at Behrend. He has been Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference Coach of the Year seven times and has guiided the Lions to either the NCAA Division III or ECAC tournament in 24 of the past 25 yerars.

“He's incredible, one of the best kept secrets in college basketball,” Jennings said. “He's inspired me so much.

“I definitely want to be a head coach, run my own show someday. For now, I'm loving my time at Drexel.

“And we have more work to do,” he added.