The Drake is number one in all the land!!! Well...number one in all of the Missouri Valley. With a 79-49 drubbing of Illinois State, Drake asserted themselves as not just the best team in the MVC, but as a team that is destined to do some damage in the NCAA Tournament. The 30-point blowout was the largest margin of victory in the Tournament's 32 year history. More importantly, today's victory marked Drake's first Conference Title in the Tournament's 32 year history. This conference championship capped off (for now) what has been an absolutely improbable season for the Drake Bulldogs. Picked to finish NINTH in the 10 team conference, Drake wowed both the local and the national populous with a 25-4 record, including 15-3 during the MVC regular season. March Madness is about stories, and this story keeps getting better and better. Drake is led by Adam Emmenecker, a former walk-on with prior experience in bench-warming. Emmenecker had 16 points and 6 rebounds against Illinois St. and he was named the Conference Tournament MVP. This award will go nicely along-side the award he won this past week...when he was named the Missouri Valley Conference Player of the year (officially known as the Larry Bird award, honestly). Emmenecker averages about 8 points per game, and he was voted not just MVP of the team, but of the entire league. Dependable. Unselfish. Smart. This kid is a great story. #15 for Drake also was recently named the 2008 Academic All-American of Year by the College Sports Information Directors of America. The pride of Des Moines Iowa tonight...The Drake Bulldogs and Adam Emmenecker. Good job boys.Drake is so much fun to watch. They aren't necessarily a very big or very fast team but they execute their sets to perfection. I was able to watch the MVC championship game today and had about as much fun watching basketball as I've had in a long time. Drake runs this modified spread offense which allows their smaller line-up to either drive the lane and dump it to the post for easy layups...OR...if a team is dumb enough to play zone against them, allows their skilled shooters to get wide open for three-point shots. Josh Young and Klayton Korver are outstanding shooters. And yes, Klayton Korver is the brother of Utah Jazz guard, Kyle Korver. Did I mention that starting forward Jonathan Cox is a former walk-on as well? The guy averages 11.3 points a game for Drake. I really like this team. My friend Rob was randomly in St. Louis over the weekend, and I casually mentioned to him last night that he should go over to the Scottrade Center and watch Drake in the MVC Championship game. Turns out he actually did, and I couldn't be more jealous.
Missouri Valley Conference:
Missouri Valley Conference:
- Actual Champion: Drake (4th NCAA appearance, first since 1971)
- My Predicted Champion: Drake
- Bracket Winning Percentage: 88.9% (8 of 9 games correct)
- Overall Bracket Winning Percentage: 86.7% (26 of 30 games correct)
- Overall Predicted Champion Winning Percentage: 100% (4 of 4 correct)
Yes I really did see Drake in action! It was barely even a game to be honest as Drake controlled the whole thing. Pretty weak (11K) turnout for the final, but I think Drake will be a fun team to watch in the tournament as their fans were pretty enthusiastic. They are a small bunch of 3 point shooters, but if their strategy can work against bigger squads then they'll hang in there and be great to watch.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the sideline reporting Rob. Drake should be able to hang with anyone they go up against, they absolutely destroy zone defenses and are able to rebound despite their perceived lack of size. I'm still shamed by the fact that everyone has seen live college basketball excpet me. And I lost out on potentially seeing Robert Morris in the NEC championship game this week when they lost yesterday.
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