Imagine, if you will, a world where Northwestern has just wrapped up a Big Ten title. In men’s basketball. Given that the Wildcats have yet to win in conference play this year — or ever appear in an NCAA Tournament game — I can see that you might find such a scenario implausible, even after taking large quantities of LSD.
However, this past weekend, something nearly as unlikely happened in the college basketball world. And you might not have noticed. Mostly because there was no television outlet to notice it on, unless you are hooked up to Des Moines TV on your dish.
I’m talking about the Drake Bulldogs clinching their first Missouri Valley Conference title since 1971. While that might not seem like it was that long ago, all it takes is one look at a pair of 1971 shorts to realize that it has in fact been awhile.
Comparing Drake to Northwestern might be a bit drastic given that the Bulldogs actually qualified for the tournament before, and even made the Final Four in 1969. However, they are similar in one respect — both are schools for smart, rich kids that perpetually suck at basketball.
Seeing that Drake has had only two winning seasons since that ’71 campaign, the MVC title is kind of a big deal. (Go ahead and search Drake basketball on Google. They’ll ask if you meant Duke). Such a big deal that I don’t even have all the proper words for it. So I’m turning it over to my good friend “Thporth” Erickson, who knows more about the Valley than any person alive. (Somebody has to).
Thporth, so called because that’s how he pronounces the word sports, provided the following nuggets, which we have placed next to a photo of Drake’s most famous alum, Jeremy Piven.
* With the emergence of Drake and Baylor, the continuing success of Vandy and Stanford, and the perpetual dominance of Duke, almost all of the academic-type schools in the major conferences are good. Watching Vandy wallop Kentucky was awesome.
* You have to root for any team:
A. with a Korver (In this case, Klayton. Yes, with a K.)
B. coached by a guy named Keno (Keno Davis, son of Dr. Tom).
*It’s crazy how a team that good can have such little TV exposure. They haven’t even been on any ESPN, not even ESPNU, to this point.
*It’s also crazy how clutch they are. How’s a team that’s been bad for so long suddenly now how to play in the clutch? Usually a formerly bad team is mediocre for a year, learning how to win, before they’re really good.
In defense of Drake, the Bulldogs were 17-15 last year, so they might have hit that mediocre level already. But in defense of Thporth, Drake was 6-12 in the MVC and one of its non-conference wins came against Waldorf College. (Wasn’t that a school they played against in “Coach” or something?)
No matter how you slice it, Drake is the unlikeliest team in college basketball this season, and just another reason why college basketball is the greatest game on earth (TM).
(And if you would finally like to see them, they’ll be playing at Butler this Saturday afternoon on ESPN2.)
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Excellent!
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In that 1971 picture, the coach in the blue suit on the left looks a little like you would have in 1971.
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