Even off to its best start in school history (14-1 and 5-0 in the MVC), my alma mater Drake is currently getting very little respect. Hopefully that will change if they can get through another 2-0 week in conference play. They just missed joining the Associated Press Top 25 poll today. Drake received 75 votes and sits one spot behind No. 25 Villanova. The Bulldogs were picked to finish 9th this season under 1st year coach Keno Davis – an assistant last year under his father, Dr. Tom Davis.

Why don’t we see highlights of these guys on ESPN?? Drake beat Missouri State this past Saturday without its leading scorer (and Missouri Valley’s top scorer), sophomore Josh Young – out with an ankle injury. It’s the first time they beat them since 2002. Senior Klayton Korver (Kyle Korver’s brother) picked up the slack by dropping in 19 points vs. the Bears. A few weeks ago, Drake beat Southern Illinois for the first time since Feb. 17th, 1999.

Next up is Wed. @ Bradley. If things go as planned, Drake will have a showdown at home vs. Illinois State this Saturday. Illinois State is currently the other undefeated MVC team, tied with the Bulldogs at 5-0 in conference play. I really hope this is their year.

Drake is playing some amazing ball this season. It's nice to have a men's team in the state actually do well for a change! I'm hoping they can keep going and at the very least make the NCAAs. When was the last time that happened - 1971? Good job, Drake!!

And I love the Knapp Center. I guess the games have been selling out, which is more than the Hawkeyes can say.

Hey any team with the name Bulldogs, is ok by me. I now know of 3, Drake, Gonzaga, and Georgia...any more???

Miss. St., Fresno I can think off right off hand

The Valley has been turned upside down with Drake and both of the ISU's atop the standings after finishing amongst the bottom 4 teams last year. Illinois St. of the 3 seemed like the most likely to leap up qucikly, but props to Drake and Indiana St. for their starts.

Drake won it's 14th straight game last night beating Bradley in Peoria by a single point at the buzzer. They're now 15-1 and face the other team at the top of the Valley standings, Illinois State Saturday night in Des Moines. If I didn't have an ISU women's game to go to that night, I'd actually buy a ticket and watch the Drake guys in person - tho, knowing me, I'd be a jinx.

WOW - how about that Drake game in Peoria! I'll share a recap printed in the DSM Register:


--Drake coach Keno Davis called a timeout at 10.7 seconds, and designed a play for Emmenecker, the former walk-on turned starting point guard.

"We set him a double-ball screen up high," Davis explained. "(Bradley) didn't pressure Adam like I thought they would."

Instead, Emmenecker drove to his left and tried a short jumper with 4 seconds left that bounced off the backboard.

He gathered the rebound, and clanked his second try.

"We talked about, do not stand around and watch the shot," Davis said. "We have to assume every shot is missed, and go after every board."

Emmenecker heeded Davis' words and grabbed the ball again.

As time expired, he floated it just over the rim and through the net.

"I knew the time was getting short," Emmenecker said. "I thought the first one was good, and it came back to me.

"I thought the second one was good, and it came back to me. The third one finally went in."

Emmenecker was immediately smothered under a sea of blue jerseys. Davis leaped from the sideline and punched the sky.--

Drake now moves to 15-1, 6-0 in MVC. The big game is this Saturday, at home, vs. Illinois State - winner gets sole possesion of 1st place, for now. GOD I hope the game is on TV here!

I haven't heard anything about it being televised, but if I find anything out, I'll let you know. There is a chance it might be on local cable (but with Mediacom, I'm not holding my breath).

I'm hoping that Comcast Sports Network or somebody local picks it up - after all, they are playing Illinois State...and I'm certainly in Illinois. :-)

Bobby - Ok, the Drake game Saturday night will be broadcast on local cable via Mediacom, starting a 7 pm. We have satellite or I would tape it for you, but you will want to get a hold of family or friends in the area to record it so you can see it later, especially if (sorry, WHEN) they win! This should at least be on a regional channel like FoxSports Midwest or something, but it isn't. When they were making up the tv schedules before the start of the season, I seriously doubt anyone in their right mind thought this game would be for first place in the Valley!

DRAKE WINS AGAIN!!

After trailing at half-time, Drake rallied for 51 second half points to beat Illinois State - 79-73

Again Drake had to play without the Missouri Valley's leading scorer, Josh Young - which makes the victory all the more impressive.

They now move to 16-1 and 7-0 in conference play - all alone in 1st place!

Surely they will see a top 25 ranking now.

With Xavier, Clemson, URI, and Miami all losing this week - and Drake just missing at 26 this week - it should be very likely that Drake will have a number next to it tomorrow.

I hope so, it will be the first time in 33 years!!!

Drake is 23rd in the ESPN poll - woohoo!!

http://sports-ak.espn.go.com/ncb/rankings

...and add #22 in AP poll to that

I really like it when either Drake or Norther Iowa does well in sports, because it usually gives the whole state a reason to rally behind a single team. That definitely does NOT happen with Iowa and Iowa State for most people. I don't know of a single person here who follows basketball and isn't at least a little bit excited that the Drake men's team is doing so well. If any program deserves recognition for playing so well, especially after having only last year recorded their first above .500 season in 20 years, it's the Bulldogs. Keep up the great work, boys!!

Not that it means much right now, but the new Bracketology list is up at ESPN for 1/21. Lunardi has Drake as a 4 seed, believe it or not, playing in the same half bracket as #1 seed Tennessee.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology

Drake won tonight at Creighton, which is a tough place to play! Go Valley!! I'm a Saluki track alum, so I'm bummed that my Dawgs are struggling so far this year but I still have faith that they will be ready come MVC tourney time!! I won't hate on Drake though because it's awesome to see the Valley get a little national recognition!

Yeah, Drake won 68-60 in overtime in front of a sold-out Qwest Center in Omaha (17,000+)! It was the first time a ranked team had won there since the building opened (according to our news - who knows if it's right or not...). Drake has the nation's third longest winning streak at 16 - behind Memphis and Kansas.

Amazing, Drake just keeps adding to it's NCAA Tournament resume. And how brilliant does this make first year coach Keno Davis look.




Coach Davis

Matt, I know you are in Cyclone Land...but what's the buzz on Drake there? What are you hearing when you're in line at the Hy-Vee or Quick Trip? :-)

I hear the UNI game is sold out on Saturday.

Ok, let's not forget that all of Iowa is a Cyclone state (wink, wink - this year, anyway). The people I know are talking about the program and how great a job Keno Davis is doing. The local evening newscasts have been leading with Drake the past two days - first when they became ranked, then when they knocked off Creighton last night.

People really are paying attention to what's going on and it's creating a lot of excitement. There were very few tickets for the UNI game last night (only 200 or so), so they should definitely be sold out by now. If they keep winning, I wouldn't be surprised to see the remaining home games sell out. There was a write-up on espn.com today about them and a couple of comments along with the article. One said "is Drake even division 1?" or something like that. No, they're ranked in the D-1 poll and play in the MVC - that means they're NAIA (duh).

The more they win, the greater the buzz will grow. Will be interesting to see how they handle the pressure and how the rest of the country reacts with each new headline. As an aside, I remember when the Drake women went to Baylor for the NCAA tournament in 2002 and defeated the Bears on their home court to advance to their first Sweet 16 in years (interesting because ISU lost to Baylor twice - in Ames and on a neutral site). The women's announcers were making stupid comments like "Drake Cakes" and stuff, so I guess it goes with the territory when you're a smaller school.

Second place Illinois State lost by a point to Bradley last night, giving Drake a two game lead in the conference.

Wow, that's some nice breathing room. I'm thinking the UNI game will be much tougher than it would seem on paper. It's never easy to beat your in-state rivals (*See Iowa vs. Iowa State). :-)

Drake brings a 17 game win streak, an 18-1 record and #16 national ranking to the Knapp Center for a big rematch with the Creighton Bluejays tomorrow night.

This will be broadcast again locally by Mediacom tomorrow. I think they said this game and Evansville are sold out - the first time ever Drake has sold out more than three games in one season (according to the paper). The Bulldogs also jumped to #s 16 and 17 in the polls, if memory serves.

Drake beat Creighton again, 75-65 in Des Moines to improve to 19-1, 10-0 in the MVC. Drake now has the nation's second longest winning streak at 18 games (Kansas lost tonight to Kansas State for the first time EVER at K-State's Bramlage Coliseum, ending their 20 game win streak), and leads the Valley by three full games as Illinois State lost to Northern Iowa. Wow, this team just gets more and more fun to follow with each game. I wish they weren't always playing when I have ISU women's games to go to - I'd like to actually SEE them for myself once in a while!

You are right Matt, what a team to follow this year. Even if you could care less about Drake or the Missouri Valley, you can't help but be happy for Drake and Drake fans after so many miserable seasons.

It's the sixth consecutive game Drake has escaped in the closing moments, and it was also good enough to help Drake extend the fourth-longest winning streak in 101 years of Missouri Valley basketball.

The Davises are this year's Bennetts

ESPN.com bracketology has Drake as a #4 seed in the EAST region - this was based on their 17-1 record. They've since won two games. :-)

The Bulldogs will go for win number 20 on Saturday at Indiana State. On Tuesday they have a rematch with second place Illinois State Redbirds.

I'm happy for Drake because I'm a former Valley athlete (Go Dawgs!) I only want Drake to lose to SIU and I'm not sure that will happen in the second matchup. Go MVC!

Drake won their 19th in a row, 83-77 at Indiana State on Saturday after trailing much of the game. They're still up 3 games on the second place team, Illinois State, in the Valley.

....and a #8 RPI rating for Drake too.

More Drake tidbits.


*Four-peat. Drake lands their 4th MVC player of the week. Josh Young is the fourth straight Drake player to earn the honor, joining Jonathan Cox, Adam Emmenecker and Klayton Korver.

*Drake moves up one spot to #15 in latest poll.

*Drake vs. Butler added as part of the BracketBuster pairings -- featuring two of the nation's highest ranked mid-major programs -- Feb. 23rd on ESPN. They will face Iowa coach Todd Lickliter's former team.

Drake's up to a 3 in Bracketology.

Escape from Normal

Drake now has a four game lead on second place with seven games left to play. The Valley is not as good this year as it has been in years past - I wonder how Drake would be doing if they had this team, say, two years ago. I think they'd still be fighting for the top, but I don't think they'd be undefeated at this point in league play. Guess everything is coming together just right to have that one year where nearly everything goes your way.

Given that Drake has already beaten both Creighton and Illinois State twice; I’d love to see the 2nd and 3rd place MVC teams finish conference play strong. It would be great to see 3 MVC teams in the big dance – even though ESPN disagrees this will happen.

Drake won again tonight 73-65 over Evansville in Des Moines to move to 22-1, 13-0 on the season. The winning streak is now up to 21 games! For a change, this one didn't come down to the final seconds - they had a lead and held onto it.

One more win and they clinch. And if they do it in C-dale, all the more impressive

How great would it be if they ended up playing their first round NCAA game in Omaha (Midwest Region). Omaha is a 2-hour drive from the Drake campus, and I'm guessing fellow MVC Creighton Bluejays would be cheering them on too.

Drake lost their first game since mid November, 65-62, against Southern Illinois in Carbondale. SIU has only lost one time at home in the last 57 or so games (tried to look up the #, but I couldn't find it tonight). Valiant effort by the Bulldogs, but the winning streak is over. Time to start another...

SIU lost to Indiana and Butler in C-dale this year, but the streak was fairly long that they did have a couple years back. If the Salukis can defend C-dale and win their 2 road games, maybe, just maybe, they may get back into bubble talk.

"The Salukis have posted a 59-1 home record against Valley foes since the start of the 2001-02 season."

From the Des Moines Register.

Another very close game. Leonard Houston's game-tying shot at the buzzer barely missed.

Thanks for finding that, Bobby. I knew it was "50-something, blah, blah, one loss, blah, blah" but couldn't find the details when I was typing. Thought it might have been a conference streak, but wasn't able to remember all the details.

Drake won at UNI today, 65-55 and claimed their first Missouri Valley title since 1971. The title is outright since Illinois State lost to Indiana State. Drake improved to 23-2, 14-1.

Congratulations to Drake, MVC regular season champs! Congrats to my SIU Salukis for beating them down on the homecourt! It's too bad we haven't had a more solid season but we are currently third in the Valley! Not that any of that matters... we just have to win the MVC Tourney! Ahh, nothing like Arch Madness!

Uh oh... Drake lost its first home game of the season against Bradley (no slouch as a team). Hopefully those Bulldogs can finish the regular season strongly. As long as they "let" my Salukis win Arch Madness, everything will be okay!

I was surprised - we'd been watching the game off and on and Drake was up 8 or so near the end and when we came back, Drake was down 1 with four seconds left. Not sure what happened (other than the obvious that Bradley scored some points), but after a flurry of timeouts, Drake finally inbounded the ball and had two shots to win - neither went down. Hopefully THIS loss will motivate them to play a little harder in the sprint towards the end of the season.

Basically they gave the game away Matt. There was NO excuse for Josh Young to launch that deep, deep 3-point attempt with 20-something seconds left. They had the lead and should have killed the clock. Grrrrrr