Going Dancing!

Let's go, Drake! 1/27/24 dwm

While I was a student at Drake, I went to every home basketball game I could, including once when the wind chill was below-zero, and a friend joined me for the drive downtown to see them play in Veteran's Auditorium in downtown Des Moines.

I don't remember the team's record, we were in the top half of the Missouri Valley Conference much of the time but back then only conference champs made the NCAA tournament, so we weren't in the conversation.

The Drake team that was talked about the most when I was in school was the 1969 team which made it to Final Four where they lost in the semi-final to eventual champion UCLA. They qualified for the next two tournaments, followed by a long wait.

When the tournament expanded in the mid-1980s, I started following it closely, but my alma mater has only been part of a few. They made a great run to reach the Dance in 2008, but lost in the first round.

Thanks to a gritty, almost-lost-it-but-held-on to win 84 - 80 Sunday, the Bulldogs secured the Missouri Valley Conference title over Indiana State, punching their ticket. 

It will be their third appearance in four years, 2021, 2023, and 2024!

Drake's best player is Tucker DeVries, son of the coach, Darian DeVries, who came to Drake in 2018 after serving as an assistant at Creighton. Since DeVries arrived on campus, his teams have won at least twenty games a season and his son was just named Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year for the second year in a row.

An interesting stat mentioned during Sunday's game is that Drake has the third most wins in the country since 2018, tied with Kansas with 105 wins, trailing only Gonzaga and Houston. Not bad for a mid-major!

Drake is the kind of team that could make noise in the big dance with decent depth and an experienced team.  I'd love to see them make it to the Sweet Sixteen, go Bulldogs!