Over Christmas, I sat and watched a movie with my two-year old niece. That movie: Cinderella. Yes, the Disney animated movie. Now, ordinarily, I do not watch Disney animated movies. In fact, given the choice between watching a Disney animated movie and watching a Hugh Grant movie, I'd think long and hard before opting for option C, no matter what option C is. And given the choice between watching a Disney animated movie and watching a Carrot Top movie, I'd go get a root canal.
Why do I tell you these things? Because Drake is a pumpkin, and its after midnight. Their 28 win season is history, and now that those rascals in Cedar Falls have shown the league how to defend Josh Young, the Bulldogs are either ordinary or terrible, depending on who you talk to.
Either adjective works for me, because after watching the UNI-Drake game on ESPN2 last Saturday, and then deciding to go to the mall -- TO THE MALL!! -- because the game was so lopsided, I'm convinced the Jays will win today. Plus, I received a couple of emails from Drake fans telling me how terrible their team is, how coach Mark Phelps is trying to ram a system the players can't run down their throats, and how Drake Nation is growing restless.
Wait...Drake Nation? You cannot be serious. My Dad is the only person I've ever known who wore a Drake sweatshirt out in public on a non-gameday before last year, and that was only because he went to school there. I remember him taking us to games at Veterans Auditorium and seeing more Iowa and Iowa State shirts than Drake shirts, even though neither of those state schools were on the court.
In any case, Drake now sits at 13-7 and 4-4 overall, but have lost three ugly games in a row. The first of those losses came at Illinois State, but pretty much everyone is going to lose at Illinois State this year. Then there was the 81-59 home loss to UNI that wasn't as close as the score indicates, and the 65-44 road loss to Missouri State. Its up for debate which was the more embarrassing loss, but given the entire country may have witnessed at least a portion of the former, the UNI loss is clearly "worse", right? Right.
Winning big at Drake is a once-every-40 years occasion. And that's not me saying that, either: longtime beat writer for the Des Moines Register turned blogger Ron Maly has said so multiple times. And this is year one of the next 40 year cycle.
I for one cannot be happier, because I don't think I can put up with smack talk from my dad if Drake were to beat Creighton three times in a season again in my lifetime.
One Big Paragraph With Lots O'Dots (TM): Drake and Creighton go back a long ways, with the schools meeting 141 times. The Jays have won 86 of those, including 19 of the past 26 going back eleven years. Additionally, they're 52-18 in Omaha ... New Drake Coach Mark Phelps was a long-time assistant to Herb Sendek at NC State and Arizona State, and given his shot to run a program, has had a rocky first year. They lost to Butler at home to open the season, then rolled off a series of impressive wins, jumped out to a 4-1 mark in the league, and promptly lost three straight to fall from first to fifth place ... Preseason POY Josh Young was having a tremendous year before Northern Iowa took a page out of the Southern Illinois playbook and roughed him up. Now that MVC teams know he can be taken out of games with physical defense, look for it every time he takes the court until he proves he can thrive in spite of it. Drake has no other proven backcourt weapons, although Josh Parker is emerging as a nice second option ... Jonathan "Bucky" Cox is the leading rebounder in the MVC, meaning Kenny Lawson and Kenton Walker have their work cut out for them ... The game is unofficially a sellout, with only single tickets and SRO remaining as of 8 am Saturday morning ... The Jays win on Tuesday was just the second time since 1933 that they had a margin of victory of more than 22 points in a MVC road game. Wow.
The Last Time They Played: The Bulldogs ended the Jays slim NCAA Tournament hopes by eliminating them in the semifinals of Arch Madness last March. The 75-67 loss was disappointing, and it sent the Jays into the NIT.
Gratuitous Linkage: Normally I link to some ridiculous pop culture thing here, but the always-genius Creighton Otter posted something this week that you need to read if you haven't already. Kenton and Kenny have taken a lot of flak this year from idiots like me, but finally someone broke down their sophomore years statistically. For a long time now, I've held out hope that someone could put this study together, but I like math only slightly less than I like Disney animated movies, so it was never going to happen here. Otter's conclusion, proved though numbers, is that Kenton and Kenny are statistically similar to other Jays post players in the Dana Altman era at similar stages of their development. Brody Deren, Joe Dabbert, and Anthony Tolliver are the principal players involved in said study. I was disappointed not to see Doug Swenson on the list, but when I refuse to do the comparisons myself, I better not complain when someone else does. Good stuff as always, Otter!
Official Gametime Snack: I got a hankerin' for a funnel cake today, because I'm in a metaphorical mood. Drake's season is in the funnel, about to get flushed into the drain, and the Jays can apply the knockout swirley today. Do it.
The totally random song I'd play right now if I were still a radio DJ: Anytime the opponent's coach shares a surname with the Peter Graves character from Mission Impossible, one of my rules is I have to link to the Adam Clayton/Larry Mullen version of the theme song. Sadly, that video isn't avail...wait, it is? I don't even remember there being a video for that song. Wild.
Prediction: The Jays apply some more pressure to the Bulldogs season, and build on the impressive road win over Evansville. The three game home stand gets off to a rousing start in front of a Saturday afternoon matinee sellout crowd: Jays 78, Bulldogs 62
