By Jonathan Lidskin
After an NCAA Tournament loss to Washington State, Drake was gutted. They lost their coach and pretty much all of their rotation players from a team that was a 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament. It was thought to be an impossible task to stay at the level that Darian DeVries had them at, but it turns out, that the answer to staying at that level was a D2 coach and a handful of his players.
Ben McCollum won big at D2 Northwest Missouri State, but many people questioned whether he could transfer up to the D1 level. Not only did he, but the players he brought with him did as well.
McCollum in his first season leads Drake to the NCAA Tournament with an Arch Madness Championship. The Bulldogs knocked off Bradley in Arch Madness for the third year in a row. This time it was to win their 30th game of the season.
Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year Bennett Stirtz led Drake with 24 points, but it was a team effort from the Bulldogs who dominated the glass and played the game at the tempo they wanted.
Drake woke up as a projected 12 seed according to Bracket Matrix, but the Bulldogs added another Quad 2 victory to their resumé by beating Bradley. The Bulldogs are the only team in the country that will head into the NCAA Tournament undefeated against the first two quadrants. In one week, Drake will find out who they are matched up against in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as the Bulldogs try to cap off their historic season with a victory in March Madness, something they haven’t accomplished in the previous two seasons.