There’s been a certain whirlwind of emotions in college basketball in recent days, with dozens of teams and hundreds of players seeing their seasons or collegiate careers come to an end. The NCAA Tournament may not have given us the flair or Cinderella story we were looking for, but that doesn’t mean every game went according to expectation.
Drake certainly became a story this season and they proved that in the Big Dance. First-year head coach Ben McCollum did fantastic work in building a roster with familiar undertones from his work at Northwest Missouri State. A four-time D2 national champion, McCollum showed zero signs of struggle in adjusting to D1 basketball, leading Drake to 30 wins in the regular season and an MVC Tournament crown.
The proof came in Drake’s upset win over 6-seed Missouri in the Tournament’s first round. There weren’t a ton of upsets or notable moments, but Bennett Stirtz and this feisty Bulldogs squad imposed their will and changed that narrative. While the Bulldogs would fall to a strong Texas Tech team this weekend, they certainly stood out as one of the teams of note in this field; a field dominated by the power conference schools.
However, the moment could briefly be enjoyed, as McCollum announced Monday that he was leaving the Bulldogs after just one season to take the head coaching job at Iowa. It’s too familiar a story for successful mid-major programs, but it’s especially painful mere moments after what this team accomplished. There’s little question that most of the names on this year’s team will be gone from the program, with some like Stirtz following McCollum to Iowa City and the Big Ten.
It’s hard to blame McCollum for any of this; he’s taking the head coaching job in his hometown and has a chance to compete for Big Ten titles after proving he could dominate D2 and win big at the mid-major level. What hurts the most isn’t just the loss of this coach but the theme that’s developed as a result. After all, just last season Darian DeVries left Drake for the head coaching position at West Virginia, though ironically he also made his own move after just a single season in Morgantown.
The fact of the matter is that thanks to a whirlwind of events, both in the NCAA Tournament and coaching carousel, Drake’s last three head coaches are all now employed in the Big Ten. DeVries accepted the Indiana job earlier last week, McCollum is off to Iowa, and DeVries’ predecessor Niko Medved heads off to Minnesota after doing great work in recent years at Colorado State, with a similar whirlwind for that Rams program, leaving less than 24 hours after being knocked out of the Big Dance.
Three brilliant hires in a row highlight the incredible work that athletic director Brian Hardin and his administrative staff have done in recent years with the Bulldogs. Drake appeared in three straight Elite Eights in the early 70’s, but those were the only trips to the Big Dance in the program’s history until 2008. In fact, those four trips were all this program had in its history until DeVries was hired. This isn’t some built program making yearly trips to the Big Dance like a Butler or Gonzaga; the Bulldogs have really come on in recent years.
The task becomes finding a fourth straight brilliant head coach to continue that momentum, which certainly isn’t easy in today’s day and age. NIL and the Transfer Portal have made it almost impossible for mid-major programs to keep their rosters intact on a year-to-year basis, and the allure of better money and bigger programs is hard for any player or coach to deny. Half of Drake’s NCAA Tournament appearances have come since the start of the global pandemic, but can they maintain this momentum?
Those three great hires came from very different places and there’s any number of directions that Hardin and his staff could turn this time. Medved was head coach at Furman, DeVries was a Creighton assistant with no head coaching experience, and McCollum had all that success in D2 without sniffing D1 ball.
If they want a rising mid-major head coach, then maybe they’ll look at Eric Henderson at South Dakota State or Daniyal Robinson out at Cleveland State. If head coaching experience isn’t needed, Iowa State assistant JR Blount checks many boxes as does Ali Farokhmanesh, a former Drake assistant who might actually get Colorado State’s job. There are also a number of intriguing D2 head coaches with relevant experience, or perhaps a retread hire like Craig Smith could do wonders in the MVC.
No matter which direction this search goes in, it’s hard not to trust Hardin and his staff to find the right leader for this program. There’s no guarantee that lightning strikes a fourth time, but let’s not forget this moment either. Just a few days ago Drake won their first NCAA Tournament game outside of the First Four in more than half a century. The program isn’t falling apart even with another coaching departure if the right leader walks through that door again.