Thursday, December 29, 2016 7:05 p.m.
Knapp Arena, Des Moines, Iowa
Conference play begins in the MVC for the 2016-17 season on Wednesday, with Indiana State hosting Wichita State and Missouri State at UNI. On Thursday, SIU visits Bradley, ISU hosts Evansville, and the Ramblers play at Drake to open conference play. As the conference season gets underway, Loyola and Evansville appear to be the surprise of the non-con season. Evansville currently holds a seven-game winning streak, although two of those games were against non-D1 teams. Loyola got an AP Top 25 vote for two weeks before losing to Toledo last Tuesday, the first AP votes for the Ramblers since 1985. And Drake, the Ramblers’ next opponent, is about where everyone picked them to be.
Drake had a pretty awful 2015-16 season, in which they only won two games in conference and six games overall. Maybe their highlight game of the season was a Senior Day upset win over Loyola to sink the Ramblers from a potential 6th place league finish to 8th.
Even though the Bulldogs were picked last in the MVC preseason poll, a lot of Drake fans were looking forward to a 2016-17 season with a bit more optimism. Four out of five starters were returning for Coach Ray Giacoletti’s squad, and the majority of his players were now upperclassmen. Besides, it couldn’t be any worse than last year, right?
Wrong. First, promising 7’0” center Dominik Olejniczak, who had the ability to dominate on both ends of the court (and scored 19 points with nine rebounds in Drake’s win against Loyola), transferred to Ole Miss a month after the end of last season. Drake began the 2016-17 season by going 0-6 against Division I teams and 1-7 overall before Coach Giacoletti resigned abruptly. The Dogs then they lost three more games under acting head coach Jeff Rutter before getting their first Division I win over winless Mississippi Valley State on Dec. 22.
Chaos and inconsistency have been the watchwords for Drake this year. Only one player has started all of their games, and only two players have started more than eight of their 12 contests this year. They’ve had some impressive performances in losing efforts (a two-point overtime loss against Fresno State, a two-point loss at DePaul, and claiming a lead against #21 Iowa State several minutes into the second half), but they’ve also had some head-scratching, very bad losses (losing to Division II Alaska-Anchorage in the Great Alaska Shootout, losing at home to Jackson State). Their lone Division I win was a 101-69 explosion over hapless Mississippi Valley State 101-69 last Tuesday, featuring 17 Bulldog made three pointers.
Assuming Coach Rutter sticks with a winning starting lineup, the Bulldogs are likely to start three guards and two forwards against Loyola. Drake’s leading scorer is 6’1” junior guard Reed Timmer, who averages 15.6 points. Joining him in the backcourt are two 6’2” juniors, De’Antae McMurrray and C.J. Rivers, who average 6.6 and 4.9 respectively. McMurray is the main playmaker, but they’re both really good ball handlers and passers with assist to turnover ratios well above 2.4.
The Bulldogs have a really interesting frontcourt, with 6’6” sophomore forward Billy Wampler emerging recently as a powerful three-point scoring threat. In the first four or five games of the season, Wampler played a more conventional game, but since returning from the Great Alaska Shootout, he’s been more aggressive offensively and is firing up two thirds of his shots from behind the arc. Wampler is averaging 20.1 ppg in the last six games after averaging only 6.3 ppg in the first six. He leads the MVC in made threes, and hits his three pointers at a 45.8% clip. Last time out against Mississippi Valley State he scored 27 and set a league high in made threes in a game this season with eight—in 22 minutes. Joining Wampler in the frontcourt is the Bulldogs’ best rebounder, 6’8” junior forward T.J. Thomas who averages 5.4 boards and chips in 6.3 points.
Drake still has a lot of size and familiar names off the bench. Casey Schlatter (6’10”), Kory Kuenstling (6’11”) and Jacob Enevold (7’0”) each see respectable minutes off the bench and pull in a good share of rebounds even if they aren’t prolific scorers. The three of them combine to produce about 33 minutes, 9.5 points, and 8.8 boards on average. Other significant bench producers are 6’0” junior guard Graham Woodward (5.8 ppg), 6’8” sophomore forward Nick McGlynn and 6’3” junior guard Ore Aregondade (4.8 points, 3.1 boards).
Drake leads the conference in free throw shooting percentage, and Wampler is second in the conference in offensive plus/minus. The Ramblers lead the league in field goal percentage, have three players in the Top 20 in plus/minus offensively: Aundre Jackson at #5, Clayton Custer at #10, and Milton Doyle at #19. Drake has no one in the top 20 defensively, but the Ramblers have Ben Richardson at #4 and Doyle at #12. Jackson also leads the MVC in Player Efficiency Rating. The two teams have similar rebounding margins, although Drake is much better on the offensive glass. Loyola has a huge advantage in shooting percentage, both in the paint and from long distance. The numbers point to a battle between Drake’s new-and-improved offense which depends a lot on put-backs and how hot Billy Wampler can get, and Loyola’s disciplined defense that sometimes gets lost like a vital piece of baggage on the road.
Loyola, after nine days of welcome rest, begins the conference season on the road, where their play has been brilliant in a close loss against a tough team (North Carolina State), just barely good enough to squeak out a win against a banged-up team (UIC), and a little lethargic (against Toledo). Any way you cut it or choose to garnish it, it still ends up as a 1-2 record that could have easily been 0-3 or 3-0. The difference is energy and intensity, which was there until crunch time against NC State, not there until crunch time against UIC, and not there consistently against Toledo. Road wins don’t come easy, and especially road conference wins, even against teams with Drake’s record that also happens to be going through a coaching upheaval. The Ramblers need to bring energy and focus, they need to maintain it, and they need to play this game to start the conference this year much better than they played their last regular season conference game—that unexpected loss at Drake that dropped their Arch Madness conference seeding.
LINKS
TV/Streaming video: ESPN3
Vegas odds: Loyola by 6.5
