DUBulldog wrote:BuBrave2006 wrote:
Also, it's not like Drake lost their three best players or anything off of last years team and had their fourth best player shoot someone in the head. I'm sure they won't have a drop off at all and clearly still consistently beat teams that have significantly improved like Bradley and MSU by double digits.
Let me look at this from a different perspective (keeping in mind that Drake didn't lose their 3 best players off last season's championship team....they played the whole conference season without Norton, so they had already lost him prior to conference season....and, it's debatable as to whether Ellingson was the one of the top 3 players on the team last season). Can't really count Norton as a loss, since he was already gone for the whole conference season.
Let's look at the Drake team that played in the MVC tournament last season and came within a last second buzzer beater of making it to the championship game. A team that was very competitive in the MVC tournament. That team loses one player (Ellingson). McGlynn was injured and didn't play. Norton was long gone by then. To that team, they add DJ Wilkins (injured), Roman Penn (sat out as transfer), Issa Samake, Joe Yesufu, Nate Ferguson, Okay Djamgouz, Brady Ernst, Jonah Jackson and Connor Gholson.
The Drake team that was very competitive in the MVC tourney loses one player and adds nine. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that this season's Drake team will be better than the Drake team that played well in last season's MVC tournament. This season's team should certainly have a lot more depth.
Wasn't Ellingson something like second team all valley? I think that qualifies as being one of the 3 best players on the team. And yes, sure you were competitive. You did a really good job of beating a Thursday ISU team and then losing to the 6 seed.
I do not understand any argument how this year's Drake team can be better than last season's. I'll take bets with anyone that the 2019-2020 Drake team finishes worse than in kenpom than where they finished last season (135).