Tournament Champions Picked to Win the MVC
(St. Louis, MO) – Drake’s basketball team is squarely on the national map. During coach Darian DeVries’ five years the Bulldogs have enjoyed great success. Drake has won 122 games and two Missouri Valley Conference titles (one regular season and one postseason tournament). In close balloting, league coaches and administrators named Drake as the preseason favorite.
The Bulldogs (27-8) won last spring’s Arch Madness title and came within a narrow margin of defeating Miami is the NCAA Tournament’s opening round. The Hurricanes went on to reach the Tournament’s Final Four. Graduation hit that team hard, but DeVries worked the transfer portal and signed several high level veterans to fill those vacancies.
Drake’s star player is the Valley’s reigning ‘Player of the Year’ and preseason favorite to win the award again, Tucker DeVries. The coach’s son posted an outstanding sophomore season and is the league’s unquestioned ‘best player’.
During the conference media day we spoke with Darian DeVries about his team, the newcomers and coaching his all-conference son.
This is the third straight preseason poll naming Drake as the Valley favorite. While the younger DeVries is the preseason player of the year, teammate Darnell Brodie was named to the conference’s second team.
Kyron Gibson (UT Arlington), Ethan Roberts (Army) and Atin Wright (Cal State Northridge) were double-digit scorers at their previous school. Washington State transfer Carlos Rosario is Drake’s fourth transfer pick up.
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Editor: Cover photo credit – Maeve Coulter
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As we near the closing of the portal window, we've reached 1900. Some of them never to play college basketball again, earn a college degree and some to play at a much lower level than they did last season.
I guess we'll be seeing this in a @RacersHoops uniform this year. Glad AJ is staying in the @ValleyHoops.
