maly, too: Bulldogs Play Saturday At Tough Detroit

Friday, November 16, 2012

Bulldogs Play Saturday At Tough Detroit

Game 2 • at Detroit • Drake vs Detroit

Nov. 17, 2012 • 6 p.m. CST

Calihan Hall • Detroit, Mich.

Drake Team Detroit

Des Moines, Iowa Location Detroit, Mich.

Bulldogs Nickname Titans

1-0 2012-13 Record 1-1

0-0 MVC Conference Record 0-0 Horizon

NA/NA Ranking NA/NA

Mark Phelps Head Coach Ray McCallum

63-69/5th Record at School 67-68/5th

63-69/5th Career Record 237-217/16th

96.0 Points/Game 81.0

66.0 Opp. Points/Game 65.0

+30.0 Scoring Margin +16.0

.559 FG% .412

.350 Opp. FG% .400

.625 3FG% .333

.133 Opp. 3FG% .522

.625 FT% .667

34.0 Rebounds/Game 41.0

36.0 Opp. Rebounds/Game 40.0

-2.0 Rebounding Margin +1.0

19.0 Assists/Game 16.0

17.0 Turnovers/Game 12.0

-3.0 Turnover Margin +8.0

5.0 Steals/Game 13.5

3.0 Blocks/Game 5.5

Television None

Play-by-play

Analyst

Radio KRNT 1350-AM

Play-by-play Larry Cotlar

Analyst Dolph Pulliam

Streaming Video www.DetroitTitans.com

• Drake’s basketball team faces its first road test of the 2012-13 season against a very talented Detroit team.

• The Bulldogs opened the season last Saturday with a convincing 96-66 win over William Jewell at home as Ben Simons and Richard Carter led Drake with 25 and 19 points, respectively.

• Drake faces a Detroit team that won the Horizon League tournament a season ago and features preseason league Player of the Year, Ray McCallum.

• The Titans are 1-1 this season with a home victory over Northern Michigan and a loss at St. John’s on Tuesday.

• Detroit was tabbed to finish second in the Horizon League and received four first-place votes in the poll.

• Drake was picked sixth in the MVC preseason poll while senior Ben Simons was selected to the preseason all-conference team.

• Drake returns five players who gained starting experience last season along with eight talented newcomers.

• Saturday’s game is the 20th between the two programs with Drake holding a narrow 10-9 advantage in the all-time series.

• Drake won the last meeting, 84-76, in Des Moines on Feb. 19, 2011 as part of the BracketBusters event.

• The visit to Detroit will also be a homecoming for three Bulldogs as Richard Carter hails from the Motor City. Ben Simons is from Cadillac and Robert Puleikis, a native of Lithuania, moved to the U.S. for his senior season which he played at Detroit Country Day.

A victory would ...

• Make Drake 2-0 this season for its second straight 2-0 start.

• Be Drake’s fourth straight over Detroit.

• Make Drake 11-9 against the Titans.

• Make Drake 32-25 against current members of the Horizon League.

• Make Mark Phelps 64-69 at Drake.

• Be the 1,151th win in program history.

A Loss would ...

• Drop Drake to 1-1 on the season and 0-1 on the road.

• Be Detroit’s first win over Drake in its last four tries.

• Even the series at 10-10.

• Make Drake 31-26 against current members of the Horizon League.

Vs. the Horizon League

• Drake is 31-25 all-time against current members of the Horizon League. Nearly 40 of those meetings have come against either Detroit or Loyola with Drake facing each of those teams 19 times.

• Drake has played every current Horizon League member except for Youngstown State and has a winning record against six of them.

Michigan Connections

• Saturday’s game will be a homecoming of sorts for three members of the Bulldogs squad.

• Junior college transfer Richard Carter hails from Detroit originally and attended Cody High School.

• There he was first team all-Metro and an honorable mention Class A all-State selection while averaging 19.3 points per game.

• Senior all-MVC selection Ben Simons is from Cadillac, Mich., where he was the 2009 Michigan Mr. Basketball runner-up.

• He was also the Class B Player of the Year and McDonald’s All-American Game nominee.

• Freshman Robert Puleikis played his senior season at Detroit’s Country Day School.

• A native of Lithuania, he helped the squad to the semifinals of the Class B state tournament and had a season-high 28 points and 14 rebounds in the regional final against Chandler Park Academy.

Bulldogs Open the record book

• Drake’s sharpshooters wasted little time in etching the 2012-13 squad into the record books at Drake as the 15 three-pointers in the season opener tied for the sixth most in school history.

• Additionally, the team’s 62.5 percent (15-of-24) shooting percentage from three-point range tied for the ninth highest in program history.

• Four players accounted for the 15 three-pointers including Ben Simons (5), Richard Carter (4), Micah Mason (3) and Joey King (3).

Picking up the pace

• Drake’s offense had approximately 80 possessions in its win over William Jewell.

• Last season the Bulldogs only played at an 80-possession or greater pace once.

• That pace was the fastest of any team in the Missouri Valley Conference during the opening week of play.

• The Bulldogs scored 1.19 points per possession and scored on approximately 52 percent of their offensive possessions.

Simons Nearing History

• Ben Simons enters the Detroit contest with 947 career points and needs just 53 points to become the 23rd player to record 1,000 points in a career at Drake.

• Simons currently ranks 28th in all-time scoring at Drake. Below are those near him in the rankings.

Career Scoring

21. 1,007 Dolph Pulliam 1966-69

22. 1,001 Willie Cerf 1953-56

23. 997 Bob Netolicky 1963-67

24. 993 Jeff Halliburton 1969-71

25. 990 John Pritchard 1946-49

26. 983 Rayvonte Rice 2010-12

27. 955 Chad Nelson 1976-79

28. 947 Ben Simons 2009-Pres

29. 934 Ajay Calvin 2005-07

• He is also on the cusp of moving into the top five all-time at Drake in three-pointers. Below is where he currently ranks in that category.

Three-Pointers in a Career

1. 255 Josh Young 2006-10

2. 241 Luke McDonald 2001-03

241 Klayton Korver 2003-08

4. 178 Armand LeVasseur 1996-2000

5. 169 Matt Woodley 1997-2000

6. 161 Ben Simons 2009-Pres

Phelps among the best on the Drake bench

• In his first four seasons at the helm of the Drake program, head coach Mark Phelps collected 62 victories, more than any other head coach in the program’s history through their first four seasons.

• Below is where Phelps ranks in wins through the first four seasons at Drake

Wins In First Four Seasons at Drake

1. 62 Mark Phelps 2008-11

2. 55 Maury John 1958-61

3. 54 Tom Davis 2003-06

4. 51 Jack McClelland 1948-51

5. 45 Gary Garner 1981-84

• In just four seasons, Phelps already has more winning seasons than all but three of the Bulldogs’ coaches since 1950 with two winning seasons. Below are the 11 Drake coaches since 1950, their winning seasons, total season and percentage of winning seasons in their career at Drake.

Winning Total

Coach Seasons Seasons Pct.

Maury John (1958-70) 9 11 .818

Bob Ortegal (1974-80) 4 7 .571

Jack McClelland (1948-55) 3 8 .375

Mark Phelps (2008-Pres) 2 4 .500

Gary Garner (1981-1987) 2 7 .286

Keno Davis (2007) 1 1 1.000

John Bennington (1956-57) 1 2 .500

Tom Davis (2003-06) 1 4 .250

Howard Stacey (1971-73) 1 3 .333

Tom Abatemarco (1988-89) 0 2 .000

Rudy Washington (1990-1995) 0 6 .000

Kurt Kanaskie (1996-2002) 0 7 .000

Drake Opens Season in impressive Fashion

• Drake opened the 2012-13 season with a 96-66 win against William Jewell last Saturday afternoon at the Knapp Center.

• Ben Simons led all scorers with 25 points, 18 of which came in the second half.

• Richard Carter had a big game in his debut, scoring 19 points, including going a perfect 4-of-4 from three-point range.

• The Bulldogs were hot from the field the entire game shooting 55.9-percent as a team on 33-of-59 shooting as well as 15-of-24 from three-point range for a 62.5 percent clip, the ninth highest single-game percentage in school history.

• At one point in the second half Drake had made 12 of its 15 three-point attempts.

• Additionally, Drake’s 15 three-pointers tied for the sixth most in program history behind nine total three-pointers from Simon and Carter.

• Drake also showed the outstanding depth it hopes to employ this season as every available Bulldog got into the game on the afternoon. Line-ups included a mix of experienced veterans and newcomers. The team’s bench scored 38 points led by 12 from Joey King and nine from Micah Mason, who was 3-of-3 from three-point range.

[This story was written for Ron Maly by Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.