maly, too: Drake Vs. North Carolina Central

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Drake Vs. North Carolina Central

Game 10 • Drake vs. North Carolina Central

Dec. 19, 2012 • 7:05 p.m.

Des Moines • Knapp Center

Drake Team N.C.Central

Des Moines Location Durham, N.C.

Bulldogs Nickname Eagles

4-5 2012-13 Record 5-5

0-0 Conference Record 0-0

NA/NA Ranking NA/NA

Mark Phelps Head Coach LeVelle Moton

66-74/5th Record at School 44-57/4th

66-74/5th Career Record 44-57/4th

76.9 Points/Game 67.7

74.2 Opp. Points/Game 58.1

+2.7 Scoring Margin +9.6

.454 FG% .439

.433 Opp. FG% .403

.413 3FG% .304

.305 Opp. 3FG% .297

.674 FT% .750

31.6 Rebounds/Game 33.2

37.1 Opp. Rebounds/Game 31.5

-5.6 Rebounding Margin +17.7

14.9 Assists/Game 13.8

13.4 Turnovers/Game 15.1

+1.8 Turnover Margin +3.1

4.7 Steals/Game 5.7

2.3 Blocks/Game 2.7

Television Mediacom MC22

Play-by-play Larry Morgan

Analyst Adam Emmenekcer

Radio KRNT 1350-AM

Play-by-play Larry Cotlar

Analyst Dolph Pulliam

Streaming Video www.GoDrakeBulldogs.com

• Drake's basketball returns to campus for its next to last non-conference game prior to the start of the conference season against North Carolina Central University.

• The Bulldogs enter Wednesday’s game with a 4-5 record after falling, 86-77, to Iowa State on Saturday. The Eagles are 5-5 on the season and will be playing their first game in 15 days.

• In the loss to ISU, Seth VanDeest scored a season-high 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting while Chris Hines and Ben Simons added 13 points each.

• Drake is averaging a stout 76.9 points per game this season, nearly 10 points more per game than it did a season ago at this point.

• Offensively, the team remains one of the best three-point shooting teams in the nation with nine three-pointers per game on 43.1 percent shooting, the seventh highest percentage in the nation.

• Jordan Clarke leads Drake and the Missouri Valley in rebounding with 9.4 rebounds per game. The senior has four double-doubles and 10 or more rebounds in 5-of-9 games this season. Nearly 35 percent of his rebounds have come off the offensive glass.

• The Eagles are paced by three scorers in Jeremy Ingram, Ray Willis and Stanton Kidd who are all averaging just under 14 points per game.

• Defensively, NCCU is holding opponents to 58.1 points per game, the 34th best average in the nation.

• Ben Simons leads Drake with 15.2 points per game and has converted on 38.7 percent of his team-high 62 three-point attempts. The senior recently surpassed the 1,000-point mark for his career and currently has 1,059 career points.

A victory would ...

• Make Drake 5-5 on the season.

• Make the Bulldogs 3-1 in the Knapp Center this season.

• Be the team’s third straight over North Carolina Central and make Mark Phelps 2-0 against the Eagles.

• Make Mark Phelps 67-74 at Drake.

• Be the 1,154th in program history.

A Loss would ...

• Drop Drake to 4-6 on the season and 2-2 at the Knapp Center

• Be North Carolina Central’s first win the series in three tries.

• Give Drake two losses in its last three home games.

From the Arc ...

• Drake shot below 40 percent from the three-point arc for just the second and third time this season with a 39.1 percent effort against IPFW and a 30 percent showing against Iowa State.

• Despite the pair of subpar performances, the Bulldogs remain one of the top three-point shooting teams in the nation, ranking sixth in three-pointers per game (9.0) and seventh in three-point percentage (.413).

• Drake also ranks second and first in the MVC in both categories, respectively.

• Individually, Ben Simons leads the team with 2.67 three-pointers per game, the 60th most in the nation.

• Three-point shooting has been a hallmark of Drake teams under head coach Mark Phelps with the Bulldogs averaging 7.5 three-pointers per game on 37.2 percent shooting during Phelps’ seasons at the helm of the squad.

• Of the top six seasons for three-pointers made, four have come during Phelps’ tenure.

• A summary of each team’s three-point shooting over the past five seasons.

Season 3pt./G 3pt. pct.

2012-13 9.0 413 (81-146)

2011-12 6.2 .362 (212-585)

2010-11 6.5 .354 (203-573)

2009-10 8.6 .381 (284-746)

2008-09 8.1 .348 (266-765)

Defending the Three

• As prolific as Drake has been scoring from the three-point arc, the team has been equally successful in keeping its opponents from scoring via three-pointers.

• Iowa State came into the game against Drake averaging 9.6 three-pointers per game and was limited to just four three-pointers on 21.1 percent shooting.

• The Bulldogs’ opponents are averaging 5.7 three-pointers per game on 30.5 percent shooting.

[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.