Official 2019-20 MVCfans.com Prediction - 5th Place

[Drakey]

MusicCityBulldog is about as objective as BCPanther. You really can't take anything either of them say too seriously.

[Majik45]

I think a lot of people are sleeping on Drake this year. Devries appears to be the real deal, and his style of play reminds me of Creighton when Altman was there. Injuries did not derail them last year when they lost their best player Norton in the first or second valley game.

It will be great for the Valley if Drake can elevate it's play to be consistently in the top half of the Valley. Too many people here still think of Drake as a play-in team though which is probably why they are getting picked 5th. They also lost more this past year then the 4 teams above them. Honestly I could see any of these 5 teams winning the Valley this year.

[BCPanther]

MusicCityBulldog is about as objective as BCPanther. You really can't take anything either of them say too seriously.

Living so rent free that I should stop paying my mortgage...

[TheDrake]

I think a lot of people are sleeping on Drake this year. Devries appears to be the real deal, and his style of play reminds me of Creighton when Altman was there. Injuries did not derail them last year when they lost their best player Norton in the first or second valley game.

It will be great for the Valley if Drake can elevate it's play to be consistently in the top half of the Valley. Too many people here still think of Drake as a play-in team though which is probably why they are getting picked 5th. They also lost more this past year then the 4 teams above them. Honestly I could see any of these 5 teams winning the Valley this year.

Same. In his first year, Devries won the conference with a team returning 3 scholarship players, only one of whom was a starter. They may not have as much coming back as some teams do but they have a hell of lot more returning than they did in year 1.

[squirrel]

Has there ever been a more over-hyped coach in this league than DeVries? Don't get me wrong he may turn out to be good, but you have to do more than a one-year sample. . .He inherited an all-league guy, used a package deal to secure 3 JUCO transfers.

Yes, he's done a pretty decent job of assembling talent, but if they struggle this year and after the Murphy's have graduated, that will be a better time to see what he can do.

What's interesting is arguably Drake's best 3 seasons in the last 20 years have all been one-year wonder seasons, seemingly, although there was some substance behind the transition to Keno from Dr. Tom.

[MissouriValleyUnite]

MusicCityBulldog is about as objective as BCPanther. You really can't take anything either of them say too seriously.

Careful writing off musiccitybulldog’s predictions. He was the only one to pick Loyola>#5 Florida two years ago.

[DUBulldog]

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.

[musiccitybulldog]

MusicCityBulldog is about as objective as BCPanther. You really can't take anything either of them say too seriously.

I stated actual stats and success rate as to why I am picking the way I am. My objectiveness also comes from going to other Valley sites (actual games)and tournaments(MVC and others) plus talking with a lot of fans. As for BCPanther he seems like a true Panther fan, and good for him. For me most of the fun of preseason predicting is reading what people think and why. If you don't agree with me give a reason.

[Mikovio]

To play devil's advocate, when you talk about "played well in the MVC Tournament" you're really just talking about a win over a dysfunctional ISUr team with tired legs and what was a very spirited effort by the Murphys against UNI. And you have to remember that Drake then lost at Southern Utah which had a NET of 258. Do we even know yet how Drake/Devries is going to handle the Tremell incident?

I did pick Drake 5th and they certainly have the talent to finish higher. Penn and Jackson will be newcomers to watch.

[DUBulldog]

To play devil's advocate, when you talk about "played well in the MVC Tournament" you're really just talking about a win over a dysfunctional ISUr team with tired legs and what was a very spirited effort by the Murphys against UNI. And you have to remember that Drake then lost at Southern Utah which had a NET of 258. Do we even know yet how Drake/Devries is going to handle the Tremell incident?

I did pick Drake 5th and they certainly have the talent to finish higher. Penn and Jackson will be newcomers to watch.

To be fair, Drake was down to 6 scholarship players for the Southern Utah game, and one of them (Noah Thomas) was cramping so bad toward the end of the game that he had to carried to the bench by Tremell during a time-out. And, he never left the game, because there was nobody else to put in.

As far as Tremell, no word yet. FYI, DeVries will not be the one making the decision, nor will anybody else in the athletic department. This decision will be handed down by the Dean of Students. Whatever the decision is, it's pretty unfair to keep Tremell, the coaches, the team and the fans in limbo for as long as they have.