Missouri Valley Conference Basketball Tournament Recap

2010 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament
Quarterfinal #1: (1) Northern Iowa 55, (8) Drake 40

When a person uses the term "record drought," one usually refers to the weather. But on a noteworthy Friday afternoon in St. Louis, a different kind of dry spell entered the college basketball record books.

The day had started so sweetly for the underdog Bulldogs of Drake University. The outfit from Des Moines, Iowa, stormed to an early 11-point lead over the regular season champion of the Valley, the top-seeded Northern Iowa Panthers. Just 16 hours after topping Southern Illinois in Thursday's opening round, the Bulldogs shrugged off the short rest and used their warmed-up bodies to fly past the sluggish Panthers, who were rusty after an extended layoff. With 7:59 left in the first half, coach Mark Phelps' forces grabbed a 24-13 cushion against coach Ben Jacobsen's UNI roster.

Arch Madness appeared to be in the process of cooking up an upset, or at the very least, a barnburner that would go down to the final seconds of regulation time.

Then came the drought that delivered a slow and painful death to Drake. The Bible would have been hard pressed to devise a period of parched thirst as pronounced as the one that entered the Scottrade Center.

Over the final 7:59 of the first half, and then into the second half - 17 minutes left, 14 minutes left, 11 minutes left, eight minutes left - the Bulldogs simply couldn't put the ball in the bucket. A raft of turnovers hurt their cause, and Northern Iowa's increasingly confident defense certainly had a role in making Drake uncomfortable at the offensive end of the court, but even in the midst of utter impotence and futility, a basketball team is usually able to cobble together one or two made buckets in the course of a consequential competition.

Not Drake. Not on this day. Not in this drought to top all other basketball droughts.

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Perhaps there's a team that has endured an even longer period of in-game futility during the shot-clock era of college basketball (yes, there has been), but Drake certainly gained a not-so-pleasant place in the history of its sport on Friday. The Bulldogs went 20 minutes and 59 seconds without a field goal, as they failed to tickle the twine on a live-ball shot attempt until the seven-minute mark of the second half. At the beginning of the drought, the eighth seed led, 24-13. When the drought ended, Northern Iowa had unleashed a 33-7 run to take a 46-31 advantage and coast home to the finish line.

There are more numbers that put the Bulldogs' futility into perspective:

Drake had two separate periods of scoring starvation: an 11-minute, two-second spell bridging the end of the first half and the start of the second half, and then another eight-minute, six-second stretch that lasted to the midway point of the second half.

The Bulldogs also hit just three field goals in the second half. Moreover, they didn't convert their third field goal until the 1:05 mark of regulation.

Mama said there'd be days like this? No, not this bad. The Drake Bulldogs ended their season in a flurry of futility.

WHAT'S NEXT

Northern Iowa survived one test, and with most bubble teams floundering across the country, this win over Drake could very well be enough to get UNI into the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team. However, the Panthers will want to win Saturday's first of two Missouri Valley semifinals against the winner of Friday's second quarterfinal between fourth-seeded Creighton and fifth-seeded Bradley. If UNI can reach Sunday's championship game, it will be very hard for the Selection Committee to keep the Panthers out of the Big Dance. If Bradley wins, Northern Iowa will be seeking to avenge a 68-59 loss to the Braves on Feb. 13 in Peoria, Ill.

> Follw the entire 2010 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament here at MVC-fans.com

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer