The college basketball offseason is here, and we decided to have some fun over the next few months, ranking ALL 364 teams in D1. Number 135 is Drake basketball.
Before you say we’re crazy – or that all of this is up for debate, let’s go over the very intricate process of how we came to this conclusion. We took a very statistical approach – with the help of Chat GPT – taking into consideration everything from March Madness wins and finishes, to AP Poll appearances, to conference players of the year. And then, a good friend of ours, Scott Blanchard, took our approach to the MAX.
Click here to visit the FIRST article, which explains how the formula works!
Here’s the breakdown of Drake basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 1
- Elite Eights: 3
- Sweet 16s: 3
- NCAA wins: 7
- Bids: 8
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 11.8
- Bids per season: 0.07
- AP Polls: 33
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 12
- Conference Players of the Year: 8
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 10
- Conference tournament titles: 4
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 1
Overall scoop on Drake basketball
Drake is next at No. 135, and the most interesting part of this program is how they actually have an all-time record below .500 – and by over 100 games! You wouldn’t expect that for a team this high in the rankings, and especially with the amount of success they’ve had.
To be fair, they’ve only been to eight NCAA Tournaments, but when they’ve gotten there, the Bulldogs have made it count. In 1969, their first time in the big dance, head coach Maury John took them to the Final Four. The team had four future NBA Draft picks and beat Texas A&M and Colorado State before losing to UCLA by three in the National semis. They would take down North Carolina in the third-place game.
John was an outstanding coach for the program, also leading them to the Elite 8 the next two seasons. He would leave for Iowa State, but not before posting a 211-131 career record with Drake. He was a 4x Missouri Valley Coach of the Year with the program and often had Drake ranked in the AP Poll.
However, the program would go through decades upon decades of suffering, not making the NCAA Tournament again until 2008. Keno Davis had them ranked 14th in the final AP Poll thanks to a 28-5 record. But it would be his only season in town, leaving right for Providence.
The program would again go through some very bad seasons until Darian DeVries showed up in 2018. He replaced Niko Medved, who also stayed just one season, but went 17-17. But DeVries took the Bulldogs to a new level of success, with six straight 20-win seasons and three NCAA Tournaments. In 2021, they won a First Four game but lost in the round of 64 all three times.
But then, in 2024-25, Ben McCollum did something even DeVries couldn’t – leading Drake to a 31-win season, including a round of 64 win over 11-seed Missouri. With Bennett Stirtz as the star, Drake made the round of 32 and became America’s team that March. Unfortunately, McCollum bounced with Stritz to Iowa, and Eric Henderson couldn’t follow it up, with just a 14-20 season last year.
When Drake has been good, they’ve been really good. When they haven’t been good, they’ve largely been off the map. Otherwise, we might be talking about a top 100 program. The only in-between might be the 1974-75 season, when they won the National Commissioners Invitational Tournament (NCIT), the second and final time it was held. That year, they won 19 games and claimed a very random postseason title. But I’d bet they’d take the rough years to have some more years like 2024-25, every so often.