Iowa school has gone from unknown to 'it' program

Drake point guard Adam Emmenecker, who had seven steals in the Bulldogs' huge win over Butler, has three majors. AP

MAILBAG Seth Davis will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his Hoop Thoughts column. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Of all the surprises during the 2007-08 college basketball season, the one that has to rank at the top of the list is this: It's cool to be Drake.

Imagine that. Drake is the new black. It's the new Pittsnogle. It has even adopted a Seinfeldian catch phrase, "The Drake." As in, "We love The Drake." Much cooler than "No soup for you."

Drake is so cool, it has yet to jump the shark.

This little private school in Des Moines is suddenly the hippest thing to come out of Iowa since ... uh, I'll get back to you on that one. After winning a tough road game at then No. 8 Butler on Saturday, the Drake Bulldogs are now, improbably, ranked 20th in the AP poll with a 24-3 record and own a three-game lead in the Missouri Valley Conference.

I'm sure you've been hearing a lot about this remarkable team, but when a story comes along that is this cool, you can never hear enough. Therefore, your resident Hoop Thinker has come up with a list of eight things you should know about the Drake Bulldogs:

1. They were a preseason pick to finish ninth in the Missouri Valley Conference. And why wouldn't they be? They lost four starters from last year's team that went 17-15 -- which, by the way, was their first winning season in 20 years. And even that was a mirage, since they only went 6-12 in the Valley. The Bulldogs' own coach, Keno Davis, picked them sixth last fall in that preseason poll. At the time, that seemed hopelessly optimistic.

2. Two of their starters spent three years as walk-ons. Drake's point guard, 6-foot-1 senior Adam Emmenecker, may be leading the Valley in assists (6.0 per game), but when the academic year began he did not have a scholarship. Davis only gave him one because another player transferred in the fall to play baseball for Northern Iowa. Another senior starter, 6-8 junior forward Jonathan "Bucky" Cox, also came into the fall as a walk-on. Now he's challenging for the conference crown in the unusual tandem of rebounds and three-point percentage.

3. Their starting point guard has more academic majors than career three-pointers. Emmenecker is currently majoring in finance, management, business and entrepreneurial management. During his four years at Drake, he has never made a three-pointer. Allow me to repeat that: He has never made a three-pointer. Through the Butler game, he was 0-for-3 lifetime. And it's not like he can't shoot, either: He's averaging 7.4 points this season on 49.6 percent shooting and is making 80.6 percent from the foul line. Cripes, even Doug Gottlieb, whose career 45.7 percent clip put the foul in foul shooting, made 49 threes during his four years in college.

4. Drake has three coaches on staff named Davis, but they are not related. This is not counting Keno's father, Dr. Tom Davis, the longtime Iowa coach who patrolled the sidelines at Drake for four years before handing the reins over to his son last spring. (Dr. Tom is a fixture behind the bench in Des Moines, but he's too superstitious to travel to road games.) Keno Davis' assistants include Chris Davis and Rodell Davis. (Incidentally, I am not related to any of the Davis coaches, either. I could only hope to be so cool.)

The main repercussion of this phenomenon is that the players call all the coaches, including the head coach, by their first name. No word yet on whether the fourth member of the staff, assistant Justin Ohl, is going to change his surname, but at this rate I wouldn't rule it out.

5. Senior forward Klayton Korver is averaging 9.3 points, but he is not the best basketball player in his own family. Korver has one brother in the NBA (Kyle), another playing at Creighton (Kaleb) and a third (Kirk) who's a junior in high school and is also a Division-I prospect. Yet, the best hooper of the bunch is the brood's mother, Laine, who once scored 74 points in a high school game. On the Kovers' paved court in their backyard, Laine used to beat her sons in free-throw shooting contests. I'd like to hear that trash talking over dinner.

6. Aside from Des Moines, the Bulldogs are quite popular in Mesa, Ariz. That's because Mesa's mayor is Keno Hawker, who played for Tom Davis at Portage (Wis.) High. Dr. Tom liked the kid's name so much he gave it to his son. Keno Davis has never met Keno Hawker or even talked to him. But I'm guessing if Drake makes the Final Four, Da Mayor will want some tickets.

7. Drake only has one scholarship player from Iowa. For such a big farming state, Iowa is notoriously infertile when it comes to producing blue-chip talent. (Ask Steve Alford about that.) Moreover, Drake has spent the last two decades playing the poor stepchild to Iowa, Iowa State, Northern Iowa and Creighton. Davis' biggest worry about the Butler game was that, unlike most of Drake's games, it was on national television. That meant the players' friends and family could watch them.

8. Drake has played in the Final Four before. It was in 1969, when the Bulldogs lost to Lew Alcindor-led UCLA in the semifinals by three points and then blitzed North Carolina in the third-place game by 20.

I'm not saying you should bet on the Bulldogs to make it to San Antonio. But if you want to be cool, you'll root for 'em.

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