Drake Basketball – What’s Next?

Life After McCollum

(St. Louis, MO) – When the horn went off on Drake’s 77-64 loss to Texas Tech, the clock started ticking and everyone wanted to know ‘what’s next?’ Obvious questions swirled around the future of Bulldog coach Ben McCollum, who eventually left Drake basketball on Sunday to take the head coaching job at Iowa.

Now all bets are off about next season. With McCollum’s departure, Drake Director of Athletics Brian Hardin has to replace the Missouri Valley Conference’s coach of the year and that coach has to replace an entire roster. The one thing we know, Drake’s next coach will be outstanding. Hardin has proven to us that he knows how to find and hire outstanding leaders.

After Niko Medved left for Colorado State, hiring Darian DeVries turned out to be incredibly successful. McCollum leading the team to 31-4 and an NCAA Tournament game win is somewhere near legendary.

Medved moved on to Colorado State where he posted an outstanding 143-85 record and has just been hired as the Minnesota head coach. DeVries, of course had ridiculous success, putting the Drake program back on the Missouri Valley Conference map. His 150-55 record translated into a job and West Virginia, and last week he took over the Indiana job.

McCollum’s one season was magical and Monday he became the third ex-Drake coach to take over a Big Ten program in seven days.

What’s Next – Hardin’s Successes

Hardin has hired two men’s basketball coaches since being hired in 2017. Those two coaches have won 181 games in eight seasons. During seven of those seasons the Bulldogs played postseason basketball, with the last three being NCAA Tournaments.

University President, Marty Martin has called this the ‘golden era of Drake athletics’. Drake was the MVC’s all-sports champion of 2023-24 and is in a solid spot to compete for that title during this scholastic year.

Drake has become the Valley’s sport leader, while also producing outstanding academic accomplishments. During women’s basketball coach Allison Pohlman’s four seasons the Bulldogs have won 93 games, two MVC Tournament titles and one regular season championship.

Counting McCollum, twelve Drake coaches have been named their conference coach of the year, for a total of 16 times. Seven hired by Hardin have won nine of those honors.

The record suggests Hardin will be able to find the right person for the job.

“We’re always going to look for the best person possible,” said Hardin. “Energy, passion, vision, you always start there with any opportuntity to add someone to our staff. Then we’ll create traits and characteristics from there. We’ll fall in love with criteria, not candidates and try to find the very best person.”

Where Does He Look?

There are very obvious names that have been circulated. Iowa State assistant JR Blount, is a former Drake Director of Operations. South Dakota State head coach Eric Henderson also worked with Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger and Greg McDermott. He eventually replaced Otzelberger at South Dakota State where he has produced a head coaching record of 129-60.

There are other names floating about.

After Drake hired an existing D1 head coach in Medved. Hardin hired a long-time assistant from a power conference team in DeVries and signed a D2 legend in McCollum. He has demonstrated the ability to look in any direction that makes sense.

He doesn’t believe ‘Iowa native’ has to be a prerequisite.

“There’s no secret that Iowans love taking care of Iowans, that we’re a very prideful bunch,” said Hardin. “We have Iowans who are currently serve as the head of the Drake Relays, women’s basketball, and that’s special. I think that the unique part of having Iowans in those roles is that we knew what Drake was growing up. We knew what it was and we knew what it could be.But it’s not going to be a determining factor, so it won’t be a huge part of the criteria.”

One name that intrigues me is Dainyal Robinson. The Cleveland State head coach (63-41) has assisted in the Valley (Illinois State and Loyola) and at Iowa State.

What’s Next – Positioning for Success

Hardin spoke of his disappointment at losing McCollum, but also his optimism that Drake is positioned for success. He discussed the strength of the program’s NIL resources, facility and infrastructure strength and bragged about the Drake fan base.

Home game attendance has been growing and Bulldog fans sold out their Valley-allotted tickets for Arch Madness. Drake was well represented in Wichita.

During this constantly ‘portal pandemic’ changing landscape, Drake under Mr. Martin and Mr. Hardin have succeeded. This next chapter will be ripe with its on challenges, but their track record suggests the Bulldog basketball program will be just fine.

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